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Bill, and showed sublime indifference to being bitten by anything - ants, wasps or scorpions.  We had a long walk in the forest, strolling along through a gentle rain.  When we approached the coast again we came through native back yards, where they were boiling palm syrup, and even making "gin" out of palm wine with a perfectly good little moonshine still.

Along the beach we stopped to investigate the water in various little streams that empty into the sea.  The water was brackish, of course, but many of the small fish we were unable to identify.  In one stream there were coral fish and ^[[Periopthalmus]] in another small fish that looked like fresh-water darters but were probably the young of a salt-water fish; in another some of the spiny snails of this part of the world - small, but dangerous to step on with bare feet.

Small fishing villages line the shore.  The sago palm is the most useful single product, being put to even more uses than the coconut palm.  An Ambonese can live for a year on the bread made from one plant.  The leaves are used for thatch, the center nerve of the leaf - as thick as a strip of bamboo - is used for the walls of the houses.  Thus they get both board and room from one source.  The canoes are dug-outs, and very narrow.  I doubt if I could fit myself into one.  Most of the villagers were either curious or friendly toward us. but one small child began to scream at the sight of us, and his mother picked him up hastily and ran for the house as we approached.

Shortly after our return to the house, the runner we had sent out the night before came walking briskly up the beach, carrying a large cage on his back.  Sure enough, here were our two cuscus, young animals, but apparently healthy and with good appetites.  They are a sort of Australian opossum, with brown fur like a kinkajou's, pointed noses, big hazel eyes, and a long, bare, prehensile tail.

We learn a[[strikethrough]] l [[/strikethrough]] great deal about Ambonese manners and customs from B.  Life here is too easy, he says, and the Ambonese are the laziest people on earth.  Each one has a small plantation, and sago,& coconut support them with a minimum of effort.  Fruits are always available in the jungle, and fish are plentiful in the sea.  Anyone who wants to run a large plantation, or a vegetable garden, must import his workmen - here at"Nipa", the Ernstens' place, the laborers come from Timor, Butan, Papua, and other regions, never from Ambon itself.  Many of them are Christians, but, says B., they go to church nearly every Sunday and yet they steal.  "Not a good system."  It rains al^[[m]]ost constantly.  Ambon is the Malay word for dew, but Amboina, the name we know for the island, is a co^[[m]]bination of two words meaning father and mother, and which is the real source of the island's name nobody knows.  [[left margin]] [[image - left pointing arrow]] [[/left margin]]  
The place is rich in history, with the successive regimes of Portuguese and Dutch, the long wars over the spices of the islands.  We are reminded that these are the islands Columbus was looking for when he stumbled upon America. 

In the late afternoon I saw one of the most amazing fish displays that I have ever seen.  A big school of bonita or some similar fish, jumped at the approach of an invisible enemy.