Gathering of the People at Wokan.--Religious Exercises of the People.--Their singular Mode of Dress.--The Church.--The Fort.--State of Christianity on Wokan.--Dobbo, an important Trading Place.--Commercial Advantages that may be gained there.--Valuable Fishery.--The Pilandok.--Ludicrous alarm of the Arafuras. On the following morning I informed the assembled chiefs of Wokan of the object of my mission to those parts, namely, to take the inhabitants under the protection of the Dutch Government; to renew the mutual friendship which formerly existed between them;[31] to incite them to carry on more trade, especially with Banda and Amboyna; to confirm the chiefs in their authority; and to promote the welfare and prosperity of these islands and their inhabitants. After the meeting had been broken up, our party, together with the chiefs of the villages, were invited to dinner by the daughters of the Upper Orang Kaya. The table was spread with a number of well cooked dishes. The wine which I had brought for the entertainment of the chiefs, with the arrack for those of lesser rank, added not a little to the festivity. I remarked on this occasion, that three Orang Kayas, after having drunk a tolerable quantum of wine, finished a bottle of arrack without either of them showing any signs of inebriety. An unsparing use of spirituous liquors may be considered as the greatest vice of the inhabitants of the Arrus, both Christians and Arafuras. The traders bring here large quantities of arrack, together with an inferior kind of aniseed, on which they obtain a very large profit. The natives themselves distil a spirit from sago and rice. After dinner the people were busily employed in arraying themselves in their best clothes, to attend divine service. Coats and breeches, probably the manufacture of the previous century, were brought to light out of their chests, and from the smoke of their fires, where they had been hung up to preserve them from insects. Among the presents given to the chiefs by M. Bik the previous year, were several pieces of black cloth, which the former had made up with their own hands into coats, &c., after the model of the old-fashioned smoked clothes above-mentioned, using coarse white thread in the construction. The remnants of the cloth had been made up into head-dresses in the form of night-caps. I set the ship's tailor to work altering their coats, to the no small delight of the chiefs.