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[Page 490]

386.
Some account of the Isles near Savu

near so good & therefore now intirely neglected
The inhabitants of each of these different Islands speak different languages & the cheif Policy of the duch is to prevent them from learning each others language  as by this means they keep each to their respective Island  preventing them from entering into trafick with each other or learning from mutual intercourse to plant such things as would be of greater value to themselves than their present produce tho at the same time less beneficial to the Duch East Indian Company & at the same time secure to themselves alone the benefit of supplying all their necessities at their own rates  no dout not very moderate  this may possibly sufficiently account for the expence they must have been at in printing Prayer books  catechises &c. at their expence & teaching them to each Island in their its own language rather than in duch  which in all probability they might have as easily done  but at the risque of Dutch becoming the common language of these Islands & consequently the natives by its means gaining an intercourse with each other

 

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