and rugged, has many volcanoes, and the highest peak is 6500 feet. Only one or two Dutch live in it. Ternate and Tidore, two volcanic isles 6000 feet in height, form a harbour. Tidore rises from a mass of hills, but Ternate is the most mountainous, and the volcano has had many eruptions. The population is 9000, of whom 350 are Europeans, 500 Chinese, and 100 Arabs. There is a Dutch garrison at Fort Oranje. Tidore Peak is 5900 feet high, but it is now extinct; and Tidore has a population of 8000, a few Dutch soldiers, but no other European residents. Makian is thickly populated and grows tobacco; the last eruption was in 1862, when 4000 people perished. At Fort Barnewald, in Batian, erected in 1615, is a small garrison, and coffee and cacao are much grown. Batian, or Batchian, has its own sultan, who travels in a gorgeous cabined barge with gilded roof, fluttering flags, and bravely clad rowers, and the island is said to contain both gold, copper, and coal, as yet waiting research.
“’Mid hundreds yet unnamed Ternate behold!
By day, her hills in pitchy clouds inroll’d;
By night, like rolling waves, the sheets of fire
Blaze o’er the seas, and high to Heaven aspire.
For Lusian hands here blooms the fragrant clove,
But Lusian blood shall sprinkle every grove.
The golden birds[1] that ever sail the skies
Here to the sun display their shining dyes,
Each want supplied, on air they ever soar;
The ground they touch not ’till they breathe no more.”
Ternate is only one mile from Gilolo, and has a mixed population of Arabs, Malays, and Chinese, with an admixture of Portuguese and Dutch
- ↑ Skins of birds of paradise brought to Europe had no feet, hence it was supposed the bird lived in the air, and the young were hatched on the male's back!
