All that variety, even without art, adorns them. They
wear bracelets, earrings, and necklaces of diamonds and rubies,
and long strings of pearls--ornaments that are not prohibited to
the common people; as neither are silks, which are especially worn
by the women after the fashion of Persians and Turks. These are all
the wealth of the seas and surrounding lands. Men and women betoken
in their dress the natural haughtiness of their disposition. The
variety of their languages is not little. It may happen that one
village cannot understand the language of the next. Malay, being most
easy to pronounce, is most common. From the variety of languages
it is inferred that these islands have been populated by different
nations. Antiquity, and the art of navigating in those districts, is
ascribed to the Chinese. Others affirm that the Malucos are descended
from the Javanese, who, attracted by the sweetness of the odors wafted
by the spices, stopped at Maluco. They took a cargo of cloves, which
until then were unknown, and, continuing to trade in these, carried
them in their vessels to the Persian and Arabian straits.
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