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ACCOUNT OF CELEBES , AMBOYNA, &C.

lofes its pleafant tafte, and turns thickeft, looking like orgeade, or almond-milk, it isefteemed more wholefome, and has an inebriating quality j it is afterwards kept inbottles well corked.

The tree which yields this liquor has always a faded appearance, with many yellowdead leaves, which look much like thofe of the fago-tree. One of thefe leaves, orrather branches, is cut off, and the fagwire trickles out of it by drops, which are caughtin a bamboo, hung under it for that purpofe, and when this is full, the contents aredrawn off by a tap at the bottom ; this operation is called tyffering.

The woods are filled with deer, and with wild hogs, the fiefh of which animals isalmofl the only meat that is eaten here. It is ufed frefh, falted, and dried : in the laftmanner it is called dingding ; it is broiled a little over the fire, and eaten with rice : itis a chief article of food of the Europeans, and the Amboynefe eat it likewife when theycan afford to purchafe it.

Among the wild animals, which inhabit the woods of the ifland Bouro, there is onewhich bears the name of babi-rouffa, or the hog-deer; it has been fully defcribed byValentyn, who has given us a reprefentation of it; but it appeared to me, when Icompared the figure with one of the animals alive, that its legs were longer than theyare there reprefented *.

The bay ufed formerly to abound in fifh ; but they are not fo plentiful now, onaccount of the violent earthquake of the ye2r 1754. Moft of the fifh that are foundhere are peculiar to thefe feas.

Many very ftrange fifhes muff have been met with here, in the time of Valentyn f ;and in this region of wonders, it is not fufficient that the really fingular productions ofnature are beheld and admired, or feared, but fuperftition has multiplied wonders uponwonders. Inter alia , there is, fay the Amboynefe, and likewife the Macaffers, a mon-fter that has its abode in thefe feas, which they defcribe as having a thoufand legs, allof them fo large, that if it lay but one of the thoufand upon any veffel it muff imme-diately founder; and yet this monfter is believed to be afraid of a common cock ;whence thefe poor fuperftitious mortals will never put to fea without having chanticleerfor a guardian angel on board.

There is likewife, it is laid, a large fifh near the pier-head at mboyna, to which thename of Jacob Evertfen has been given, and they pretend that it takes away one manevery year. I am not qualified to fay whether any fifh of the fhark kind does, or doesnot particularly refort to that fpot, altough many reputable people at Amboyna believethe whole ftory; but it is certain, however, that on the evening of my arrival here,

* The babi-roufla, which is a Malay appellation fignifying hog-deer, partakes, as its name denotes, ofthe nature both of the hog and of the deer. The chief Angularity of the animal confifts in two of its upperteeth being curved round, and, penetrating through the bone of the forehead, appear juft above the fnoutlike two femicircular horns ; they are fometimes fo far bent round, that they grow into the bone of the headagain ; it has likewife two tulles placed in the under jaw, like other wild boars; the female is without any ofthele projeding teeth : it has a foft thin Ikin, with Ihort hair, and has no britlles ; the fnout is more pointedthan that of the other wild hogs, and the tail is longer, with a bunch of hair at the end ; the ears are prettyIhort, and the eyes fmall ; its feet have each two long and two Ihort toes, but the fore legs are much Ihorterthan the hinder ones; thefe animals are eafily hunted down, but they frequently hurt the dogs with theirlower tufks; the upper tulks are too far recurvated to admit of their defending themfelves with them.Their flelh more refembles venifon than poik ; there is little fat upon it, it being moftly folid meat. Theydo not live, like the other wild hogs, upon fago and canari, a fort of almonds, but chiefly upon grafs andthe leaves of trees. They never alfociate with the wild hogs, and when hunted they generally take to thewater, where they are very expert in fwimming and diving, and fometimes fwim over from one ifland tothe other. Ts, , ,

-f- Valentyn deferibes and gives reprefentations of five hundred and twenty-eight different forts of fifh,jnoftly peculiar to thefe feas. Tr.

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