Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 154
THE TERNATESE LANGUAGE
paddle ashore and assemble the people. Then many ran away from the sea and returned to
the mountain of Ternate, to follow later on seaward⎯from this it is clear that they had fled
and left their mountain.
When, in that general flight, the Soseba Ajahari reached Jailolo, he said: “We don’t
know anything about Ternate, but Toboko and Falah-Jawa have already sunk, so we fled
here.” When the people who had relatives at Ternate heard this, they were extremely
distressed and all wept. When the Jurtulis Bajawarati from Soah-Ngofangare, who was
administrator at Jailolo, heard this news, he went at once by sea to Ternate that Friday
night. He collected his mother and brothers and sisters from his house and the same night
all of them fled to the mainland. Many were
[p. 217] afraid of the earthquake and, fleeing, told very strange tidings, because they were
so scared. The news spread that the earthquake had also been felt along the coast of
Halmahera and on the mountain of Makian, but that it had not been very severe. On
Tidore the earthquake was almost as severe as on Ternate, but of the Tidorese, neither the
important people such as the bobatos and the nobles nor the common people wanted to
admit or say that an earthquake had occurred, 25 until Ternatese and government subjects
who had been there during the Haji festival returned and said that the earthquake had also
been felt there.
The Sultan paid a friendly visit to the Resident on Saturday morning at about six
o’clock, without ceremony, with four guards, one Sarjeti and four Sosebas and Jurtulises.
Major Putra Ismulandar and the Imam-Secretary also went down, and the Resident and
the Sultan entered Fort Oranje to assess the situation.
The next Sunday of the month Dulhaji, on the twelfth night of the moon, the Sultan
of Tidore came with a few officials and common people to help the Resident and Europeans.
They all returned to Tidore after a few days. The Sultan of Tidore did not visit Ternate’s
Sultan, nor did he send anyone in his stead.
On Tuesday, the fourteenth night of the moon in Dulhaji, the Resident requested a
kora-kora with people and an official to take a letter to the Governor at Ambon, informing
him of the earthquake. The Resident also requested that everything needed for a korakora,
including provisions, be made available at the normal rate of f 60 in copper coins. The
Sultan then ordered his officials to get a proa ready with oarsmen under a chief, the
Ngofamanyira of Saki, named Tobaro; and they soon left to deliver the letter to the
Governor. [p. 218]
That same Tuesday a warship called the Nihalenia [as corrected in Errata ⎯Trans.],
under the command of a lieutenant colonel, entered and anchored in the Government
roadstead. At five o’clock the Resident and his wife, the Lieutenant Colonel and the
Commander 26 of the warship paid a friendly visit to the Sultan, without any ceremony; only
25 [p. 217, n. 1] That this claim has to be attributed to the rivalry between Ternate and Tidore is
sufficiently clear from the Resident’s journal.
26 [p. 218, n. 1] The explanation of this seeming contradiction can be found under the word
“commander” in the “Word-List.”
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