unrevealed to his spiritual sight. The appalling
green and vermilion deities who guard the temple courts, indicate fear
as the chosen handmaid of faith in this grotesque travesty of religion,
but the costly tiling of violet and azure, the rich gilding of the
curling eaves terminating in scarlet dragons, and the deeply-chiselled
ebony, falling like a veil of thick black lace before the jade and
porphyry shrines, prove that even the despised Chinaman offers of his
best to the Divinity dimly apprehended by his darkened soul.

The large Malay School of Amboyna manifests an educational position in
advance of the smaller islands, and knowledge of the wider world
beyond the Archipelago stimulates the spirit of enterprise inherited in
different degrees and varying conditions, both from Malay and
Portuguese ancestry.

A dilapidated carriage is chartered with difficulty, as only three
vehicles belong to the island, and the driver evidently expects his
skeleton steed to collapse at any pace quicker than a walk. The green
lanes, with their hedges of scarlet hybiscus overhung by the feathery
foliage of tamarind and bamboo, wind along the shore, and penetrate
into the depths of the hills. Rustling sago-palms sway their tall
plumes on the mountain side, and shadow luxuriant clove gardens, their
pungent aroma mingling with nutmeg and cinnamon to steep the soft
sea-wind in a wealth of perfume. European houses of white stone nestle
among palm and tamarind, the broad seats flanking the central door, and
the bulging balconies of old Dutch style recalling the 16th century
dwellings on the canal banks of distant Holland, but the crow-stepped
gable here gives place to the flat roof. Every green garden contains a
refuge of interwoven _gaba-gaba_ stalks, as a retreat during
earthquakes, when the overthrow of the flimsy arbour would entail no
injury, though it serves as a shelter from the torrential rains which
often accompany volcanic disturbances. A wayside stall of palm-thatched
bamboo provides _sageroe_ for thirsty pilgrims. This fermented beverage
often excites the Ambonese nature to frenzy, though only made from the
juice of the _aren_ or sugar palm. The brown dame who presides over the
bamboo buckets, in her eagerness to honour a white customer, wipes an
incredibly dirty tumbler on her gruesome calico skirt before dipping
the precious glass into the foaming pail, and tastes the draught by way
of encouragement. With some difficulty she is