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The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2

by Alfred Russel Wallace · English · Gutenberg #2539 · 639,654 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2

Author: Alfred Russel Wallace


        
Release date: March 1, 2001 [eBook #2539]
                Most recently updated: December 1, 2008

Language: English

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THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO

VOLUME II. (of II.)

by Alfred R. Wallace




CHAPTER XXI. THE MOLUCCAS--TERNATE.

ON the morning of the 8th of January, 1858, I arrived at Ternate, the
fourth of a row of fine conical volcanic islands which shirt the west
coast of the large and almost unknown island of Gilolo. The largest
and most perfectly conical mountain is Tidore, which is over four
thousand Feet high--Ternate being very nearly the same height, but with
a more rounded and irregular summit. The town of Ternate is concealed
from view till we enter between the two islands, when it is discovered
stretching along the shore at the very base of the mountain. Its
situation is fine, and there are grand views on every side. Close
opposite is the rugged promontory and beautiful volcanic cone of Tidore;
to the east is the long mountainous coast of Gilolo, terminated towards
the north by a group of three lofty volcanic peaks, while immediately
behind the town rises the huge mountain, sloping easily at first and
covered with thick groves of fruit trees, but soon becoming steeper,
and furrowed with deep gullies. Almost to the summit, whence issue
perpetually faint wreaths of smoke, it is clothed with vegetation,
and looks calm and beautiful, although beneath are hidden fires which
occasionally burst forth in lava-streams, but more frequently make their
existence known by the earthquakes which have many times devastated the
town.

I brought letters of introduction to Mr. Duivenboden, a native of
Ternate, of an ancient Dutch family, but who was educated in England,
and speaks our language perfectly. He was a very rich man, owned half
the town, possessed many ships, and above a hundred slaves. He
was moreover, well educated, and fond of literature and science--a
phenomenon in these regions. He was generally known as the king of
Ternate, from his large property and great influence with the native
Rajahs and their subjects. Through his assistance I obtained a house;
rather ruinous, but well adapted to my purpose, being close to the town,
yet with a free outlet to the country and the mountain. A few needful
repairs were soon made, some bamboo furniture and other necessaries
obtained, and after a visit to the Resident and Police Magistrate I
found myself an inhabitant of the earthquake-tortured island of Ternate,
and able to look about me and lay down the plan of my campaign for the
ensuing year. I retained this house for three years, as I found it very
convenient to have a place to return to after my voyages to the
various islands of the Moluccas and New Guinea, where I could pack
my collections, recruit my health, and make preparations for future
journeys. To avoid repetitions, I will in this chapter combine what
notes I have about Ternate.

A description of my house (the plan of which is here shown) will
enable the reader to understand a very common mode of building in these
islands. There is of course only one floor. The walls are of stone up to
three feet high; on this are strong squared posts supporting the roof,
everywhere except in the verandah filled in with the leaf-stems of the
sago-palm, fitted neatly in wooden owing. The floor is of stucco,
and the ceilings are like the walls. The house is forty feet square,
consists of four rooms, a hall, and two verandahs, and is surrounded
by a wilderness of fruit trees. A deep well supplied me with pure cold
water, a great luxury in this climate. Five minutes' walk down the road
brought me to the market and the beach, while in the opposite direction
there were no more European houses between me and the mountain. In this
house I spent many happy days. Returning to it after a three or four
months' absence in some uncivilized region, I enjoyed the unwonted
luxuries of milk and fresh bread, and regular supplies of fish and eggs,
meat and vegetables, which were often sorely needed to restore my health
and energy. I had ample space and convenience or unpacking, sorting, and
arranging my treasures, and I had delightful walks in the suburbs of the
town, or up the lower slopes of the mountain, when I desired a little
exercise, or had time for collecting.

The lower part of the mountain, behind the town of Ternate, is almost
entirely covered with a forest of fruit trees, and during the season
hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, go up every day to bring down
the ripe fruit. Durians and Mangoes, two of the very finest tropical
fruits, are in greater abundance at Ternate than I have ever seen them,
and some of the latter are of a quality not inferior to any in the
world. Lansats and Mangustans are also abundant, but these do not ripen
till a little later. Above the fruit trees there is a belt of clearings
and cultivated grounds, which creep up the mountain to a height of
between two and three thousand feet, above which is virgin forest,
reaching nearly to the summit, which on the side next the town is
covered with a high reedy grass. On the further side it is more
elevated, of a bare and desolate aspect, with a slight depression
marking the position of the crater. From this part descends a black
scoriaceous tract; very rugged, and covered with a scanty vegetation of
scattered bushes as far down as the sea. This is the lava of the
great eruption near a century ago, and is called by the natives
"batu-angas"(burnt rock).

Just below my house is the fort, built by the Portuguese, below which is
an open space to the peach, and beyond this the native town extends for
about a mile to the north-east. About the centre of it is the palace
of the Sultan, now a large untidy, half-ruinous building of stone. This
chief is pensioned by the Dutch Government, but retains the sovereignty
over the native population of the island, and of the northern part of
Gilolo. The sultans of Ternate and Tidore were once celebrated through
the East for their power and regal magnificence. When Drake visited
Ternate in 1579, the Portuguese had been driven out of the island,
although they still had a settlement at Tidore. He gives a glowing
account of the Sultan: "The King had a very rich canopy with embossings
of gold borne over him, and was guarded with twelve lances. From the
waist to the ground was all cloth of gold, and that very rich; in the
attire of his head were finely wreathed in, diverse rings of plaited
gold, of an inch or more in breadth, which made a fair and princely
show, somewhat resembling a crown in form; about his neck he had a chain
of perfect gold, the links very great and one fold double; on his left
hand was a diamond, an emerald, a ruby, and a turky; on his right hand
in one ring a big and perfect turky, and in another ring many diamonds
of a smaller size."

All this glitter of barbaric gold was the produce of the spice trade, of
which the Sultans kept the monopoly, and by which they became wealthy.
Ternate, with the small islands in a line south of it, as far as
Batchian, constitute the ancient Moluccas, the native country of the
clove, as well as the only part in which it was cultivated. Nutmegs
and mace were procured from the natives of New Guinea and the adjacent
islands, where they grew wild; and the profits on spice cargoes were so
enormous, that the European traders were glad to give gold and jewels,
and the finest manufactures of Europe or of India, in exchange. When the
Dutch established their influence in these seas, and relieved the native
princes from their Portuguese oppressors, they saw that the easiest
way to repay themselves would be to get this spice trade into their own
hands. For this purpose they adopted the wise principle of concentrating
the culture of these valuable products in those spots only of which they
could have complete control. To do this effectually it was necessary to
abolish the culture and trade in all other places, which they succeeded
in doing by treaty with the native rulers. These agreed to have all the
spice trees in their possessions destroyed. They gave up large though
fluctuating revenues, but they gained in return a fixed subsidy, freedom
from the constant attacks and harsh oppressions of the Portuguese, and a
continuance of their regal power and exclusive authority over their own
subjects, which is maintained in all the islands except Ternate to this
day.

It is no doubt supposed by most Englishmen, who have been accustomed to
look upon this act of the Dutch with vague horror, as something
utterly unprincipled and barbarous, that the native population suffered
grievously by this destruction of such valuable property. But it is
certain that this was not the case. The Sultans kept this lucrative
trade entirely in their own hands as a rigid monopoly, and they would
take care not to give, their subjects more than would amount to their
usual wages, while: they would surely exact as large a quantity of spice
as they could possibly obtain. Drake and other early voyagers always
seem to have purchased their spice-cargoes from the Sultans and Rajahs,
and not from the cultivators. Now the absorption of so much labour in
the cultivation of this one product must necessarily have raised the
price of food and other necessaries; and when it was abolished,
more rice would be grown, more sago made, more fish caught, and more
tortoise-shell, rattan, gum-dammer, and other valuable products of the
seas and the forests would be obtained. I believe, therefore, that this
abolition of the spice trade in the Moluccas was actually beneficial to
the inhabitants, and that it was an act both wise in itself and morally
and politically justifiable.

In the selection of the places in which to carry on the cultivation,
the Dutch were not altogether fortunate or wise. Banda was chosen for
nutmegs, and was eminently successful, since it continues to this day
to produce a large supply of this spice, and to yield a considerable
revenue. Amboyna was fixed upon for establishing the clove cultivation;
but the soil and climate, although apparently very similar to that of
its native islands, is not favourable, and for some years the Government
have actually been paying to the cultivators a higher rate than they
could purchase cloves elsewhere, owing to a great fall in the price
since the rate of payment was fixed for a term of years by the Dutch
Government, and which rate is still most honourably paid.

In walking about the suburbs of Ternate, we find everywhere the ruins of
massive stone and brick buildings, gateways and arches, showing at once
the superior wealth of the ancient town and the destructive effects of
earthquakes. It was during my second stay in the town, after my return
from New Guinea, that I first felt an earthquake. It was a very slight
one, scarcely more than has been felt in this country, but occurring in
a place that lad been many times destroyed by them it was rather more
exciting. I had just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.), when suddenly the
thatch began to rustle and shake as if an army of cats were galloping
over it, and immediately afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an
instant I imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile house, which
shook when an old cock went to roost on the ridge; but remembering that
I was now on a solid earthen floor, I said to myself, "Why, it's an
earthquake," and lay still in the pleasing expectation of another shock;
but none came, and this was the only earthquake I ever felt in Ternate.

The last great one was in February 1840, when almost every house in the
place was destroyed. It began about midnight on the Chinese New Year's
festival, at which time every one stays up nearly all night feasting
at the Chinamen's houses and seeing the processions. This prevented
any lives being lost, as every one ran out of doors at the first shock,
which was not very severe. The second, a few minutes afterwards, threw
down a great many houses, and others, which continued all night and part
of the next day, completed the devastation. The line of disturbance
was very narrow, so that the native town a mile to the east scarcely
suffered at all. The wave passed from north to south, through the
islands of Tidore and Makian, and terminated in Batchian, where it was
not felt till four the following afternoon, thus taking no less than
sixteen hours to travel a hundred miles, or about six miles an hour. It
is singular that on this occasion there was no rushing up of the tide,
or other commotion of the sea, as is usually the case during great
earthquakes.

The people of Ternate are of three well-marked races the Ternate Malays,
the Orang Sirani, and the Dutch. The first are an intrusive Malay race
somewhat allied to the Macassar people, who settled in the country at a
very early epoch, drove out the indigenes, who were no doubt the same
as those of the adjacent mainland of Gilolo, and established a monarchy.
They perhaps obtained many of their wives from the natives, which will
account for the extraordinary language they speak--in some respects
closely allied to that of the natives of Gilolo, while it contains
much that points to a Malayan origin. To most of these people the Malay
language is quite unintelligible, although such as are engaged in trade
are obliged to acquire it. "Orang Sirani," or Nazarenes, is the name
given by the Malays to the Christian descendants of the Portuguese, who
resemble those of Amboyna, and, like them, speak only Malay. There are
also a number of Chinese merchants, many of them natives of the place,
a few Arabs, and a number of half-breeds between all these races and
native women. Besides these there are some Papuan slaves, and a few
natives of other islands settled here, making up a motley and very
puzzling population, till inquiry and observation have shown the
distinct origin of its component parts.

Soon after my first arrival in Ternate I went to the island of Gilolo,
accompanied by two sons of Mr. Duivenboden, and by a young Chinaman, a
brother of my landlord, who lent us the boat and crew. These latter
were all slaves, mostly Papuans, and at starting I saw something of the
relation of master and slave in this part of the world. The crew had
been ordered to be ready at three in the morning, instead of which none
appeared till five, we having all been kept waiting in the dark and
cold for two hours. When at length they came they were scolded by their
master, but only in a bantering manner, and laughed and joked with
him in reply. Then, just as we were starting, one of the strongest men
refused to go at all, and his master had to beg and persuade him to go,
and only succeeded by assuring him that I would give him something; so
with this promise, and knowing that there would be plenty to eat and
drink and little to do, the black gentleman was induced to favour us
with his company and assistance. In three hours' rowing and sailing we
reached our destination, Sedingole, where there is a house belonging to
the Sultan of Tidore, who sometimes goes there hunting. It was a dirty
ruinous shed, with no furniture but a few bamboo bedsteads. On taking
a walk into the country, I saw at once that it was no place for me.
For many miles extends a plain covered with coarse high grass, thickly
dotted here and there with trees, the forest country only commencing
at the hills a good way in the interior. Such a place would produce few
birds and no insects, and we therefore arranged to stay only two days,
and then go on to Dodinga, at the narrow central isthmus of Gilolo,
whence my friends would return to Ternate. We amused ourselves shooting
parrots, lories, and pigeons, and trying to shoot deer, of which we saw
plenty, but could not get one; and our crew went out fishing with a net,
so we did not want for provisions. When the time came for us to continue
our journey, a fresh difficulty presented itself, for our gentlemen
slaves refused in a body to go with us; saying very determinedly that
they would return to Ternate. So their masters were obliged to submit,
and I was left behind to get to Dodinga as I could. Luckily I succeeded
in hiring a small boat, which took me there the same night, with my two
men and my baggage.

Two or three years after this, and about the same length of time before
I left the East, the Dutch emancipated all their slaves, paying their
owners a small compensation. No ill results followed. Owing to the
amicable relations which had always existed between them and their
masters, due no doubt in part to the Government having long accorded
them legal rights and protection against cruelty and ill-usage, many
continued in the same service, and after a little temporary difficulty
in some cases, almost all returned to work either for their old or for
new, masters. The Government took the very proper step of placing every
emancipated slave under the surveillance of the police-magistrate. They
were obliged to show that they were working for a living, and had some
honestly-acquired means of existence. All who could not do so were
placed upon public works at low wages, and thus were kept from the
temptation to peculation or other crimes, which the excitement of
newly-acquired freedom, and disinclination to labour, might have led
them into.



CHAPTER XXII. GILOLO.

(MARCH AND SEPTEMBER 1858.)

I MADE but few and comparatively short visits to this large and little
known island, but obtained a considerable knowledge of its natural
history by sending first my boy Ali, and then my assistant, Charles
Allen, who stayed two or three months each in the northern peninsula,
and brought me back large collections of birds and insects. In this
chapter I propose to give a sketch of the parts which I myself visited.
My first stay was at Dodinga, situated at the head of a deep-bay
exactly opposite Ternate, and a short distance up a little stream
which penetrates a few miles inland. The village is a small one, and is
completely shut in by low hills.

As soon as I arrived, I applied to the head man of the village for a
house to live in, but all were occupied, and there was much difficulty
in finding one. In the meantime I unloaded my baggage on the beach and
made some tea, and afterwards discovered a small but which the owner was
willing to vacate if I would pay him five guilders for a month's rent.
As this was something less than the fee-simple value of the dwelling,
I agreed to give it him for the privilege of immediate occupation, only
stipulating that he was to make the roof water-tight. This he agreed
to do, and came every day to tally and look at me; and when I each time
insisted upon his immediately mending the roof according to contract,
all the answer I could get was, "Ea nanti," (Yes, wait a little.)
However, when I threatened to deduct a quarter guilder from the rent for
every day it was not done, and a guilder extra if any of my things were
wetted, he condescended to work for half an hour, which did all that was
absolutely necessary.

On the top of a bank, of about a hundred feet ascent from the water,
stands the very small but substantial fort erected by the Portuguese.
Its battlements and turrets have long since been overthrown by
earthquakes, by which its massive structure has also been rent; but it
cannot well be thrown down, being a solid mass of stonework, forming
a platform about ten feet high, and perhaps forty feet square. It is
approached by narrow steps under an archway, and is now surmounted by a
row of thatched hovels, in which live the small garrison, consisting of,
a Dutch corporal and four Javanese soldiers, the sole representatives
of the Netherlands Government in the island. The village is occupied
entirely by Ternate men. The true indigenes of Gilolo, "Alfuros" as they
are here called, live on the eastern coast, or in the interior of the
northern peninsula. The distance across the isthmus at this place is
only two miles, and there, is a good path, along which rice and sago
are brought from the eastern villages. The whole isthmus is very rugged,
though not high, being a succession of little abrupt hills anal valleys,
with angular masses of limestone rock everywhere projecting, and often
almost blocking up the pathway. Most of it is virgin forest, very
luxuriant and picturesque, and at this time having abundance of large
scarlet Ixoras in flower, which made it exceptionally gay. I got some
very nice insects here, though, owing to illness most of the time, my
collection was a small one, and my boy Ali shot me a pair of one of the
most beautiful birds of the East, Pitta gigas, a lame ground-thrush,
whose plumage of velvety black above is relieved by a breast of pure
white, shoulders of azure blue, and belly of vivid crimson. It has very
long and strong legs, and hops about with such activity in the dense
tangled forest, bristling with rocks, as to make it very difficult to
shoot.

In September 1858, after my return from New Guinea, I went to stay
some time at the village of Djilolo, situated in a bay on the northern
peninsula. Here I obtained a house through the kindness of the Resident
of Ternate, who sent orders to prepare one for me. The first walk into
the unexplored forests of a new locality is a moment of intense interest
to the naturalist, as it is almost sure to furnish him with something
curious or hitherto unknown. The first thing I saw here was a flock of
small parroquets, of which I shot a pair, and was pleased to find a most
beautiful little long-tailed bird, ornamented with green, red, and
blue colours, and quite new to me. It was a variety of the Charmosyna
placentis, one of the smallest and most elegant of the brush-tongued
lories. My hunters soon shot me several other fine birds, and I myself
found a specimen of the rare and beautiful day-flying moth, Cocytia
d'Urvillei.

The village of Djilolo was formerly the chief residence of the Sultans
of Ternate, till about eighty years ago, when at the request of the
Dutch they removed to their present abode. The place was then no doubt
much more populous, as is indicated by the wide extent of cleared
land in the neighbourhood, now covered with coarse high grass, very
disagreeable to walk through, and utterly barren to the naturalist. A
few days' exploring showed me that only some small patches of forest
remained for miles wound, and the result was a scarcity of insects and
a very limited variety of birds, which obliged me to change my locality.
There was another village called Sahoe, to which there was a road of
about twelve miles overland, and this had been recommended to me as
a good place for birds, and as possessing a large population both of
Mahomotans and Alfuros, which latter race I much wished to see. I set
off one morning to examine this place myself, expecting to pass
through some extent of forest on my way. In this however I was much
disappointed, as the whole road lies through grass and scrubby thickets,
and it was only after reaching the village of Sahoe that some high
forest land was perceived stretching towards the mountains to the north
of it. About half-way we dad to pass a deep river on a bamboo raft,
which almost sunk beneath us. This stream was said to rise a long way
off to the northward.

Although Sahoe did not at all appear what I expected, I determined to
give it a trial, and a few days afterwards obtained a boat to carry
my things by sea while I walked overland. A large house on the beach
belonging to the Sultan was given me. It stood alone, and was quite
open on every side, so that little privacy could be had, but as I only
intended to stay a short time I made it do. Avery, few days dispelled
all hopes I might have entertained of making good collections in this
place. Nothing was to be found in every direction but interminable
tracts of reedy grass, eight or ten feet high, traversed by narrow
baths, often almost impassable. Here and there were clumps of fruit
trees, patches of low wood, and abundance of plantations and rice
grounds, all of which are, in tropical regions, a very desert for the
entomologist. The virgin forest that I was in search of, existed only
on the summits and on the steep rocky sides of the mountains a long way
off, and in inaccessible situations. In the suburbs of the village I
found a fair number of bees and wasps, and some small but interesting
beetles. Two or three new birds were obtained by my hunters, and by
incessant inquiries and promises I succeeded in getting the natives to
bring me some land shells, among which was a very fine and handsome
one, Helix pyrostoma. I was, however, completely wasting my time here
compared with what I might be doing in a good locality, and after a
week returned to Ternate, quite disappointed with my first attempts at
collecting in Gilolo.

In the country round about Sahoe, and in the interior, there is a large
population of indigenes, numbers of whom came daily into the village,
bringing their produce for sale, while others were engaged as labourers
by the Chinese and Ternate traders. A careful examination convinced me
that these people are radically distinct from all the Malay races. Their
stature and their features, as well as their disposition and habits,
are almost the same as those of the Papuans; their hair is
semi-Papuan-neither straight, smooth, and glossy, like all true Malays',
nor so frizzly and woolly as the perfect Papuan type, but always crisp,
waved, and rough, such as often occurs among the true Papuans, but never
among the Malays. Their colour alone is often exactly that of the Malay,
or even lighter. Of course there has been intermixture, and there occur
occasionally individuals which it is difficult to classify; but in most
cases the large, somewhat aquiline nose, with elongated apex, the tall
stature, the waved hair, the bearded face, and hairy body, as well as
the less reserved manner and louder voice, unmistakeably proclaim the
Papuan type. Here then I had discovered the exact boundary lice between
the Malay and Papuan races, and at a spot where no other writer had
expected it. I was very much pleased at this determination, as it
gave me a clue to one of the most difficult problems in Ethnology,
and enabled me in many other places to separate the two races, and to
unravel their intermixtures.

On my return from Waigiou in 1860, I stayed some days on the southern
extremity of Gilolo; but, beyond seeing something more of its structure
and general character, obtained very little additional information.
It is only in the northern peninsula that there are any indígenes, the
whole of the rest of the island, with Batchian and the other islands
westward, being exclusively inhabited by Malay tribes, allied to those
of Ternate and Tidore. This would seem to indicate that the Alfuros were
a comparatively recent immigration, and that they lead come from the
north or east, perhaps from some of the islands of the Pacific. It is
otherwise difficult to understand how so many fertile districts should
possess no true indigenes.

Gilolo, or Halmaheira as it is called by the Malays and Dutch, seems
to have been recently modified by upheaval and subsidence. In 1673, a
mountain is said to stave been upheaved at Gamokonora on the northern
peninsula. All the parts that I have seen have either been volcanic
or coralline, and along the coast there are fringing coral reefs very
dangerous to navigation. At the same time, the character of its natural
history proves it to be a rather ancient land, since it possesses a
number of animals peculiar to itself or common to the small islands
around it, but almost always distinct from those of New Guinea on the
east, of Ceram on the south, and of Celebes and the Sula islands on the
west.

The island of Morty, close to the north-eastern extremity of Gilolo, was
visited by my assistant Charles Allen, as well as by Dr. Bernstein; and
the collections obtained there present some curious differences from
those of the main island. About fifty-six species of land-birds are
known to inhabit this island, and of these, a kingfisher (Tanysiptera
Boris), a honey-sucker (Tropidorhynchus fuscicapillus), and a large
crow-like starling (Lycocorax morotensis), are quite distinct from
allied species found in Gilolo. The island is coralline and sandy, and
we must therefore believe it to have been separated from Gilolo at a
somewhat remote epoch; while we learn from its natural history that an
arm of the sea twenty-five miles wide serves to limit the range even of
birds of considerable powers of flight.



CHAPTER XXIII. TERNATE TO THE KAIOA ISLANDS AND BATCHIAN.

(OCTOBER 1858.)

ON returning to Ternate from Sahoe, I at once began making preparations
for a journey to Batchian, an island which I had been constantly
recommended to visit since I had arrived in this part of the Moluccas.
After all was ready I found that I should have to hire a boat, as no
opportunity of obtaining a passage presented itself. I accordingly went
into the native town, and could only find two boats for hire, one much
larger than I required, and the other far smaller than I wished. I chose
the smaller one, chiefly because it would not cost me one-third as much
as the larger one, and also because in a coasting voyage a small vessel
can be more easily managed, and more readily got into a place of safety
during violent gales, than a large one. I took with me my Bornean lad
Ali, who was now very useful to me; Lahagi, a native of Ternate, a very
good steady man, and a fair shooter, who had been with me to New Guinea;
Lahi, a native of Gilolo, who could speak Malay, as woodcutter and
general assistant; and Garo, a boy who was to act as cook. As the boat
was so small that we had hardly room to stow ourselves away when all my
stores were on board, I only took one other man named Latchi, as pilot.
He was a Papuan slave, a tall, strong black fellow, but very civil and
careful. The boat I had hired from a Chinaman named Lau Keng Tong, for
five guilders a month.

We started on the morning of October 9th, but had not got a hundred
yards from land, when a strong head wind sprung up, against which we
could not row, so we crept along shore to below the town, and waited
till the turn of the tide should enable us to cross over to the coast of
Tidore. About three in the afternoon we got off, and found that our boat
sailed well, and would keep pretty close to the wind. We got on a good
way before the wind fell and we had to take to our oars again. We landed
on a nice sandy beach to cook our suppers, just as the sun set behind
the rugged volcanic hills, to the south of the great cone of Tidore,
and soon after beheld the planet Venus shining in the twilight with the
brilliancy of a new moon, and casting a very distinct shadow. We left
again a little before seven, and as we got out from the shadow of the
mountain I observed a bright light over one part of the edge, and soon
after, what seemed a fire of remarkable whiteness on the very summit of
the hill. I called the attention of my men to it, and they too thought
it merely a fire; but a few minutes afterwards, as we got farther off
shore, the light rose clear up above the ridge of the hill, and some
faint clouds clearing away from it, discovered the magnificent comet
which was at the same time, astonishing all Europe. The nucleus
presented to the naked eye a distinct disc of brilliant white light,
from which the tail rose at an angle of about 30° or 35° with the
horizon, curving slightly downwards, and terminating in a broad brush
of faint light, the curvature of which diminished till it was nearly
straight at the end. The portion of the tail next the comet appeared
three or four tunes as bright as the most luminous portion of the milky
way, and what struck me as a singular feature was that its upper margin,
from the nucleus to very near the extremity, was clearly and almost
sharply defined, while the lower side gradually shaded off into
obscurity. Directly it rose above the ridge of the hill, I said to my
men, "See, it's not a fire, it's a bintang ber-ekor" ("tailed-star," the
Malay idiom for a comet). "So it is," said they; and all declared that
they had often heard tell of such, but had never seen one till now. I
had no telescope with me, nor any instrument at hand, but I estimated
the length of the tail at about 20°, and the width, towards the
extremity, about 4° or 5°.

The whole of the next day we were obliged to stop near the village of
Tidore, owing to a strong wind right in our teeth. The country was all
cultivated, and I in vain searched for any insects worth capturing. One
of my men went out to shoot, but returned home without a single bird. At
sunset, the wind having dropped, we quitted Tidore, and reached the
next island, March, where we stayed till morning. The comet was again
visible, but not nearly so brilliant, being partly obscured by clouds;
and dimmed by the light of the new moon. We then rowed across to the
island of Motir, which is so surrounded with coral-reefs that it is
dangerous to approach. These are perfectly flat, and are only covered at
high water, ending in craggy vertical walls of coral in very deep water.
When there is a little wind, it is dangerous to come near these rocks;
but luckily it was quite smooth, so we moored to their edge, while the
men crawled over the reef to the land, to make; a fire and cook our
dinner-the boat having no accommodation for more than heating water for
my morning and evening coffee. We then rowed along the edge of the reef
to the end of the island, and were glad to get a nice westerly breeze,
which carried us over the strait to the island of Makian, where we
arrived about 8 P.M, The sky was quite clear, and though the moon shone
brightly, the comet appeared with quite as much splendour as when we
first saw it.

The coasts of these small islands are very different according to their
geological formation. The volcanoes, active or extinct, have steep black
beaches of volcanic sand, or are fringed with rugged masses of lava and
basalt. Coral is generally absent, occurring only in small patches in
quiet bays, and rarely or never forming reefs. Ternate, Tidore, and
Makian belong to this class. Islands of volcanic origin, not themselves
volcanoes, but which have been probably recently upraised, are generally
more or less completely surrounded by fringing reefs of coral, and
have beaches of shining white coral sand. Their coasts present volcanic
conglomerates, basalt, and in some places a foundation of stratified
rocks, with patches of upraised coral. Mareh and Motir are of this
character, the outline of the latter giving it the appearance of having
been a true volcano, and it is said by Forrest to have thrown out
stones in 1778. The next day (Oct. 12th), we coasted along the island of
Makian, which consists of a single grand volcano. It was now quiescent,
but about two centuries ago (in 1646) there was a terrible eruption,
which blew up the whole top of the mountain, leaving the truncated
jagged summit and vast gloomy crater valley which at this time
distinguished it. It was said to have been as lofty as Tidore before
this catastrophe. [Soon after I' left the Archipelago, on the 29th of
December, 1862, another eruption of this mountain suddenly took place,
which caused great devastation in the island. All the villages and crops
were destroyed, and numbers of the inhabitants killed. The sand and
ashes fell so thick that the crops were partially destroyed fifty miles
off, at Ternate, where it was so dark the following day that lamps
had to be lighted at noon. For the position of this and the adjacent
islands, see the map in Chapter XXXVII.]

I stayed some time at a place where I saw a new clearing on a very steep
part of the mountain, and obtained a few interesting insects. In the
evening we went on to the extreme southern point, to be ready to pass
across the fifteen-mile strait to the island of Kaióa. At five the next
morning we started, but the wind, which had hitherto been westerly, now
got to the south and southwest, and we had to row almost all the way
with a burning sun overhead. As we approached land a fine breeze sprang
up, and we went along at a great pace; yet after an hour we were no
nearer, and found we were in a violent current carrying us out to sea.
At length we overcame it, and got on shore just as the sun set, having
been exactly thirteen hours coming fifteen miles. We landed on a beach
of hard coralline rock, with rugged cliffs of the same, resembling those
of the Ke Islands (Chap. XXIX.) It was accompanied by a brilliancy and
luxuriance of the vegetation, very like what I had observed at those
islands, which so much pleased me that I resolved to stay a few days
at the chief village, and see if their animal productions were
correspondingly interesting. While searching for a secure anchorage for
the night we again saw the comet, still apparently as brilliant as at
first, but the tail had now risen to a higher angle.

October 14th.--All this day we coasted along the Kaióa Islands, which
have much the appearance and outline of Ke on a small scale, with the
addition of flat swampy tracts along shore, and outlying coral reefs.
Contrary winds and currents had prevented our taking the proper course
to the west of them, and we had to go by a circuitous route round the
southern extremity of one island, often having to go far out to sea on
account of coral reefs. On trying to pass a channel through one of these
reefs we were grounded, and all had to get out into the water, which in
this shallow strait had been so heated by the sun as to be disagreeably
warm, and drag our vessel a considerable distance among weeds and
sponges, corals and prickly corallines. It was late at night when we
reached the little village harbour, and we were all pretty well knocked
up by hard work, and having had nothing but very brackish water to drink
all day-the best we could find at our last stopping-place. There was a
house close to the shore, built for the use of the Resident of Ternate
when he made his official visits, but now occupied by several native
travelling merchants, among whom I found a place to sleep.

The next morning early I went to the village to find the "Kapala," or
head man. I informed him that I wanted to stay a few days in the house
at the landing, and begged him to have it made ready for me. He was very
civil, and came down at once to get it cleared, when we found that the
traders had already left, on hearing that I required it. There were no
doors to it, so I obtained the loan of a couple of hurdles to keep out
dogs and other animals. The land here was evidently sinking rapidly,
as shown by the number of trees standing in salt water dead and dying.
After breakfast I started for a walk to the forest-covered hill above
the village, with a couple of boys as guides. It was exceedingly hot and
dry, no rain having fallen for two months. When we reached an elevation
of about two hundred feet, the coralline rock which fringes the
shore was succeeded by a hard crystalline rock, a kind of metamorphic
sandstone. This would indicate flat there had been a recent elevation of
more than two hundred feet, which had still more recently clanged into
a movement of subsidence. The hill was very rugged, but among dry sticks
and fallen trees I found some good insects, mostly of forms and species
I was already acquainted with from Ternate and Gilolo. Finding no good
paths I returned, and explored the lower ground eastward of the village,
passing through a long range of plantain and tobacco grounds, encumbered
with felled and burnt logs, on which I found quantities of beetles of
the family Buprestidae of six different species, one of which was new
to me. I then reached a path in the swampy forest where I hoped to find
some butterflies, but was disappointed. Being now pretty well exhausted
by the intense heat, I thought it wise to return and reserve further
exploration for the next day.

When I sat down in the afternoon to arrange my insects, the louse
was surrounded by men, women, and children, lost in amazement at my
unaccountable proceedings; and when, after pinning out the specimens, I
proceeded to write the name of the place on small circular tickets, and
attach one to each, even the old Kapala, the Mahometan priest, and some
Malay traders could not repress signs of astonishment. If they had
known a little more about the ways and opinions of white men, they
would probably have looked upon me as a fool or a madman, but in their
ignorance they accepted my operations as worthy of all respect, although
utterly beyond their comprehension.

The next day (October 16th) I went beyond the swamp, and found a place
where a new clearing was being made in the virgin forest. It was a long
and hot walk, and the search among the fallen trunks and branches was
very fatiguing, but I was rewarded by obtaining about seventy distinct
species of beetles, of which at least a dozen were new to me, and many
others rare and interesting. I have never in my life seen beetles so
abundant as they were on this spot. Some dozen species of good-sized
golden Buprestidae, green rose-chafers (Lomaptera), and long-horned
weevils (Anthribidae), were so abundant that they rose up in swarms as I
walked along, filling the air with a loud buzzing hum. Along with these,
several fine Longicorns were almost equally common, forming such au
assemblage as for once to realize that idea of tropical luxuriance which
one obtains by looking over the drawers of a well-filled cabinet. On
the under sides of the trunks clung numbers of smaller or more sluggish
Longicorns, while on the branches at the edge of the clearing others
could be detected sitting with outstretched antenna ready to take flight
at the least alarm. It was a glorious spot, and one which will always
live in my memory as exhibiting the insect-life of the tropics in
unexampled luxuriance. For the three following days I continued to visit
this locality, adding each time many new species to my collection-the
following notes of which may be interesting to entomologists. October
15th, 33 species of beetles; 16th, 70 species; 17th, 47 species; 18th,
40 species; 19th, 56 species--in all about a hundred species, of which
forty were new to me. There were forty-four species of Longicorns among
them, and on the last day I took twenty-eight species of Longicorns, of
which five were new to me.

My boys were less fortunate in shooting. The only birds at all common
were the great red parrot (Eclectus grandis), found in most of the
Moluccas, a crow, and a Megapodius, or mound-maker. A few of the pretty
racquet-tailed kingfishers were also obtained, but in very poor plumage.
They proved, however, to be of a different species from those found in
the other islands, and come nearest to the bird originally described by
Linnaeus under the name of Alcedo dea, and which came from Ternate. This
would indicate that the small chain of islands parallel to Gilolo have
a few peculiar species in common, a fact which certainly occurs in
insects.

The people of Kaioa interested me much. They are evidently a mixed race,
having Malay and Papuan affinities, and are allied to the peoples
of Ternate and of Gilolo. They possess a peculiar language, somewhat
resembling those of the surrounding islands, but quite distinct. They
are now Mahometans, and are subject to Ternate, The only fruits seen
here were papaws and pine-apples, the rocky soil and dry climate being
unfavourable. Rice, maize, and plantains flourish well, except that
they suffer from occasional dry seasons like the present one. There is
a little cotton grown, from which the women weave sarongs (Malay
petticoats). There is only one well of good water on the islands,
situated close to the landing-place, to which all the inhabitants come
for drinking water. The men are good boat-builders, and they make a
regular trade of it and seem to be very well off.

After five days at Kaióa we continued our journey, and soon got among
the narrow straits and islands which lead down to the town of Batchian.
In the evening we stayed at a settlement of Galela men. These are
natives of a district in the extreme north of Gilolo, and are great
wanderers over this part of the Archipelago. They build large and roomy
praus with outriggers, and settle on any coast or island they take a
fancy for. They hunt deer and wild pig, drying the meat; they catch
turtle and tripang; they cut down the forest and plant rice or maize,
and are altogether remarkably energetic and industrious. They are very
line people, of light complexion, tall, and with Papuan features, coming
nearer to the drawings and descriptions of the true Polynesians of
Tahiti and Owyhee than any I have seen.

During this voyage I had several times had an opportunity of seeing my
men get fire by friction. A sharp-edged piece of bamboo is rubbed across
the convex surface of another piece, on which a small notch is first
cut. The rubbing is slow at first and gradually quicker, till it becomes
very rapid, and the fine powder rubbed off ignites and falls through the
hole which the rubbing has cut in the bamboo. This is done with great
quickness and certainty. The Ternate, people use bamboo in another way.
They strike its flinty surface with a bit of broken china, and produce a
spark, which they catch in some kind of tinder.

On the evening of October 21st we reached our destination, having been
twelve days on the voyage. It had been tine weather all the time, and,
although very hot, I had enjoyed myself exceedingly, and had besides
obtained some experience in boat work among islands and coral reefs,
which enabled me afterwards to undertake much longer voyages of the same
kind. The village or town of Batchian is situated at the head of a wide
and deep bay, where a low isthmus connects the northern and southern
mountainous parts of the island. To the south is a fine range of
mountains, and I had noticed at several of our landing-places that the
geological formation of the island was very different from those around
it. Whenever rock was visible it was either sandstone in thin layers,
dipping south, or a pebbly conglomerate. Sometimes there was a little
coralline limestone, but no volcanic rocks. The forest had a dense
luxuriance and loftiness seldom found on the dry and porous lavas and
raised coral reefs of Ternate and Gilolo; and hoping for a corresponding
richness in the birds and insects, it was with much satisfaction and
with considerable expectation that I began my explorations in the
hitherto unknown island of Batchian.



CHAPTER XXIV. BATCHIAN.

(OCTOBER 1858 To APRIL 1859.)

I LANDED opposite the house kept for the use of the Resident of Ternate,
and was met by a respectable middle-aged Malay, who told me he was
Secretary to the Sultan, and would receive the official letter with
which I had been provided. On giving it him, he at once informed me I
might have the use of the official residence which was empty. I soon got
my things on shore, but on looking about me found that the house would
never do to stay long in. There was no water except at a considerable
distance, and one of my men would be almost entirely occupied getting
water and firewood, and I should myself have to walk all through the
village every day to the forest, and live almost in public, a thing I
much dislike. The rooms were all boarded, and had ceilings, which are a
great nuisance, as there are no means of hanging anything up except
by driving nails, and not half the conveniences of a native bamboo
and thatch cottage. I accordingly inquired for a house outside of the
village on the road to the coal mines, and was informed by the Secretary
that there was a small one belonging to the Sultan, and that he would go
with me early next morning to see it.

We had to pass one large river, by a rude but substantial bridge, and
to wade through another fine pebbly stream of clear water, just beyond
which the little but was situated. It was very small, not raised on
posts, but with the earth for a floor, and was built almost entirely
of the leaf-stems of the sago-palm, called here "gaba-gaba." Across the
river behind rose a forest-clad bank, and a good road close in front of
the horse led through cultivated grounds to the forest about half a mile
on, and thence to the coal mines tour miles further. These advantages at
once decided me, and I told the Secretary I would be very glad to
occupy the house. I therefore sent my two men immediately to buy "ataps"
(palm-leaf thatch) to repair the roof, and the next day, with the
assistance of eight of the Sultan's men, got all my stores and furniture
carried up and pretty comfortably arranged. A rough bamboo bedstead was
soon constructed, and a table made of boards which I had brought with
me, fixed under the window. Two bamboo chairs, an easy cane chair, and
hanging shelves suspended with insulating oil cups, so as to be safe
from ants, completed my furnishing arrangements.

In the afternoon succeeding my arrival, the Secretary accompanied me
to visit the Sultan. We were kept waiting a few minutes in an outer
gate-house, and then ushered to the door of a rude, half-fortified
whitewashed house. A small table and three chairs were placed in a large
outer corridor, and an old dirty-faced man with grey hair and a grimy
beard, dressed in a speckled blue cotton jacket and loose red trousers,
came forward, shook hands, and asked me to be coated. After a quarter
of an hour's conversation on my pursuits, in which his Majesty seemed to
take great interest, tea and cakes-of rather better quality than usual
on such occasions-were brought in. I thanked him for the house, and
offered to show him my collections, which he promised to come and look
at. He then asked me to teach him to take views-to make maps-to get him
a small gun from England, and a milch-goat from Bengal; all of which
requests I evaded as skilfully as I was able, and we parted very good
friends. He seemed a sensible old man, and lamented the small population
of the island, which he assured me was rich in many valuable minerals,
including gold; but there were not people enough to look after them
and work them. I described to him the great rush of population on the
discovery of the Australian gold mines, and the huge nuggets found
there, with which he was much interested, and exclaimed, "Oh? if we had
but people like that, my country would be quite as rich."

The morning after I had got into my new house, I sent my boys out to
shoot, and went myself to explore the road to the coal mines. In less
than half a mile it entered the virgin forest, at a place where some
magnificent trees formed a kind of natural avenue. The first part was
flat and swampy, but it soon rose a little, and ran alongside the fine
stream which passed behind my house, and which here rushed and gurgled
over a rocky or pebbly bed, sometimes leaving wide sandbanks on its
margins, and at other places flowing between high banks crowned with
a varied and magnificent forest vegetation. After about two miles, the
valley narrowed, and the road was carried along the steep hill-side
which rose abruptly from the water's edge. In some places the rock had
been cut away, but its surface was already covered with elegant ferns
and creepers. Gigantic tree-ferns were abundant, and the whole forest
had an air of luxuriance and rich variety which it never attains in
the dry volcanic soil to which I had been lately accustomed. A little
further the road passed to the other side of the valley by a bridge
across the stream at a place where a great mass of rock in the middle
offered an excellent support for it, and two miles more of most
picturesque and interesting road brought me to the mining establishment.

This is situated in a large open space, at a spot where two tributaries
fall into the main stream. Several forest-paths and new clearings
offered fine collecting grounds, and I captured some new and interesting
insects; but as it was getting late I had to reserve a more thorough
exploration for future occasions. Coal had been discovered here some
years before, and the road was made in order to bring down a sufficient
quantity for a fair trial on the Dutch steamers. The quality, however,
was not thought sufficiently good, and the mines were abandoned. Quite
recently, works had been commenced in another spot, in Hopes of finding
a better vein. There ware about eighty men employed, chiefly convicts;
but this was far too small a number for mining operations in such a
country, where the mere keeping a few miles of road in repair requires
the constant work of several men. If coal of sufficiently good quality
should be found, a tramroad would be made, and would be very easily
worked, owing to the regular descent of the valley.

Just as I got home I overtook Ali returning from shooting with some
birch hanging from his belt. He seemed much pleased, and said, "Look
here, sir, what a curious bird," holding out what at first completely
puzzled me. I saw a bird with a mass of splendid green feathers on
its breast, elongated into two glittering tufts; but, what I could not
understand was a pair of long white feathers, which stuck straight out
from each shoulder. Ali assured me that the bird stuck them out this way
itself, when fluttering its wings, and that they had remained so without
his touching them. I now saw that I had got a great prize, no less than
a completely new form of the Bird of Paradise, differing most remarkably
from every other known bird. The general plumage is very sober, being
a pure ashy olive, with a purplish tinge on the back; the crown of the
head is beautifully glossed with pale metallic violet, and the feathers
of the front extend as much over the beak as inmost of the family. The
neck and breast are scaled with fine metallic green, and the feathers on
the lower part are elongated on each side, so as to form a two-pointed
gorget, which can be folded beneath the wings, or partially erected and
spread out in the same way as the side plumes of most of the birds of
paradise. The four long white plumes which give the bird its altogether
unique character, spring from little tubercles close to the upper edge
of the shoulder or bend of the wing; they are narrow, gentle curved, and
equally webbed on both sides, of a pure creamy white colour. They are
about six inches long, equalling the wing, and can be raised at right
angles to it, or laid along the body at the pleasure of the bird. The
bill is horn colour, the legs yellow, and the iris pale olive. This
striking novelty has been named by Mr. G. R. Gray of the British Museum,
Semioptera Wallacei, or "Wallace's Standard wing."

A few days later I obtained an exceedingly beautiful new butterfly,
allied to the fine blue Papilio Ulysses, but differing from it in the
colour being of a more intense tint, and in having a row of blue stripes
around the margin of the lower wings. This good beginning was, however,
rather deceptive, and I soon found that insects, and especially
butterflies, were somewhat scarce, and birds in tar less variety than
I had anticipated. Several of the fine Moluccan species were however
obtained. The handsome red lory with green wings and a yellow spot in
the back (Lorius garrulus), was not uncommon. When the Jambu, or rose
apple (Eugenic sp.), was in flower in the village, flocks of the little
lorikeet (Charmosyna placentis), already met with in Gilolo, came to
feed upon the nectar, and I obtained as many specimens as I desired.
Another beautiful bird of the parrot tribe was the Geoffroyus
cyanicollis, a green parrot with a red bill and head, which colour
shaded on the crown into azure blue, and thence into verditer blue
and the green of the back. Two large and handsome fruit pigeons, with
metallic green, ashy, and rufous plumage, were not uncommon; and I was
rewarded by finding a splendid deep blue roller (Eurystomus azureus);
a lovely golden-capped sunbird (Nectarinea auriceps), and a fine
racquet-tailed kingfisher (Tanysiptera isis), all of which were entirely
new to ornithologists. Of insects I obtained a considerable number of
interesting beetles, including many fine longicorns, among which was the
largest and handsomest species of the genus Glenea yet discovered. Among
butterflies the beautiful little Danis sebae was abundant, making the
forests gay with its delicate wings of white and the richest metallic
blue; while showy Papilios, and pretty Pieridae, and dark, rich
Euphaeas, many of them new, furnished a constant source of interest and
pleasing occupation.

The island of Batchian possesses no really indigenous inhabitants, the
interior being altogether uninhabited; and there are only a few small
villages on various parts of the coast; yet I found here four distinct
races, which would wofully mislead an ethnological traveller unable
to obtain information as to their origin, first there are the Batchian
Malays, probably the earliest colonists, differing very little from
those of Ternate. Their language, however, seems to have more of
the Papuan element, with a mixture of pure Malay, showing that
the settlement is one of stragglers of various races, although now
sufficiently homogeneous. Then there are the "Orang Sirani," as at
Ternate and Amboyna. Many of these have the Portuguese physiognomy
strikingly preserved, but combined with a skin generally darker than
the Malays. Some national customs are retained, and the Malay, which
is their only language, contains a large number of Portuguese words
and idioms. The third race consists of the Galela men from the north of
Gilolo, a singular people, whom I have already described; and the fourth
is a colony from Tomóre, in the eastern peninsula of Celebes. These
people were brought here at their own request a few years ago, to avoid
extermination by another tribe. They have a very light complexion, open
Tartar physiognomy, low stature, and a language of the Bugis type.
They are an industrious agricultural people, and supply the town with
vegetables. They make a good deal of bark cloth, similar to the tapa of
the Polynesians, by cutting down the proper trees and taping off large
cylinders of bark, which is beaten with mallets till it separates from
the wood. It is then soaked, and so continuously and regularly beaten
out that it becomes as thin and as tough as parchment. In this foam it
is much used for wrappers for clothes; and they also make jackets of it,
sewn neatly together and stained with the juice of another kind of bark,
which gives it a dark red colour and renders it nearly waterproof.

Here are four very distinct kinds of people who may all be seen any
day in and about the town of Batchian. Now if we suppose a traveller
ignorant of Malay, picking up a word or two here and there of
the "Batchian language," and noting down the "physical and moral
peculiarities, manners, and customs of the Batchian people"--(for
there are travellers who do all this in four-and-twenty hours)--what an
accurate and instructive chapter we should have' what transitions would
be pointed out, what theories of the origin of races would be developed
while the next traveller might flatly contradict every statement and
arrive at exactly opposite conclusions.

Soon after I arrived here the Dutch Government introduced a new copper
coinage of cents instead of doits (the 100th instead of the 120th part
of a guilder), and all the old coins were ordered to be sent to Ternate
to be changed. I sent a bag containing 6,000 doits, and duly received
the new money by return of the boat. Then Ali went to bring it, however,
the captain required a written order; so I waited to send again the next
day, and it was lucky I did so, for that night my house was entered, all
my boxes carried out and ransacked, and the various articles left on the
road about twenty yards off, where we found them at five in the morning,
when, on getting up and finding the house empty, we rushed out to
discover tracks of the thieves. Not being able to find the copper money
which they thought I had just received, they decamped, taking nothing
but a few yards of cotton cloth and a black coat and trousers, which
latter were picked up a few days afterwards hidden in the grass. There
was no doubt whatever who were the thieves. Convicts are employed to
guard the Government stores when the boat arrives from Ternate. Two of
them watch all night, and often take the opportunity to roam about and
commit robberies.

The next day I received my money, and secured it well in a strong box
fastened under my bed. I took out five or six hundred cents for daily
expenses, and put them in a small japanned box, which always stood upon
my table. In the afternoon I went for a short walk, and on my return
this box and my keys, which I had carelessly left on the table, were
gone. Two of my boys were in the house, but had heard nothing. I
immediately gave information of the two robberies to the Director at the
mines and to the Commandant at the fort, and got for answer, that if
I caught the thief in the act I might shoot him. By inquiry in the
village, we afterwards found that one of the convicts who was on duty at
the Government rice-store in the village had quitted his guard, was
seen to pass over the bridge towards my house, was seen again within
two hundred yards of my house, and on returning over the bridge into
the village carried something under his arm, carefully covered with
his sarong. My box was stolen between the hours he was seen going
and returning, and it was so small as to be easily carried in the way
described. This seemed pretty clear circumstantial evidence. I accused
the man and brought the witnesses to the Commandant. The man was
examined, and confessed having gone to the river close to my house to
bathe; but said he had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut
tree and brought home two nuts, which he had covered over, _because
he was ashamed to be seen carrying them!_ This explanation was thought
satisfactory, and he was acquitted. I lost my cash and my box, a seal
I much valued, with other small articles, and all my keys-the severest
loss by far. Luckily my large cash-box was left locked, but so were
others which I required to open immediately. There was, however, a very
clever blacksmith employed to do ironwork for the mines, and he picked
my locks for me when I required them, and in a few days made me new
keys, which I used all the time I was abroad.

Towards the end of November the wet season set in, and we had daily and
almost incessant rains, with only about one or two hours' sunshine in
the morning. The flat parts of the forest became flooded, the roads
filled with mud, and insects and birds were scarcer than ever. On
December Lath, in the afternoon, we had a sharp earthquake shock, which
made the house and furniture shale and rattle for five minutes, and the
trees and shrubs wave as if a gust of wind had passed over them. About
the middle of December I removed to the village, in order more easily
to explore the district to the west of it, and to be near the sea when I
wished to return to Ternate. I obtained the use of a good-sized house in
the Campong Sirani (or Christian village), and at Christmas and the New
Year had to endure the incessant gun-firing, drum-beating, and fiddling
of the inhabitants.

These people are very fond of music and dancing, and it would astonish
a European to visit one of their assemblies. We enter a gloomy palm-leaf
hut, in which two or three very dim lamps barely render darkness
visible. The floor is of black sandy earth, the roof hid in a smoky
impenetrable blackness; two or three benches stand against the walls,
and the orchestra consists of a fiddle, a fife, a drum, and a triangle.
There is plenty of company, consisting of young men and women, all very
neatly dressed in white and black--a true Portuguese habit. Quadrilles,
waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas are danced with great vigour and much
skill. The refreshments are muddy coffee and a few sweetmeats. Dancing
is kept up for hours, and all is conducted with much decorum and
propriety. A party of this kind meets about once a week, the principal
inhabitants taking it by turns, and all who please come in without much
ceremony.

It is astonishing how little these people have altered in three hundred
years, although in that time they have changed their language and lost
all knowledge of their own nationality. They are still in manners and
appearance almost pure Portuguese, very similar to those with whom I had
become acquainted on the banks of the Amazon. They live very poorly as
regards their house and furniture, but preserve a semi-European dress,
and have almost all full suits of black for Sundays. They are nominally
Protestants, but Sunday evening is their grand day for music and
dancing. The men are often good hunters; and two or three times a week,
deer or wild pigs are brought to the village, which, with fish and
fowls, enables them to live well. They are almost the only people in
the Archipelago who eat the great fruit-eating bats called by us "flying
foxes." These ugly creatures are considered a great delicacy, and are
much sought after. At about the beginning of the year they come in large
flocks to eat fruit, and congregate during the day on some small islands
in the bay, hanging by thousands on the trees, especially on dead ones.
They can then be easily caught or knocked down with sticks, and are
brought home by basketsfull. They require to be carefully prepared,
as the skin and fur has a rank end powerful foxy odour; but they are
generally cooked with abundance of spices and condiments, and are really
very good eating, something like hare. The Orang Sirani are good cooks,
having a much greater variety of savoury dishes than the Malays. Here,
they live chiefly on sago as bread, with a little rice occasionally, and
abundance of vegetables and fruit.

It is a curious fact that everywhere in the Past where the Portuguese
have mixed with the native races they leave become darker in colour than
either of the parent stocks. This is the case almost always with these
"Orang Sirani" in the Moluccas, and with the Portuguese of Malacca.
The reverse is the case in South America, where the mixture of the
Portuguese or Brazilian with the Indian produces the "Mameluco," who is
not unfrequently lighter than either parent, and always lighter than the
Indian. The women at Batchian, although generally fairer than the men,
are coarse in features, and very far inferior in beauty to the mixed
Dutch-Malay girls, or even to many pure Malays.

The part of the village in which I resided was a grove of cocoa-nut
trees, and at night, when the dead leaves were sometimes collected
together and burnt, the effect was most magnificent--the tall stems,
the fine crowns of foliage, and the immense fruit-clusters, being
brilliantly illuminated against a dark sky, and appearing like a fairy
palace supported on a hundred columns, and groined over with leafy
arches. The cocoa-nut tree, when well grown, is certainly the prince of
palms both for beauty and utility.

During my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I had seen
sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly of a dark colour
marked with white and yellow spots. I could not capture it as it flew
away high up into the forest, but I at once saw that it was a female of
a new species of Ornithoptera or "bird-winged butterfly," the pride of
the Eastern tropics. I was very anxious to get it and to find the
male, which in this genus is always of extreme beauty. During the two
succeeding months I only saw it once again, and shortly afterwards I saw
the male flying high in the air at the mining village. I had begun to
despair of ever getting a specimen, as it seemed so rare and wild; till
one day, about the beginning of January, I found a beautiful shrub with
large white leafy bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Mussaenda, and
saw one of these noble insects hovering over it, but it was too quick
for me, and flew away. The next clay I went again to the same shrub and
succeeded in catching a female, and the day after a fine male. I
found it to be as I had expected, a perfectly new and most magnificent
species, and one of the most gorgeously coloured butterflies in the
world. Fine specimens of the male are more than seven inches across
the wings, which are velvety black and fiery orange, the latter colour
replacing the green of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of
this insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand
the intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. On
taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began
to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more
like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death.
I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement
produced by what will appear to most people a very inadequate cause.

I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but this grand
capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a good series of
the new butterfly, which I have since named Ornithoptera croesus. The
Mussaenda bush was an admirable place, which I could visit every day
on my way to the forest; and as it was situated in a dense thicket of
shrubs and creepers, I set my man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so
that I could easily get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards,
finding that it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a
little seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every
day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about noon,
besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way I obtained
on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but more than half
of these were females, and more than half the remainder worn or broken
specimens, so that I should not have obtained many perfect males had I
not found another station for them.

As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi with a
net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been seen at some
flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him half a day's wages
extra for every good specimen he could catch. After a day or two he
brought me two very fair specimens, and told me he had caught them in
the bed of a large rocky stream that descends from the mountains to the
sea abort a mile below the village. They flew down this river, settling
occasionally on stones and rocks in the water, and he was obliged to
wade up it or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him
one day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones too
slippery for me to do anything, so I left it entirely to him, and all
the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to be out all day,
generally bringing me one, and on good days two or three specimens. I
was thus able to bring away with me more than a hundred of both sexes,
including perhaps twenty very fine males, though not more than five or
six that were absolutely perfect.

My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy beach,
then through a sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky poles to the
village of the Tomore people. Beyond this was the forest with patches of
new clearing, shady paths, and a considerable quantity of felled timber.
I found this a very fair collecting ground, especially for beetles.
The fallen trunks in the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidae
and curious Brenthidae, and longicorns, while in the forest I found
abundance of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and some fine
green Carabidae.

Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more of the fine
blue Papilio, and a number of beautiful little Lycaenidae, as well as a
single specimen of the very rare Papilio Wallacei, of which I had taken
the hitherto unique specimen in the Aru Islands.

The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beautiful blue
kingfisher, Todiramphus diops; the fine green and purple doves,
Ptilonopus superbus and P. iogaster, and several new birds of small
size. My shooters still brought me in specimens of the Semioptera
Wallacei, and I was greatly excited by the positive statements of
several of the native hunters that another species of this bird existed,
much handsomer and more remarkable. They declared that the plumage was
glossy black, with metallic green breast as in my species, but that the
white shoulder plumes were twice as long, and hung down far below the
body of the bird. They declared that when hunting pigs or deer far in
the forest they occasionally saw this bird, but that it was rare. I
immediately offered twelve guilders (a pound) for a specimen; but all in
vain, and I am to this day uncertain whether such a bird exists. Since
I left, the German naturalist, Dr. Bernstein, stayed many months in the
island with a large staff of hunters collecting for the Leyden Museum;
and as he was not more successful than myself, we must consider either
that the bird is very rare, or is altogether a myth.

Batchian is remarkable as being the most eastern point on the globe
inhabited by any of the Quadrumana. A large black baboon-monkey
(Cynopithecus nigrescens) is abundant in some parts of the forest. This
animal has bare red callosities, and a rudimentary tail about an inch
long--a mere fleshy tubercle, which may be very easily overlooked. It is
the same species that is found all over the forests of Celebes, and
as none of the other Mammalia of that island extend into Batchian I am
inclined to suppose that this species has been accidentally introduced
by the roaming Malays, who often carry about with them tame monkeys
and other animals. This is rendered more probable by the fact that the
animal is not found in Gilolo, which is only separated from Batchian by
a very narrow strait. The introduction may have been very recent, as in
a fertile and unoccupied island such an animal would multiply rapidly.
The only other mammals obtained were an Eastern opossum, which Dr. Gray
has described as Cuscus ornatus; the little flying opossum, Belideus
ariel; a Civet cat, Viverra zebetha; and nice species of bats, most of
the smaller ones being caught in the dusk with my butterfly net as they
flew about before the house.

After much delay, owing to bad weather and the illness of one of my men,
I determined to visit Kasserota (formerly the chief village), situated
up a small stream, on an island close to the north coast of Batchian;
where I was told that many rare birds were found. After my boat was
loaded and everything ready, three days of heavy squalls prevented our
starting, and it was not till the 21st of March that we got away.
Early next morning we entered the little river, and in about an hour we
reached the Sultan's house, which I had obtained permission to use. It
was situated on the bank of the river, and surrounded by a forest
of fruit trees, among which were some of the very loftiest and most
graceful cocoa-nut palms I have ever seen. It rained nearly all that
day, and I could do little but unload and unpack. Towards the afternoon
it cleared up, and I attempted to explore in various directions, but
found to my disgust that the only path was a perfect mud swamp, along
which it was almost impossible to walk, and the surrounding forest so
damp and dark as to promise little in the way of insects. I found too on
inquiry that the people here made no clearings, living entirely on sago,
fruit, fish, and game; and the path only led to a steep rocky mountain
equally impracticable and unproductive. The next day I sent my men to
this hill, hoping it might produce some good birds; but they returned
with only two common species, and I myself had been able to get nothing;
every little track I had attempted to follow leading to a dense sago
swamp. I saw that I should waste time by staying here, and determined to
leave the following day.

This is one of those spots so hard for the European naturalist to
conceive, where with all the riches of a tropical vegetation, and partly
perhaps from the very luxuriance of that vegetation, insects are
as scarce as in the most barren parts of Europe, and hardly more
conspicuous. In temperate climates there is a tolerable uniformity in
the distribution of insects over those parts of a country in which there
is a similarity in the vegetation, any deficiency being easily accounted
for by the absence of wood or uniformity of surface. The traveller
hastily passing through such a country can at once pick out a collecting
ground which will afford him a fair notion of its entomology. Here the
case is different. There are certain requisites of a good collecting
ground which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' search in
the vicinity of each village. In some places there is no virgin forest,
as at Djilolo and Sahoe; in others there are no open pathways or
clearings, as here. At Batchian there are only two tolerable collecting
places,--the road to the coal mines, and the new clearings made by the
Tomóre people, the latter being by far the most productive. I believe
the fact to be that insects are pretty uniformly distributed over these
countries (where the forests have not been cleared away), and are so
scarce in any one spot that searching for them is almost useless. If the
forest is all cleared away, almost all the insects disappear with it;
but when small clearings and paths are made, the fallen trees in various
stages of drying and decay, the rotting leaves, the loosening bark and
the fungoid growths upon it, together with the flowers that appear
in much greater abundance where the light is admitted, are so many
attractions to the insects for miles around, and cause a wonderful
accumulation of species and individuals. When the entomologist can
discover such a spot, he does more in a mouth than he could possibly do
by a year's search in the depths of the undisturbed forest.

The next morning we left early, and reached the mouth of the little
river in about au hour. It flows through a perfectly flat alluvial
plain, but there are hills which approach it near the mouth. Towards the
lower part, in a swamp where the salt-water must enter at high tides,
were a number of elegant tree-ferns from eight to fifteen feet high.
These are generally considered to be mountain plants, and rarely to
occur on the equator at an elevation of less than one or two thousand
feet. In Borneo, in the Aru Islands, and on the banks of the Amazon, I
have observed them at the level of the sea, and think it probable that
the altitude supposed to be requisite for them may have been deduced
from facts observed in countries where the plains and lowlands are
largely cultivated, and most of the indigenous vegetation destroyed.
Such is the case in most parts of Java, India, Jamaica, and Brazil,
where the vegetation of the tropics has been most fully explored.

Coming out to sea we turned northwards, and in about two hours'
sail reached a few huts, called Langundi, where some Galela men had
established themselves as collectors of gum-dammar, with which they made
torches for the supply of the Ternate market. About a hundred yards back
rises a rather steep hill, and a short walk having shown me that there
was a tolerable path up it, I determined to stay here for a few days.
Opposite us, and all along this coast of Batchian, stretches a row of
fine islands completely uninhabited. Whenever I asked the reason why
no one goes to live in them, the answer always was, "For fear of the
Magindano pirates." Every year these scourges of the Archipelago wander
in one direction or another, making their rendezvous on some uninhabited
island, and carrying devastation to all the small settlements around;
robbing, destroying, killing, or taking captive all they nee with. Their
long well-manned praus escape from the pursuit of any sailing vessel by
pulling away right in the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer
generally enables them to hide in some shallow bay, or narrow river, or
forest-covered inlet, till the danger is passed. The only effectual way
to put a stop to their depredations would be to attack them in their
strongholds and villages, and compel them to give up piracy, and submit
to strict surveillance. Sir James Brooke did this with the pirates of
the north-west coast of Borneo, and deserves the thanks of the whole
population of the Archipelago for having rid them of half their enemies.

All along the beach here, and in the adjacent strip of sandy lowland, is
a remarkable display of Pandanaceae or Screw-pines. Some are like huge
branching candelabra, forty or fifty feet high, and bearing at the
end of each branch a tuft of immense sword-shaped leaves, six or eight
inches wide, and as many feet long. Others have a single unbranched
stem, six or seven feet high, the upper part clothed with the spirally
arranged leaves, and bearing a single terminal fruit ac large as a
swan's egg. Others of intermediate size have irregular clusters of rough
red fruits, and all have more or less spiny-edged leaves and ringed
stems. The young plants of the larger species have smooth glossy thick
leaves, sometimes ten feet long and eight inches wide, which are used
all over the Moluccas and New Guinea, to make "cocoyas" or sleeping
mats, which are often very prettily ornamented with coloured patterns.
Higher up on the bill is a forest of immense trees, among which those
producing the resin called dammar (Dammara sp.) are abundant. The
inhabitants of several small villages in Batchian are entirely engaged
in searching for this product, and making it into torches by pounding
it and filling it into tubes of palm leaves about a yard long, which
are the only lights used by many of the natives. Sometimes the dammar
accumulates in large masses of ten or twenty pounds weight, either
attached to the trunk, or found buried in the ground at the foot of the
trees. The most extraordinary trees of the forest are, however, a kind
of fig, the aerial roots of which form a pyramid near a hundred feet
high, terminating just where the tree branches out above, so that there
is no real trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of roots of every size,
mostly descending in straight lines, but more or less obliquely-and so
crossing each other, and connected by cross branches, which grow from
one to another; as to form a dense and complicated network, to which
nothing but a photograph could do justice (see illustration at Vol. I.
page 130). The Kanary is also abundant in this forest, the nut of which
has a very agreeable flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy
outer covering of the nut is the favourite food of the great green
pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga, perspicillata), and their
hoarse copings and heavy flutterings among the branches can be almost
continually heard.

After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get the bird I was
particularly in search of (the Nicobar pigeon, or a new species allied
to it), and finding no new birds, and very few insects, I left early on
the morning of April 1st, and in the evening entered a river on the
main island of Batchian (Langundi, like Kasserota, being on a distinct
island), where some Malays and Galela men have a small village, and have
made extensive rice-fields and plantain grounds. Here we found a good
house near the river bank, where the water was fresh and clear, and the
owner, a respectable Batchian Malay, offered me sleeping room and the
use of the verandah if I liked to stay. Seeing forest all round within
a short distance, I accepted his offer, and the next morning before
breakfast walked out to explore, and on the skirts of the forest
captured a few interesting insects.

Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a very
fine forest, richer in palms than any I had seen in the Moluccas. One of
these especially attracted my attention from its elegance. The stein was
not thicker than my wrist, yet it was very lofty, and bore clusters
of bright red fruit. It was apparently a species of Areca. Another of
immense height closely resembled in appearance the Euterpes of South
America. Here also grew the fan-leafed palm, whose small, nearly
entire leaves are used to make the dammar torches, and to form the
water-buckets in universal use. During this walk I saw near a dozen
species of palms, as well as two or three Pandani different from those
of Langundi. There were also some very fine climbing ferns and true wild
Plantains (Musa), bearing an edible fruit not so large as one's thumb,
and consisting of a mass of seeds just covered with pulp and skin.
The people assured me they had tried the experiment of sowing and
cultivating this species, but could not improve it. They probably did
not grow it in sufficient quantity, and did not persevere sufficiently
long.

Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researches of a
botanist better than any other in the whole Archipelago. It contains
a great variety of surface and of soil, abundance of large and small
streams, many of which are navigable for some distance, and there being
no savage inhabitants, every part of it can be visited with perfect
safety. It possesses gold, copper, and coal, hot springs and geysers,
sedimentary and volcanic rocks and coralline limestone, alluvial plains,
abrupt hills and lofty mountains, a moist climate, and a grand and
luxuriant forest vegetation.

The few days I stayed here produced me several new insects, but scarcely
any birds. Butterflies and birds are in fact remarkably scarce in these
forests. One may walk a whole day and not see more than two or three
species of either. In everything but beetles, these eastern islands are
very deficient compared with the western (Java, Borneo, &c.), and much
more so if compared with the forests of South America, where twenty or
thirty species of butterflies may be caught every day, and on very
good days a hundred, a number we can hardly reach here in months of
unremitting search. In birds there is the same difference. In most
parts of tropical America we may always find some species of
woodpecker tanager, bush shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo,
and tyrant-flycatcher; and a few days' active search will produce more
variety than can be here met with in as many months. Yet, along with
this poverty of individuals and of species, there are in almost every
class and order, some one, or two species of such extreme beauty or
singularity, as to vie with, or even surpass, anything that even South
America can produce.

One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and surrounded by a crowd
of wondering spectators, I showed one of them how to look at a small
insect with a hand-lens, which caused such evident wonder that all the
rest wanted to see it too. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to a piece
of soft wood at the proper focus, and put under it a little spiny
beetle of the genus Hispa, and then passed it round for examination. The
excitement was immense. Some declared it was a yard long; others were
frightened, and instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished,
and made as much shouting and gesticulation, as children at a pantomime,
or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxyhydrogen microscope. And all
this excitement was produced by a little pocket lens, an inch and a half
focus, and therefore magnifying only four or five times, but which to
their unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a hundred fold.

On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters succeeded in finding
and shooting the beautiful Nicobar pigeon, of which I had been so long
in search. None of the residents had ever seen it, which shows that it
is rare and slay. My specimen was a female in beautiful condition, and
the glassy coppery and green of its plumage, the snow-white tail
and beautiful pendent feathers of the neck, were greatly admired. I
subsequently obtained a specimen in New Guinea; and once saw it in the
Kaióa islands. It is found also in some small islands near Macassar, in
others near Borneo; and in the Nicobar islands, whence it receives its
name. It is a ground feeder, only going upon trees to roost, and is a
very heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its being
found chiefly on very small islands, while in the western half of the
Archipelago, it seems entirely absent from the larger ones. Being a
ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds,
which are not found in the very small islands. Its wide distribution
over the whole length of the Archipelago; from extreme west to east, is
however very extraordinary, since, with the exception of a few of
the birds of prey, not a single land bird has so wide a range.
Ground-feeding birds are generally deficient in power of extended
flight, and this species is so bulky and heavy that it appears at first
sight quite unable to fly a mile. A closer examination shows, however,
that its wings are remarkably large, perhaps in proportion to its size
larger than those of any other pigeon, and its pectoral muscles
are immense. A fact communicated to me by the son of my friend Mr.
Duivenboden of Ternate, would show that, in accordance with these
peculiarities of structure, it possesses the power of flying long
distances. Mr. D. established an oil factory on a small coral island, a
hundred miles north of New Guinea, with no intervening land. After the
island had been settled a year, and traversed in every direction, his
son paid it a visit; and just as the schooner was coming to an anchor,
a bird was seen flying from seaward which fell into the water exhausted
before it could reach the shore. A boat was sent to pick it up, and it
was found to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea,
and flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited the
island.

This is certainly a very curious case of adaptation to an unusual and
exceptional necessity. The bird does not ordinarily require great powers
of flight, since it lives in the forest, feeds on fallen fruits, and
roosts in low trees like other ground pigeons. The majority of the
individuals, therefore, can never make full use of their enormously
powerful wings, till the exceptional case occurs of an individual
being blown out to sea, or driven to emigrate by the incursion of some
carnivorous animal, or the pressure of scarcity of food. A modification
exactly opposite to that which produced the wingless birds (the Apteryx,
Cassowary, and Dodo), appears to have here taken place; and it is
curious that in both cases an insular habitat should have been the
moving cause. The explanation is probably the same as that applied
by Mr. Darwin to the case of the Madeira beetles, many of which are
wingless, while some of the winged ones have the wings better developed
than the same species on the continent. It was advantageous to these
insects either never to fly at all, and thus not run the risk of being
blown out to sea, or to fly so well as to be able either to return to
land, or to migrate safely to the continent. Pad flying was worse
than not flying at all. So, while in such islands as New Zealand and
Mauritius far from all land, it was safer for a ground-feeding bird not
to fly at all, and the short-winged individuals continually surviving,
prepared the way for a wingless group of birds; in a vast Archipelago
thickly strewn with islands and islets it was advantageous to be able
occasionally to migrate, and thus the long and strong-winged varieties
maintained their existence longest, and ultimately supplanted all
others, and spread the race over the whole Archipelago.

Besides this pigeon, the only new bird I obtained during the trip was
a rare goat-sucker (Batrachostomus crinifrons), the only species of the
genus yet found in the Moluccas. Among my insects the best were the rare
Pieris arum, of a rich chrome yellow colour, with a black border and
remarkable white antenna--perhaps the very finest butterfly of the
genus; and a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a
stag-beetle, which has been named Megachile Pluto by Mr. B. Smith. I
collected about a hundred species of beetles quite new to me, but mostly
very minute, and also many rare and handsome ones which I had already
found in Batchian. On the whole I was tolerably satisfied with my
seventeen days' excursion, which was a very agreeable one, and enabled
me to sea a good deal of the island. I had hired a roomy boat, and
brought with me a small table and my rattan chair. These were great
comforts, as, wherever there was a roof, I could immediately instal
myself, and work and eat at ease. When I could not find accommodation on
shore I slept in the boat, which was always drawn up on the beach if we
stayed for a few days at one spot.

On my return to Batchian I packed up my collections, and prepared for
my return to Ternate. When I first came I had sent back my boat by the
pilot, with two or three other men who had been glad of the opportunity.
I now took advantage of a Government boat which had just arrived with
rice for the troops, and obtained permission to return in her, and
accordingly started on the 13th of April, having resided only a week
short of six months on the island of Batchian. The boat was one of
the kind called "Kora-kora," quite open, very low, and about four tons
burthen. It had outriggers of bamboo about five feet off each side,
which supported a bamboo platform extending the whole length of the
vessel. On the extreme outside of this sit the twenty rowers, while
within was a convenient passage fore and aft. The middle portion of the
boat was covered with a thatch-house, in which baggage and passengers
are stowed; the gunwale was not more than a foot above water, and from
the great top and side weight, and general clumsiness, these boats are
dangerous in heavy weather, and are not unfrequently lost. A triangle
mast and mat sail carried us on when the wind was favourable,--which
(as usual) it never was, although, according to the monsoon, it ought to
have been. Our water, carried in bamboos, would only last two days, and
as the voyage occupied seven, we had to touch at a great many places.
The captain was not very energetic, and the men rowed as little as they
pleased, or we might have reached Ternate in three days, having had fine
weather and little wind all the way.

There were several passengers besides myself: three or four Javanese
soldiers, two convicts whose time had expired (one, curiously enough,
being the man who had stolen my cash-box and keys), the schoolmaster's
wife and a servant going on a visit to Ternate, and a Chinese trader
going to buy goods. We had to sleep all together in the cabin, packed
pretty close; but they very civilly allowed me plenty of room for my
mattrass, and we got on very well together. There was a little cookhouse
in the bows, where we could boil our rice and make our coffee, every one
of course bringing his own provisions, and arranging his meal-times as
he found most convenient. The passage would have been agreeable enough
but for the dreadful "tom-toms," or wooden drums, which are beaten
incessantly while the men are rowing. Two men were engaged constantly at
them, making a fearful din the whole voyage. The rowers are men sent by
the Sultan of Ternate. They get about threepence a day, and find their
own provisions. Each man had a strong wooden "betel" box, on which he
generally sat, a sleeping-mat, and a change of clothes--rowing naked,
with only a sarong or a waistcloth. They sleep in their places, covered
with their mat, which keeps out the rain pretty well. They chew betel
or smoke cigarettes incessantly; eat dry sago and a little salt fish;
seldom sing while rowing, except when excited and wanting to reach a
stopping-place, and do not talk a great deal. They are mostly Malays,
with a sprinkling of Alfuros from Gilolo, and Papuans from Guebe or
Waigiou.

One afternoon we stayed at Makian; many of the men went on shore, and
a great deal of plantains, bananas, and other fruits were brought on
board. We then went on a little way, and in the evening anchored again.
When going to bed for the night, I put out my candle, there being still
a glimmering lamp burning, and, missing my handkerchief, thought I saw
it on a box which formed one side of my bed, and put out my hand to take
it. I quickly drew back on feeling something cool and very smooth, which
moved as I touched it. "Bring the light, quick," I cried; "here's a
snake." And there he was, sure enough, nicely coiled up, with his head
just raised to inquire who had disturbed him. It was mow necessary
to catch or kill him neatly, or he would escape among the piles of
miscellaneous luggage, and we should hardly sleep comfortably. One of
the ex-convicts volunteered to catch him with his hand wrapped up in a
cloth, but from the way he went about it I saw he was nervous and would
let the thing go, so I would mot allow him to make the attempt. I them
got a chopping-knife, and carefully moving my insect nets, which hung
just over the snake and prevented me getting a free blow, I cut him
quietly across the back, holding him down while my boy with another
knife crushed his head. On examination, I found he had large poison
fangs, and it is a wonder he did not bite me when I first touched him.

Thinking it very unlikely that two snakes had got on board at the same
time, I turned in and went to sleep; but having all the time a vague
dreamy idea that I might put my hand on another one, I lay wonderfully
still, not turning over once all night, quite the reverse of my usual
habits. The next day we reached Ternate, and I ensconced myself in my
comfortable house, to examine all my treasures, and pack them securely
for the voyage home.



CHAPTER XXV. CERAM, GORAM, AND THE MATABELLO ISLANDS.

(OCTOBER 1859 To JUNE 1860.)

I LEFT Amboyna for my first visit to Ceram at three o'clock in the
morning of October 29th, after having been delayed several days by the
boat's crew, who could not be got together. Captain Van der Beck, who
gave me a passage in his boat, had been running after them all day, and
at midnight we had to search for two of my men who had disappeared at
the last moment. One we found at supper in his own house, and rather
tipsy with his parting libations of arrack, but the other was gone
across the bay, and we were obliged to leave without him. We stayed some
hours at two villages near the east end of Amboyna, at one of which we
had to discharge some wood for the missionaries' house, and on the
third afternoon reached Captain Van der Beck's plantation, situated at
Hatosua, in that part of Ceram opposite to the island of Amboyna. This
was a clearing in flat and rather swampy forest, about twenty acres
in extent, and mostly planted with cacao and tobacco. Besides a small
cottage occupied by the workmen, there was a large shed for tobacco
drying, a corner of which was offered me; and thinking from the look of
the place that I should find good collecting ground here, I fitted up
temporary tables, benches, and beds, and made all preparations for
some weeks' stay. A few days, however, served to show that I should be
disappointed. Beetles were tolerably abundant, and I obtained plenty of
fine long-horned Anthribidae and pretty Longicorns, but they were mostly
the same species as I had found during my first short visit to Amboyna.
There were very few paths in the forest; which seemed poor in birds and
butterflies, and day after day my men brought me nothing worth notice.
I was therefore soon obliged to think about changing my locality, as I
could evidently obtain no proper notion of the productions of the almost
entirely unexplored island of Ceram by staying in this place.

I rather regretted leaving, because my host was one of the most
remarkable men and most entertaining companions I had ever met with.
He was a Fleeting by birth, and, like so many of his countrymen, had a
wonderful talent for languages. When quite a youth he had accompanied a
Government official who was sent to report on the trade and commerce
of the Mediterranean, and had acquired the colloquial language of every
place they stayed a few weeks at. He had afterwards made voyages to
St. Petersburg, and to other parts of Europe, including a few weeks in
London, and had then come out to the past, where he had been for some
years trading and speculating in the various islands. He now spoke
Dutch, French, Malay, and Javanese, all equally well; English with
a very slight accent, but with perfect fluency, axed a most complete
knowledge of idiom, in which I often tried to puzzle him in vain. German
and Italian were also quite familiar to him, and his acquaintance
with European languages included Modern Greek, Turkish, Russian, and
colloquial Hebrew and Latin. As a test of his power, I may mention that
he had made a voyage to the out-of-the-way island of Salibaboo, and had
stayed there trading a few weeks. As I was collecting vocabularies,
he told me he thought he could remember some words, and dictated
considerable number. Some time after I met with a short list of words
taken down in those islands, and in every case they agreed with those
he had given me. He used to sing a Hebrew drinking-song, which he had
learned from some Jews with whom he had once travelled, and astonished
by joining in their conversation, and had a never-ending fund of tale
and anecdote about the people he had met and the places he had visited.

In most of the villages of this part of Ceram are schools and native
schoolmasters, and the inhabitants have been long converted to
Christianity. In the larger villages there are European missionaries;
but there is little or no external difference between the Christian and
Alfuro villages, nor, as far as I have seen, in their inhabitants. The
people seem more decidedly Papuan than those of Gilolo. They are darker
in colour, and a number of them have the frizzly Papuan hair; their
features also are harsh and prominent, and the women in particular are
far less engaging than those of the Malay race. Captain Van der Beck was
never tired of abusing the inhabitants of these Christian villages as
thieves, liars, and drunkards, besides being incorrigibly lazy. In the
city of Amboyna my friends Doctors Mohnike and Doleschall, as well
as most of the European residents and traders, made exactly the same
complaint, and would rather have Mahometans for servants, even if
convicts, than any of the native Christians. One great cause of this
is the fact, that with the Mahometans temperance is a part of their
religion, and has become so much a habit that practically the rule is
never transgressed. One fertile source of want, and one great incentive
to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one class, but absent
in the other; but besides this the Christians look upon themselves as
nearly the equals of the Europeans, who profess the same religion, and
as far superior to the followers of Islam, and are therefore prone to
despise work, and to endeavour to live by trade, or by cultivating their
own land. It need hardly be said that with people in this low state of
civilization religion is almost wholly ceremonial, and that neither
are the doctrines of Christianity comprehended, nor its moral precepts
obeyed. At the same time, as far as my own experience goes, I have found
the better class of "Orang Sirani" as civil, obliging, and industrious
as the Malays, and only inferior to them from their tendency to get
intoxicated.

Having written to the Assistant Resident of Saparua (who has
jurisdiction over the opposite part of the coast of Ceram) for a boat
to pursue my journey, I received one rather larger than necessary with a
crew of twenty men. I therefore bade adieu to my kind friend Captain Van
der Beck, and left on the evening after its arrival for the village of
Elpiputi, which we reached in two days. I had intended to stay here, but
not liking the appearance of the place, which seemed to have no virgin
forest near it, I determined to proceed about twelve miles further
up the bay of Amahay, to a village recently formed, and inhabited by
indigenes from the interior, and where some extensive cacao plantations
were being made by some gentlemen of Amboyna. I reached the place
(called Awaiya) the same afternoon, and with the assistance of Mr.
Peters (the manager of the plantations) and the native chief, obtained
a small house, got all my things on shore, and paid and discharged
my twenty boatmen, two of whom had almost driven me to distraction by
beating tom-toms the whole voyage.

I found the people here very nearly in a state of nature, and going
almost naked. The men wear their frizzly hair gathered into a flat
circular knot over the left temple, which has a very knowing look, and
in their ears cylinders of wood as thick as one's finger, and coloured
red at the ends. Armlets and anklets of woven grass or of silver, with
necklaces of beads or of small fruits, complete their attire. The women
wear similar ornaments, but have their hair loose. All are tall, with a
dark brown skin, and well marked Papuan physiognomy. There is an Amboyna
schoolmaster in the village, and a good number of children attend school
every morning. Such of the inhabitants as have become Christians may be
known by their wearing their hair loose, and adopting to some extent the
native Christian dress-trousers and a loose shirt. Very few speak Malay,
all these coast villages having been recently formed by inducing natives
to leave the inaccessible interior. In all the central part of Ceram
there new remains only one populous village in the mountains. Towards
the east and the extreme west are a few others, with which exceptions
all the inhabitants of Ceram are collected on the coast. In the northern
and eastern districts they are mostly Mahometans, while on the southwest
coast, nearest Amboyna, they are nominal Christians. In all this part of
the Archipelago the Dutch make very praiseworthy efforts to improve
the condition of the aborigines by establishing schoolmasters in every
village (who are mostly natives of Amboyna or Saparua, who have; been
instructed by the resident missionaries), and by employing native
vaccinators to prevent the ravages of smallpox. They also encourage the
settlement of Europeans, and the formation of new plantations of cacao
and coffee, one of the best means of raising the condition of the
natives, who thus obtain work at fair wages, and have the opportunity of
acquiring something of European tastes and habits.

My collections here did not progress much better than at my former
station, except that butterflies were a little more plentiful, and some
very fine species were to be found in the morning on the sea-beach,
sitting so quietly on the wet sand that they could be caught with the
fingers. In this way I had many fine specimens of Papilios brought me
by the children. Beetles, however, were scarce, and birds still more
so, and I began to think that the handsome species which I had so often
heard were found in Ceram must be entirely confined to the eastern
extremity of the island.

A few miles further worth, at the head of the Bay of Amahay, is situated
the village of Makariki, from whence there is a native path quite
across the island to the north coast. My friend Mr. Rosenberg, whose
acquaintance I had made at New Guinea, and who was now the Government
superintendent of all this part of Ceram, returned from Wahai, on the
north coast, after I had been three weeks at Awaiya, and showed me
some fine butterflies he had obtained on the mountain streams in the
interior. He indicated a spot about the centre of the island where he
thought I might advantageously stay a few days. I accordingly visited
Makariki with him the next day, and he instructed the chief of the
village to furnish me with men to carry my baggage, and accompany me
on my excursion. As the people of the village wanted to be at home on
Christmas-day, it was necessary to start as soon as possible; so we
agreed that the men should be ready in two days, and I returned to make
my arrangements.

I put up the smallest quantity of baggage possible for a six days'
trip, and on the morning of December 18th we left Makariki, with six men
carrying my baggage and their own provisions, and a lad from Awaiya,
who was accustomed to catch butterflies for me. My two Amboyna hunters
I left behind to shoot and skin what birds they could while I was away.
Quitting the village, we first walked briskly for an hour through a
dense tangled undergrowth, dripping wet from a storm of the previous
night, and full of mud holes. After crossing several small streams we
reached one of the largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was
necessary to cross. It was both deep and rapid. The baggage was first
taken over, parcel by parcel, on the men's heads, the water reaching
nearly up to their armpits, and then two men returned to assist me. The
water was above my waist, and so strong that I should certainly have
been carried off my feet had I attempted to cross alone; and it was a
matter of astonishment to me how the men could give me any assistance,
since I found the greatest difficulty in getting my foot down again when
I had once moved it off the bottom. The greater strength and grasping
power of their feet, from going always barefoot, no doubt gave them a
surer footing in the rapid water.

After well wringing out our wet clothes and putting them on, we again
proceeded along a similar narrow forest track as before, choked with
rotten leaves and dead trees, and in the more open parts overgrown with
tangled vegetation. Another hour brought us to a smaller stream flowing
in a wide gravelly bed, up which our road lay. Here w e stayed half an
hour to breakfast, and then went on, continually crossing the stream, or
walking on its stony and gravelly banks, till about noon, when it became
rocky and enclosed by low hills. A little further we entered a regular
mountain-gorge, and had to clamber over rocks, and every moment cross
and recross the water, or take short cuts through the forest. This
was fatiguing work; and about three in the afternoon, the sky being
overcast, and thunder in the mountains indicating an approaching storm,
we had to loon out for a camping place, and soon after reached one
of Mr. Rosenberg's old ones. The skeleton of his little sleeping-hut
remained, and my men cut leaves and made a hasty roof just as the
rain commenced. The baggage was covered over with leaves, and the men
sheltered themselves as they could till the storm was over, by which
time a flood came down the river, which effectually stopped our further
march, even had we wished to proceed. We then lighted fires; I made some
coffee, and my men roasted their fish and plantains, and as soon as it
was dark, we made ourselves comfortable for the night.

Starting at six the next morning, we had three hours of the same kind
of walking, during which we crossed the river at least thirty or forty
times, the water being generally knee-deep. This brought us to a place
where the road left the stream, and here we stopped to breakfast. We
then had a long walk over the mountain, by a tolerable path, which
reached an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea. Here I
noticed one of the smallest and most elegant tree ferns I had ever seen,
the stem being scarcely thicker than my thumb, yet reaching a height
of fifteen or twenty feet. I also caught a new butterfly of the genus
Pieris, and a magnificent female specimen of Papilio gambrisius, of
which I had hitherto only found the males, which are smaller and very
different in colour. Descending the other side of the ridge, by a very
steep path, we reached another river at a spot which is about the centre
of the island, and which was to be our resting place for two or three
days. In a couple of hour my men had built a little sleeping-shed
for me, about eight feet by four, with a bench of split poles, they
themselves occupying two or three smaller ones, which had been put up by
former passengers.

The river here was about twenty yards wide, running over a pebbly and
sometimes a rocky bed, and bordered by steep hills with occasionally
flat swampy spots between their base and the stream. The whole country
was one dense, Unbroken, and very damp and gloomy virgin forest. Just at
our resting-place there was a little bush-covered island in the middle
of the channel, so that the opening in the forest made by the river was
wider than usual, and allowed a few gleams of sunshine to penetrate.
Here there were several handsome butterflies flying about, the finest of
which, however, escaped me, and I never saw it again during my stay. In
the two days and a half which we remained here, I wandered almost all
day up and down the stream, searching after butterflies, of which I got,
in all, fifty or sixty specimens, with several species quite new to
me. There were many others which I saw only once, and did not capture,
causing me to regret that there was no village in these interior valleys
where I could stay a month. In the early part of each morning I went out
with my gun in search of birds, and two of my men were out almost all
day after deer; but we were all equally unsuccessful, getting absolutely
nothing the whole time we were in the forest. The only good bird seen
was the fine Amboyna lory, but these were always too high to shoot;
besides this, the great Moluccan hornbill, which I did not want, was
almost the only bird met with. I saw not a single ground-thrush, or
kingfisher, or pigeon; and, in fact, have never been in a forest so
utterly desert of animal life as this appeared to be. Even in all other
groups of insects, except butterflies, there was the same poverty. I
bad hoped to find some rare tiger beetles, as I had done in similar
situations in Celebes; but, though I searched closely in forest,
river-bed, and mountain-brook, I could find nothing but the two common
Amboyna species. Other beetles there were absolutely none.

The constant walking in water, and over rocks and pebbles, quite
destroyed the two pair of shoes I brought with me, so that, on my
return, they actually fell to pieces, and the last day I had to walk
in my stockings very painfully, and reached home quite lame. On our way
back from Makariki, as on our way there, we had storm and rain at sea,
and we arrived at Awaiya late in the evening, with all our baggage
drenched, and ourselves thoroughly uncomfortable. All the time I had
been in Ceram I had suffered much from the irritating bites of an
invisible acarus, which is worse than mosquitoes, ants, and every other
pest, because it is impossible to guard against them. This last journey
in the forest left me covered from head to foot with inflamed lumps,
which, after my return to Amboyna, produced a serious disease, confining
me to the house for nearly two months, a not very pleasant memento of my
first visit to Ceram, which terminated with the year 1859.

It was not till the 24th of February, 1860, that I started again,
intending to pass from village to village along the coast, staying where
I found a suitable locality. I had a letter from the Governor of the
Moluccas, requesting all the chiefs to supply me with boats and men to
carry me on my journey. The first boat took me in two days to Amahay,
on the opposite side of the bay to Awaiya. The chief here, wonderful to
relate, did not make any excuses for delay, but immediately ordered out
the boat which was to carry me on, put my baggage on hoard, set up mast
and sails after dark, and had the men ready that nigh; so that we were
actually on our way at five the next morning,--a display of energy
and activity I scarcely ever saw before in a native chief on such an
occasion. We touched at Cepa, and stayed for the night at Tamilan, the
first two Mahometan villages on the south coast of Ceram. The next day,
about noon, we reached Hoya, which was as Far as my present boat and
crew were going to take me. The anchorage is about a mile east of the
village, which is faced by coral reefs, and we had to wait for the
evening tide to move up and unload the boat into the strange rotten
wooden pavilion kept for visitors.

There was no boat here large enough to take my baggage; and although
two would have done very well, the Rajah insisted upon sending four. The
reason of this I found was, that there were four small villages under
his rule, and by sending a boat from each he would avoid the difficult
task of choosing two and letting off the others. I was told that at the
next village of Teluti there were plenty of Alfuros, and that I could
get abundance of Tories and other birds. The Rajah declared that
black and yellow Tories and black cockatoos were found there; but I am
inclined to think he knew very well he was telling me lies, and that
it was only a scheme to satisfy me with his plan of taking me to that
village, instead of a day's journey further on, as I desired. Here, as
at most of the villages, I was asked for spirits, the people being mere
nominal Mahometans, who confine their religion almost entirely to a
disgust at pork, and a few other forbidden articles of food. The next
morning, after much trouble, we got our cargoes loaded, and had a
delightful row across the deep bay of Teluti, with a view of the grand
central mountain-range of Ceram. Our four boats were rowed by sixty
men, with flags flying and tom-toms beating, as well as very vigorous
shouting and singing to keep up their spirits. The sea way smooth, the
morning bright, and the whole scene very exhilarating. On landing, the
Orang-kaya and several of the chief men, in gorgeous silk jackets,
were waiting to receive us, and conducted me to a house prepared for my
reception, where I determined to stay a few days, and see if the country
round produced anything new.

My first inquiries were about the lories, but I could get very little
satisfactory information. The only kinds known were the ring-necked lory
and the common red and green lorikeet, both common at Amboyna. Black
Tories and cockatoos were quite unknown. The Alfuros resided in the
mountains five or six days' journey away, and there were only one or
two live birds to be found in the village, and these were worthless. My
hunters could get nothing but a few common birds; and notwithstanding
fine mountains, luxuriant forests, and a locality a hundred miles
eastward, I could find no new insects, and extremely few even of the
common species of Amboyna and West Ceram. It was evidently no use
stopping at such a place, and I was determined to move on as soon as
possible.

The village of Teluti is populous, but straggling and very dirty. Sago
trees here cover the mountain side, instead of growing as usual in low
swamps; but a closer examination shows that they grow in swampy patches,
which have formed among the loose rocks that cover the ground, and which
are kept constantly full of moisture by the rains, and by the abundance
of rills which trickle down among them. This sago forms almost the whole
subsistence of the inhabitants, who appear to cultivate nothing but
a few small patches of maize and sweet potatoes. Hence, as before
explained, the scarcity of insects. The Orang-kaya has fine clothes,
handsome lamps, and other expensive European goods, yet lives every day
on sago and fish as miserably as the rest.

After three days in this barren place I left on the morning of March
6th, in two boats of the same size as those which had brought me to
Teluti. With some difficulty I had obtained permission to take these
boats on to Tobo, where I intended to stay a while, and therefore got on
pretty quickly, changing men at the village of Laiemu, and arriving in a
heavy rain at Ahtiago. As there was a good deal of surf here, and likely
to be more if the wind blew hard during the night, our boats were
pulled up on the beach; and after supping at the Orang-kaya's house, and
writing down a vocabulary of the language of the Alfuros, who live in
the mountains inland, I returned to sleep in the boat. Next morning we
proceeded, changing men at Warenama, and again at Hatometen, at both of
which places there was much surf and no harbour, so that the men had to
go on shore and come on board by swimming. Arriving in the evening of
March 7th at Batuassa, the first village belonging to the Rajah of Tobo,
and under the government of Banda, the surf was very heavy, owing to a
strong westward swell. We therefore rounded the rocky point on which the
village was situated, but found it very little better on the other side.
We were obliged, however, to go on shore here; and waiting till the
people on the beach had made preparations, by placing a row of logs from
the water's edge on which to pull up our boats, we rowed as quickly as
we could straight on to them, after watching till the heaviest surfs
had passed. The moment we touched ground our men all jumped out, and,
assisted by those on shore, attempted to haul up the boat high and dry,
but not having sufficient hands, the surf repeatedly broke into the
stern. The steepness of the beach, however, prevented any damage being
done, and the other boat having both crews to haul at it, was got up
without difficulty.

The next morning, the water being low, the breakers were at some
distance from shore, and we had to watch for a smooth moment after
bringing the boats to the water's edge, and so got safely out to sea. At
the two next villages, Tobo and Ossong, we also took in fresh men, who
came swimming through the surf; and at the latter place the Rajah came
on board and accompanied me to Kissalaut, where he has a house which
he lent me during my stay. Here again was a heavy surf, and it was with
great difficulty we got the boats safely hauled up. At Amboyna I had
been promised at this season a calm sea and the wind off shore, but in
this case, as in every other, I had been unable to obtain any reliable
information as to the winds and seasons of places distant two or three
days' journey. It appears, however, that owing to the general direction
of the island of Ceram (E.S.E. and W.N.W.), there is a heavy surf and
scarcely any shelter on the south coast during the west monsoon, when
alone a journey to the eastward can be safely made; while during the
east monsoon, when I proposed to return along the north coast to Wahai,
I should probably find that equally exposed and dangerous. But although
the general direction of the west monsoon in the Banda sea causes a
heavy swell, with bad surf on the coast, yet we had little advantage of
the wind; for, owing I suppose to the numerous bays and headlands, we
had contrary south-east or even due east winds all the way, and had to
make almost the whole distance from Amboyna by force of rowing. We had
therefore all the disadvantages, and none of the advantages, of this
west monsoon, which I was told would insure me a quick and pleasant
journey.

I was delayed at Kissa-laut just four weeks, although after the first
three days I saw that it would be quite useless for me to stay, and
begged the Rajah to give me a prau and men to carry me on to Goram. But
instead of getting one close at hand, he insisted on sending several
miles off; and when after many delays it at length arrived, it was
altogether unsuitable and too small to carry my baggage. Another was
then ordered to be brought immediately, and was promised in three days,
but doable that time elapsed and none appeared, and we were obliged at
length to get one at the adjoining village, where it might have been
so much more easily obtained at first. Then came caulking and covering
over, and quarrels between the owner and the Rajah's men, which
occupied more than another ten days, during all which time I was getting
absolutely nothing, finding this part of Ceram a perfect desert in
zoology, although a most beautiful country, and with a very luxuriant
vegetation. It was a complete puzzle, which to this day I have not been
able to understand; the only thing I obtained worth notice during my
month's stay here being a few good land shells.

At length, on April 4th, we succeeded in getting away in our little
boat of about four tons burthen, in which my numerous boxes were with
difficulty packed so as to leave sleeping and cooling room. The craft
could not boast an ounce of iron or a foot of rope in any part of its
construction, nor a morsel of pitch or paint in its decoration. The
planks were fastened together in the usual ingenious way with pegs
and rattans. The mast was a bamboo triangle, requiring no shrouds,
and carrying a long mat sail; two rudders were hung on the quarters by
rattans, the anchor was of wood, and a long and thick rattan; served as
a cable. Our crew consisted of four men, whose pole accommodation was
about three feet by four in the bows and stern, with the sloping thatch
roof to stretch themselves upon for a change. We had nearly a hundred
miles to go, fully exposed to the swell of the Banda sea, which is
sometimes very considerable; but we luckily had it calm and smooth, so
that we made the voyage in comparative comfort.

On the second day we passed the eastern extremity of Ceram, formed of
a group of hummocky limestone hills; and, sailing by the islands of
Kwammer and Keffing, both thickly inhabited, came in sight of the little
town of Kilwaru, which appears to rise out of the sea like a rustic
Venice. This place has really a most extraordinary appearance, as not a
particle of land or vegetation can be seen, but a long way out at sea a
large village seems to float upon the water. There is of course a small
island of several acres in extent; but the houses are built so closely
all round it upon piles in the water, that it is completely hidden. It
is a place of great traffic, being the emporium for much of the produce
of these Eastern seas, and is the residence of many Bugis and Ceramese
traders, and appears to have been chosen on account of its being close
to the only deep channel between the extensive shoals of Ceram-laut and
those bordering the east end of Ceram. We now had contrary east winds,
and were obliged to pole over the shallow coral reefs of Ceram-laut
for nearly thirty miles. The only danger of our voyage was just at its
termination, for as we were rowing towards Manowolko, the largest of
the Goram group, we were carried out so rapidly by a strong westerly
current, that I was almost certain at one time we should pass clear
of the island; in which case our situation would have been both
disagreeable and dangerous, as, with the east wind which had just set
in, we might have been unable to return for many days, and we had not
a day's water on board. At the critical moment I served out some strong
spirits to my men, which put fresh vigour into their arms, and carried
us out of the influence of the current before it was too late.

MANOWOLKO, GORAM GROUP.

On arriving at Manowolko, we found the Rajah was at the opposite island
of Goram; but he was immediately sent for, and in the meantime a large
shed was given for our accommodation. At night the Rajah came, and the
next day I had a visit from him, and found, as I expected, that I had
already made his acquaintance three years before at Aru. He was very
friendly, and we had a long talk; but when I begged for a boat and
men to take me on to Ke, he made a host of difficulties. There were no
praus, as all had gone to Ke or Aim; and even if one were found, there
were no men, as it was the season when all were away trading. But he
promised to see about it, and I was obliged to wait. For the next two or
three days there was more talking and more difficulties were raised, and
I had time to make an examination of the island and the people.

Manowolko is about fifteen miles long, and is a mere; upraised
coral-reef. Two or three hundred yards inland rise cliffs of coral rock,
in many parts perpendicular, and one or two hundred feet high; and this,
I was informed, is characteristic of the whole island, in which there is
no other kind of rock, and no stream of water. A few cracks and chasms
furnish paths to the top of these cliffs, where there is an open
undulating country, in which the chief vegetable grounds of the
inhabitants are situated.

The people here--at least the chief men--were of a much purer Malay race
than the Mahometans of the mainland of Ceram, which is perhaps due to
there having been no indigenes on these small islands when the
first settlers arrived. In Ceram, the Alfuros of Papuan race are the
predominant type, the Malay physiognomy being seldom well marked;
whereas here the reverse is the case, and a slight infusion of Papuan
on a mixture of Malay and Bugis has produced a very good-looking set of
people. The lower class of the population consist almost entirely of
the indigenes of the adjacent island. They are a fine race, with
strongly-marked Papuan features, frizzly hair, and brown complexions.
The Goram language is spoken also at the east end of Ceram, and in
the adjacent islands. It has a general resemblance to the languages of
Ceram, but possesses a peculiar element which I have not met with in
other languages of the Archipelago.

After great delay, considering the importance of every day at this
time of year, a miserable boat and five men were found, and with
some difficulty I stowed away in it such baggage as it was absolutely
necessary for me to take, leaving scarcely sitting or sleeping room.
The sailing qualities of the boat were highly vaunted, and I was assured
that at this season a small one was much more likely to succeed in
making the journey. We first coasted along the island, reaching its
eastern extremity the following morning (April 11th), and found a
strong W. S.W. wind blowing, which just allowed us to lay across to the
Matabello Islands, a distance little short of twenty miles. I did not
much like the look of the heavy sky and rather rough sea, and my men
were very unwilling to make the attempt; but as we could scarcely hope
for a better chance, I insisted upon trying. The pitching and jerking of
our little boat, soon reduced me to a state of miserable helplessness,
and I lay down, resigned to whatever might happen. After three or four
hours, I was told we were nearly over; but when I got up, two hours
later, just as the sun was setting, I found we were still a good
distance from the point, owing to a strong current which had been for
some time against us. Night closed in, and the wind drew more ahead,
so we had to take in sail. Then came a calm, and we rowed and sailed
as occasion offered; and it was four in the morning when we reached the
village of Kisslwoi, not having made more than three miles in the last
twelve hours.

MATABELLO ISLANDS.

At daylight I found we were; in a beautiful little harbour, formed by a
coral reef about two hundred yards from shore, and perfectly secure in
every wind. Having eaten nothing since the previous morning, we cooked
our breakfast comfortably on shore, and left about noon, coasting along
the two islands of this group, which lie in the same line, and are
separated by a narrow channel. Both seem entirely formed of raised
coral rock; but them has been a subsequent subsidence, as shaven by the
barrier reef which extends all along them at varying distances from the
shore, This reef is sometimes only marked by a. line of breakers when
there is a little swell on the sea; in other places there is a ridge
of dead coral above the water, which is here and there high enough to
support a few low bushes. This was the first example I had met with of a
true barrier reef due to subsidence, as has been so clearly shown by Mr.
Darwin. In a sheltered archipelago they will seldom be distinguishable,
from the absence of those huge rolling waves and breakers which in
the wide ocean throw up a barrier of broken coral far above the usual
high-water mark, while here they rarely rise to the surface.

On reaching the end of the southern island, called Uta, we were kept
waiting two days for a wind that would enable us to pass over to the
next island, Teor, and I began to despair of ever reaching Ke, and
determined on returning. We left with a south wind, which suddenly
changed to north-east, and induced me to turn again southward in the
hopes that this was the commencement of a few days' favourable weather.
We sailed on very well in the direction of Teor for about an hour,
after which the wind shifted to WSW., and we were driven much out of our
course, and at nightfall found ourselves in the open sea, and full
ten miles to leeward of our destination. My men were now all very much
frightened, for if we went on we might be a. week at sea in our little
open boat, laden almost to the water's edge; or we might drift on to
the coast of New Guinea, in which case we should most likely all be
murdered. I could not deny these probabilities, and although I showed
them that we could not get back to our starting-point with the wind
as it was, they insisted upon returning. We accordingly put about, and
found that we could lay no nearer to Uta than to Teor; however, by great
good luck, about ten o'clock we hit upon a little coral island, and lay
under its lee till morning, when a favourable change of wind brought us
back to Uta, and by evening (April 18th) we reached our first anchorage
in Matabello, where I resolved to stay a few days, and then return to
Goram. It way with much regret that I gave up my trip to Ke and the
intervening islands, which I had looked forward to as likely to make up
for my disappointment in Ceram, since my short visit on my voyage to Aru
had produced me so many rare and beautiful insects.

The natives of Matabello are almost entirely occupied in making cocoanut
oil, which they sell to the Bugis and Goram traders, who carry it to
Banda and Amboyna. The rugged coral rock seems very favourable to the
growth of the cocoa-nut palm, which abounds over the whole island to the
very highest points, and produces fruit all the year round. Along with
it are great numbers of the areca or betel-nut palm, the nuts of which
are sliced, dried, and ground into a paste, which is much used by the
betel-chewing Malays and Papuans. All the little children here even
such as can just run alone, carried between their lips a mass of the
nasty-looking red paste, which is even more disgusting than to see them
at the same age smoking cigars, which is very common even before they
are weaned. Cocoa-nuts, sweet potatoes, an occasional sago cake, and the
refuse nut after the oil has been extracted by boiling, form the chief
sustenance of these people; and the effect of this poor and unwholesome
diet is seen in the frequency of eruptions and scurfy skin diseases, and
the numerous sores that disfigure the faces of the children.

The villages are situated on high and rugged coral peaks, only
accessible by steep narrow paths, with ladders and bridges over yawning
chasms. They are filthy with rotten husks and oil refuse, and the huts
are dark, greasy, and dirty in the extreme. The people are wretched
ugly dirty savages, clothed in unchanged rags, and living in the most
miserable manner, and as every drop of fresh water has to be brought
up from the beach, washing is never thought of; yet they are actually
wealthy, and have the means of purchasing all the necessaries and
luxuries of life. Fowls are abundant, and eggs were given me whenever
I visited the villages, but these are never eaten, being looked upon
as pets or as merchandise. Almost all of the women wear massive gold
earrings, and in every village there are dozens of small bronze cannon
lying about on the ground, although they have cost on the average
perhaps £10 a piece. The chief men of each village came to visit me,
clothed in robes of silk and flowered satin, though their houses and
their daily fare are no better than those of the ether inhabitants. What
a contrast between these people and such savages as the best tribes of
bill. Dyaks in Borneo, or the Indians of the Uaupes in South America,
living on the banks of clear streams, clean in their persons and their
houses, with abundance of wholesome food, and exhibiting its effect in
healthy shins and beauty of form and feature! There is in fact almost
as much difference: between the various races of savage as of civilized
peoples, and we may safely affirm that the better specimens of the
former are much superior to the lower examples of the latter class.

One of the few luxuries of Matabello is the palm wine; which is the
fermented sap from the flower stains of the cocoa-net. It is really a
very mice drink, more like cyder than beer, though quite as intoxicating
as the latter. Young cocoa-nuts are also very abundant, so that anywhere
in the island it is only necessary to go a few yards to find a delicious
beverage by climbing up a tree for it. It is the water of the young
fruit that is drunk, before the pulp has hardened; it is then more
abundant, clear, and refreshing, and the thin coating of gelatinous pulp
is thought a treat luxury. The water of full-brown cocoa-nuts is always
thrown away as undrinkable, although it is delicious in comparison with
that of the old dry nuts which alone we obtain in this country. The
cocoa-nut pulp I did not like at first; but fruits are so scarce, except
at particular seasons, that one soon learns to appreciate anything of a
fruity nature.

Many persons in Europe are under the impression that fruits of delicious
flavour abound in the tropical forests, and they will no doubt be
surprised to learn that the truly wild fruits of this brand and
luxuriant archipelago, the vegetation of which will vie with that of any
part of the world, are in almost every island inferior in abundance and
duality to those of Britain. Wild strawberries and raspberries are found
in some places, but they are such poor tasteless things as to be hardly
worth eating, and there is nothing to compare with our blackberries and
whortleberries. The kanary-nut may be considered equal to a hazel-nut,
but I have met with nothing else superior to our crabs, oar haws,
beech-nuts, wild plums, and acorns; fruits which would be highly
esteemed by the natives of these islands, and would form an important
part of their sustenance. All the fine tropical fruits are as much
cultivated productions as our apples, peaches, and plums, and their wild
prototypes, when found, are generally either tasteless or uneatable.

The people of Matabello, like those of most of the Mahometan villages of
East Ceram and Goram, amused me much by their strange ideas concerning
the Russian war. They believe that the Russians were not only most
thoroughly beaten by the Turks, but were absolutely conquered, and all
converted to Islamism! And they can hardly be convinced that such is
not the case, and that had it not been for the assistance of France and
England, the poor Sultan world have fared ill. Another of their motions
is, that the Turks are the largest and strongest people in the world--in
fact a race of giants; that they eat enormous quantities of meat, and
are a most ferocious and irresistible nation. Whence such strangely
incorrect opinions could have arisen it is difficult to understand,
unless they are derived from Arab priests, or hadjis returned from
Mecca, who may have heard of the ancient prowess of the Turkish armies
when they made all Europe tremble, and suppose that their character and
warlike capacity must be the same at the present time.

GORAM

A steady south-east wind having set in, we returned to Manowolko on
the 25th of April, and the day after crossed over to Ondor, the chief
village of Goram.

Around this island extends, with few interruptions, an encircling coral
reef about a quarter of a mile from the shore, visible as a stripe of
pale green water, but only at very lowest ebb-tides showing any rock
above the surface. There are several deep entrances through this reef,
and inside it there is hood anchorage in all weathers. The land rises
gradually to a moderate height, and numerous small streams descend on
all sides. The mere existence of these streams would prove that the
island was not entirely coralline, as in that case all the water would
sink through the porous rock as it does at Manowolko and Matabello; but
we have more positive proof in the pebbles and stones of their beds,
which exhibit a variety of stratified crystalline rocks. About a hundred
yards from the beach rises a wall of coral rock, ten or twenty feet
high, above which is an undulating surface of rugged coral, which slopes
downward towards the interior, and then after a slight ascent is bounded
by a second wall of coral. Similar walls occur higher up, and coral is
found on the highest part of the island.

This peculiar structure teaches us that before the coral was formed land
existed in this spot; that this land sunk gradually beneath the waters,
but with intervals of rest, during which encircling reef's were formed
around it at different elevations; that it then rose to above its
present elevation, and is now again sinking. We infer this, because
encircling reefs are a proof of subsidence; and if the island were again
elevated about a hundred feet, what is now the reef and the shallow sea
within it would form a wall of coral rock, and an undulating coralline
plain, exactly similar to those that still exist at various altitudes up
to the summit of the island. We learn also that these changes have taken
place at a comparatively recent epoch, for the surface of the coral
has scarcely suffered from the action of the weather, and hundreds of
sea-shells, exactly resembling those still found upon the beach, and
many of them retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered
over the surface of the island to near its summit.

Whether the Goram group formed originally part of New Guinea or of Ceram
it is scarcely possible to determine, and its productions will throw
little light upon the question, if, as I suppose, the islands have been
entirely submerged within the epoch of existing species of animals,
as in that case it must owe its present fauna and flora to recent
immigration from surrounding lands; and with this view its poverty in
species very well agrees. It possesses much in common with East Ceram,
but at the same time has a good deal of resemblance to the Ke Islands
and Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Ke, Banda,
Il-Iatabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinct species, C.
neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islands have also a common
facies--facts which seem to indicate that some more extensive land has
recently disappeared from the area they now occupy, and has supplied
them with a few of its peculiar productions.

The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a race of traders.
Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, and Aru Islands, the whole
north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanata to Salwatty, and the island
of Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend their voyages to Tidore and
Ternate, as well as to Banda and Amboyna, Their praus are all made by
that wonderful race of boatbuilders, the Ke islanders, who annually
turn out some hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be
surpassed for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship, They trade
chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nutmegs, and
tortoiseshell, which they sell to the Bugis traders at Ceram-laut or
Aru, few of them caring to take their products to any other market. In
other respects they are a lazy race, living very poorly, and much given
to opium smoking. The only native manufactures are sail-matting, coarse
cotton cloth, and pandanus-leaf boxes, prettily stained and ornamented
with shell-work.

In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are about a
dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the inhabitants, and
exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any order is received from
the Dutch Government, when, being backed by a higher power, they show
a little more strict authority. My friend the Rajah of Ammer (commonly
called Rajah of Goram) told me that a few years ago, before the Dutch
had interfered in the affairs of the island, the trade was not carried
on so peaceably as at present, rival praus often fighting when on the
way to the same locality, or trafficking in the same village. Now such a
thing is never thought of-one of the good effects of the superintendence
of a civilized government. Disputes between villages are still, however,
sometimes settled by fighting, and I one day saw about fifty men,
carrying long guns and heavy cartridge-belts, march through the village.
They had come from the other side of the island on some question
of trespass or boundary, and were prepared for war if peaceable
negotiations should fail.

While at Manowolko I had purchased for 100 florins (£9.) a small prau,
which was brought over the next day, as I was informed it was more
easy to have the necessary alterations made in Goram, where several Ke
workmen were settled.

As soon as we began getting my prau ready I was obliged to give up
collecting, as I found that unless I was constantly on the spot myself
very little work would be clone. As I proposed making some long voyages
in this boat, I determined to fit it up conveniently, and was obliged to
do all the inside work myself, assisted by my two Amboynese boys. I
had plenty of visitors, surprised to see a white man at work, and much
astonished at the novel arrangements I was making in one of their native
vessels. Luckily I had a few tools of my own, including a small saw and
some chisels, and these were now severely tried, cutting and fitting
heavy iron-wood planks for the flooring and the posts that support the
triangular mast. Being of the best London make, they stood the work
well, and without them it would have been impossible for me to have
finished my boat with half the neatness, or in double the time. I had
a Ke workman to put in new ribs, for which I bought nails of a Bugis
trader, at 8d. a pound. My gimlets were, however, too small; and having
no augers we were obliged to bore all the holes with hot irons, a most
tedious and unsatisfactory operation.

Five men had engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then go with
me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate. Their ideas of work were, however,
very different from mine, and I had immense difficulty with them; seldom
more than two or three coming together, and a hundred excuses being
given for working only half a day when they did come. Yet they were
constantly begging advances of money, saying they had nothing to eat.
When I gave it them they were sure to stay away the next day, and when I
refused any further advances some of them declined working any more. As
the boat approached completion my difficulties with the men increased.
The uncle of one had commenced a war, or sort of faction fight, and
wanted his assistance; another's wife was ill, and would not let him
come; a third had fever and ague, and pains in his head and back; and
a fourth had an inexorable creditor who would not let him go out of his
sight. They had all received a month's wages in advance; and though the
amount was not large, it was necessary to make them pay it back, or I
should get any men at all. I therefore sent the village constable
after two, and kept them in custody a day, when they returned about
three-fourths of what they owed me. The sick man also paid, and the
steersman found a substitute who was willing to take his debt, and
receive only the balance of his wages.

About this time we had a striking proof of the dangers of New Guinea
trading. Six men arrived at the village in a small boat almost starved,
having escaped out of two praus, the remainder of whose crews (fourteen
in number) had been murdered by the natives of New Guinea. The praus had
left this village a few months before, and among the murdered men were
the Rajah's son, and the relation or slaves of many of the inhabitants.
The cry of lamentation that arose when the news arrived was most
distressing. A score of women, who had lost husbands, brothers, sons,
or more distant relatives, set up at once the most dismal shrieks and
groans and wailings, which continued at intervals till late at night;
and as the chief houses in the village were crowded together round that
which I occupied, our situation was anything but agreeable.

It seems that the village where the attack took place (nearly opposite
the small island of Lakahia) is known to be dangerous, and the vessels
had only gone there a few days before to buy some tripang. The crew were
living on shore, the praus being in a small river close by, and they
were attacked and murdered in the day-time while bargaining with the
Papuans. The six men who survived were on board the praus, and escaped
by at once setting into the small boat and rowing out to sea.

This south-west part of New Guinea, known to the native traders as
"Papua Kowiyee" and "Papua Onen," is inhabited by the most treacherous
and bloodthirsty tribes. It is in these districts that the commanders
and portions of the crews of many of the early discovery ships were
murdered, and scarcely a year now passes but some lives are lost. The
Goram and Ceram traders are themselves generally inoffensive; they are
well acquainted with the character of these natives, and are not likely
to provoke an attack by any insults or open attempt at robbery or
imposition. They are accustomed to visit the same places every year, and
the natives can have no fear of them, as may be alleged in excuse for
their attacks on Europeans. In other extensive districts inhabited by
the same Papuan races, such as Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and some
parts of the adjacent coast, the people have taken the first step in
civilization, owing probably to the settlement of traders of mixed breed
among them, and for many years no such attacks have taken place. On the
south-west coast, and in the large island of Jobie, however, the natives
are in a very barbarous condition, and tale every opportunity of robbery
and murder,--a habit which is confirmed by the impunity they experience,
owing to the vast extent of wild mountain and forest country forbidding
all pursuit or attempt at punishment. In the very same village, four
years before, more than fifty Goram men were murdered; and as
these savages obtain an immense booty in the praus and all their
appurtenances, it is to be feared that such attacks will continue to be
made at intervals as long as traders visit the same spots and attempt no
retaliation. Punishment could only be inflicted on these people by
very arbitrary measures, such as by obtaining possession of some of the
chiefs by stratagem, and rendering them responsible for the capture of
the murderers at the peril of their own heads. But anything of this kind
would be done contrary to the system adopted by the Dutch Government in
its dealings with natives.

GORAM TO WAHAI IN CERAM.

When my boat was at length launched and loaded, I got my men together,
and actually set sail the next day (May 27th), much to the astonishment
of the Goram people, to whom such punctuality was a novelty. I had a
crew of three men and a boy, besides my two Amboyna lads; which was
sufficient for sailing, though rather too few if obliged to row much.
The next day was very wet, with squalls, calms, and contrary winds, and
with some difficulty we reached Kilwaru, the metropolis of the Bugis
traders in the far East. As I wanted to make some purchases, I stayed
here two days, and sent two of my boxes of specimens by a Macassar prau
to be forwarded to Ternate, thus relieving myself of a considerable
incumbrance. I bought knives, basins, and handkerchiefs for barter,
which with the choppers, cloth, and beads I had brought with me, made
a pretty good assortment. I also bought two tower muskets to satisfy my
crew, who insisted on the necessity of being armed against attacks
of pirates; and with spices and a few articles of food for the voyage
nearly my last doit was expended.

The little island of Kilwaru is a mere sandbank, just large enough to
contain a small village, and situated between the islands of Ceram-laut,
and Kissa--straits about a third of a mile wide separating it from each
of them. It is surrounded by coral reefs, and offers good anchorage in
both monsoons. Though not more than fifty yards across, and not elevated
more than three or four feet above the highest tides, it has wells of
excellent drinking water--a singular phenomenon, which would seem
to imply deep-seated subterranean channels connecting it with other
islands. These advantages, with its situation in the centre of the
Papuan trading district, lead to its being so much frequented by the
Bugis traders. Here the Goram men bring the produce of their little
voyages, which they exchange for cloth, sago cakes, and opium; and
the inhabitants of all the surrounding islands visit it with the game
object. It is the rendezvous of the praus trading to various parts of
New Guinea, which here assort and dry their cargoes, and refit for the
voyage home. Tripang and mussoi bark are the most bulky articles of
produce brought here, with wild nutmegs, tortoiseshell, pearls, and
birds of Paradise; in smaller quantities. The villagers of the mainland
of Ceram bring their sago, which is thus distributed to the islands
farther east, while rice from Bali and Macassar can also be purchased at
a moderate price. The Goram men come here for their supplies of opium,
both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and Waigiou,
where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and wealthy men are
passionately fond of it. Schooners from Bali come to buy Papuan slaves,
while the sea-wandering Bugis arrive from distant Singapore in their
lumbering praus, bringing thence the produce of the Chinamen's
workshops and Kling's bazaar, as well as of the looms of Lancashire and
Massachusetts.

One of the Bugis traders who had arrived a few days before from Mysol,
brought me news of my assistant Charles Allen, with whom he was well
acquainted, and who, he assured me; was making large collections of
birds and insects, although he had not obtained any birds of Paradise;
Silinta, where he was staying, not being a good place for them. This
was on the whole satisfactory, and I was anxious to reach him as soon as
possible.

Leaving Kilwaru early in the morning of June 1st, with a strong east
wind we doubled the point of Ceram about noon, the heavy sea causing my
prau to roll abort a good deal, to the damage of our crockery. As bad
weather seemed coming on, we got inside the reefs and anchored opposite
the village of Warns-warns to wait for a change.

The night was very squally, and though in a good harbour we rolled and
jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater cause for uneasiness
in the discovery that our entire Goram crew had decamped, taking with
them all they possessed and a little more, and leaving us without any
small boat in which to land. I immediately told my Amboyna men to load
and fire the muskets as a signal of distress, which was soon answered
by the village chief sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I
requested that messengers should be immediately sent to the neighbouring
villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My prau was
brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest in the mud at
low water, and part of a house was given me in which T could stay for
a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, just when I
thought I had overcome my chief difficulties. As I had treated my men
with the greatest kindness, and had given them almost everything they
had asked for, I can impute their running away only to their being
totally unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and to some
undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The oldest man
was an opium smoker, and a reputed thief, but I had been obliged to take
him at the last moment as a substitute for another. I feel sure it was
he who induced the others to run away, and as they knew the country
well, and had several hours' start of us, there was little chance of
catching them.

We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram which supplies
most of the surrounding islands with their daily bread, and during our
week's delay I had an opportunity of seeing the whole process of making
it, and obtaining some interesting statistics. The sago tree is a palm,
thicker and larger than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and
having immense pinnate spiny leaves, which completely cover the trunk
till it is many years old. It has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa
palm, and when about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense
terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies. It grows in
swamps, or in swampy hollows on the rocky slopes of hills, where it
seems to thrive equally well as when exposed to the influx of salt or
brackish water. The midribs of the immense leaves form one of the most
useful articles in these lands, supplying the place of bamboo, to which
for many purposes they are superior. They are twelve or fifteen feet
long, and, when very fine, as thick in the lower part as a man's leg.
They are very light, consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with
a hard thin rind or bark. Entire houses are built of these; they form
admirable roofing-poles for thatch; split and well-supported, they do
for flooring; and when chosen of equal size, and pegged together side
by side to fill up the panels of framed wooden horses, they have a very
neat appearance, and make better walls and partitions than boards, as
they do not shrink, require no paint or varnish, and are not a quarter
the expense. When carefully split and shaved smooth they are formed into
light boards with pegs of the bark itself, and are the foundation of the
leaf-covered boxes of Goram. All the insect-boxes I used in the Moluccas
were thus made at Amboyna, and when covered with stout paper inside and
out, are strong, light, and secure the insect-pins remarkably well. The
leaflet of the sago folded and tied side by side on the smaller midribs
form the "atap" or thatch in universal use, while the product of the
trunk is the staple food of some= hundred thousands of men.

When sago is to be made, a full-grown tree is selected just before it
is going to flower. It is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and
leafstalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken off the
upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is of
a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure white,
about as hard as a dry apple, but with woody fibre running through it
about a quarter of an inch apart. This pith is cut or broken down into a
coarse powder by means of a tool constructed for the purpose--a club of
hard and heavy wood, having a piece of sharp quartz rock firmly imbedded
into its blunt end, and projecting about half an inch. By successive
blows of this, narrow strips of the pith are cut away, and fall down
into the cylinder formed by the bark. Proceeding steadily on, the whole
trunk is cleared out, leaving a skin not more than half an inch in
thickness. This material is carried away (in baskets made of
the sheathing bases of the leaves) to the nearest water, where a
washing-machine is put up, which is composed almost entirely of the saga
tree itself. The large sheathing bases of the leaves form the troughs,
and the fibrous covering from the leaf-stalks of the young cocoa-nut
the strainer. Water is poured on the mass of pith, which is kneaded and
pressed against the strainer till the starch is all dissolved and has
passed through, when the fibrous refuse is thrown away, and a fresh
basketful put in its place. The water charged with sago starch passes
on to a trough, with a depression in the centre, where the sediment is
deposited, the surplus water trickling off by a shallow outlet. When the
trough is nearly full, the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish
tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and neatly
covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago.

Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather
astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread
is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small
clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about
three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches square. The raw
sago is broken up, dried in the sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The
oven is heated over a clear fire of embers, and is lightly filled with
the sago-powder. The openings are then covered with a flat piece of sago
bark, and in about five minutes the cakes are turned out sufficiently
baked. The hot cakes are very nice with butter, and when made with the
addition of a little sugar and grated cocoa-nut are quite a delicacy.
They are soft, and something like corn-flour cakes, but leave a slight
characteristic flavour which is lost in the refined sago we use in this
country. When not wanted for immediate use, they are dried for several
days in the sun, and tied up in bundles of twenty. They will then keep
for years; they are very hard, and very rough and dry, but the people
are used to them from infancy, and little children may be seen gnawing
at them as contentedly as ours with their bread-and-butter. If dipped in
water and then toasted, they become almost as good as when fresh baked;
and thus treated they were my daily substitute for bread with my coffee.
Soaked and boiled they make a very good pudding or vegetable, and served
well to economize our rice, which is sometimes difficult to get so far
east.

It is truly an extraordinary sight to witness a whole tree-trunk,
perhaps twenty feet long and four or five in circumference, converted
into food with so little labour and preparation. A good-sized tree will
produce thirty tomans or bundles of thirty pounds each, and each toman
will make sixty cakes of three to the pound. Two of these cakes are as
much as a man can eat at one meal, and five are considered a full day's
allowance; so that, reckoning a tree to produce 1,800 cakes, weighing
600 pounds, it will supply a man with food for a whole year. The labour
to produce this is very moderate. Two men will finish a tree in five
days, and two women will bake the whole into cakes in five days more;
but the raw sago will keep very well, and can be baked as wanted, so
that we may estimate that in ten days a man may produce food for the
whole year. This is on the supposition that he possesses sago trees of
his own, for they are now all private property. If he does not, he has
to pay about seven and sixpence for one; and as labour here is five
pence a day, the total cost of a year's food for one man is about
twelve shillings. The effect of this cheapness of food is decidedly
prejudicial, for the inhabitants of the sago countries are never so
well off as those where rice is cultivated. Many of the people here have
neither vegetables nor fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and a
little fish. Having few occupations at home, they wander about on petty
trading or fishing expeditions to the neighbouring islands; and as far
as the comforts of life are concerned, are much inferior to the wild
hill-Dyaks of Borneo, or to many of the more barbarous tribes of the
Archipelago.

The country round Warus-warus is low and swampy, and owing to the
absence of cultivation there were scarcely any paths leading into the
forest. I was therefore unable to collect much during my enforced stay,
and found no rare birds or insects to improve my opinion of Ceram as
a collecting ground. Finding it quite impossible to get men here to
accompany me on the whole voyage, I was obliged to be content with a
crew to take me as far as Wahai, on the middle of the north coast of
Ceram, and the chief Dutch station in the island. The journey took
us five days, owing to calms and light winds, and no incident of any
interest occurred on it, nor did I obtain at our stopping places a
single addition to my collections worth naming. At Wahai, which I
reached on the 15th of June, I was hospitably received by the Commandant
and my old friend Herr Rosenberg, who was now on an official visit here.
He lent me some money to pay my men, and I was lucky enough to obtain
three others willing to make the voyage with me to Ternate, and one more
who was to return from Mysol. One of my Amboyna lads, however, left me,
so that I was still rather short of hands.

I found here a letter from Charles Allen, who was at Silinta in Mysol,
anxiously expecting me, as he was out of rice and other necessaries, and
was short of insect-pins. He was also ill, and if I did not soon come
would return to Wahai.

As my voyage from this place to Waigiou was among islands inhabited by
the Papuan race, and was an eventful and disastrous one, I will narrate
its chief incidents in a separate chapter in that division of my work
devoted to the Papuan Islands. I now have to pass over a year spent in
Waigiou and Timor, in order to describe my visit to the island of Bouru,
which concluded my explorations of the Moluccas.



CHAPTER XXVI. BOURU.

MAY AND JUNE 1861.

I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due
west of Ceram, and of which scarcely anything appeared to be known
to naturalists, except that it contained a babirusa very like that of
Celebes. I therefore made arrangements for staying there two months
after leaving Timor Delli in 1861. This I could conveniently do by means
of the Dutch mail-steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas.

We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired,
the Commandant of the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive
the post-packet, and took me and my baggage on shore, the steamer going
off again without coming to an anchor. We went to the horse of the
Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna--Bouru being too poor a place
to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village
was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency
the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat
brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese
soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in
comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous
staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major. Yet this, as well as most
of the forts in the Moluccas, was originally built by the Portuguese
themselves. Oh! Lusitania, how art thou fallen!

While the Opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk round
the village with a guide in search of a horse. The whole place was
dreadfully damp and muddy, being built in a swamp with not a spot of
ground raised a foot above it, and surrounded by swamps on every side.
The houses were mostly well built, of wooden framework filled in with
gaba-gaba (leaf-stems of the sago-palm), but as they had no whitewash,
and the floors were of bare black earth like the roads, and generally on
the same level, they were extremely damp and gloomy. At length I found
one with the floor raised about a foot, and succeeded in making a
bargain with the owner to turn out immediately, so that by night I had
installed myself comfortably. The chairs and tables were left for me;
and as the whole of the remaining furniture in the house consisted of a
little crockery and a few clothes-boxes, it was not much trouble for the
owners to move into the house of some relatives, and thus obtain a
few silver rupees very easily. Every foot of ground between the homes
throughout the village is crammed with fruit trees, so that the sun and
air have no chance of penetrating. This must be very cool and pleasant
in the dry season, but makes it damp and unhealthy at other times of the
year. Unfortunately I had come two months too soon, for the rains were
not yet over, and mud and water were the prominent features of the
country.

About a mile behind and to the east of the village the hills commence,
but they are very barren, being covered with scanty coarse grass and
scattered trees of the Melaleuca cajuputi, from the leaves of which the
celebrated cajeput oil is made. Such districts are absolutely destitute
of interest for the zoologist. A few miles further on rose higher
mountains, apparently well covered with forest, but they were entirely
uninhabited and trackless, and practically inaccessible to a traveller
with limited time and means. It became evident, therefore, that I must
leave Cajeli for some better collecting ground, and finding a man who
was going a few miles eastward to a village on the coast where he said
there were hills and forest, I sent my boy Ali with him to explore and
report on the capabilities of the district. At the same time I arranged
to go myself on a little excursion up a river which flows into the bay
about five miles north of the town, to a village of the Alfuros, or
indigenes, where I thought I might perhaps find a good collecting
ground.

The Rajah of Cajeli, a good-tempered old man, offered to accompany me,
as the village was under his government; and we started one morning
early, in a long narrow boat with eight rowers. In about two hours
we entered the river, and commenced our inland journey against a very
powerful current. The stream was about a hundred yards wide, and
was generally bordered with high grass, and occasionally bushes and
palm-trees. The country round was flat and more or less swampy, with
scattered trees and shrubs. At every bend we crossed the river to avoid
the strength of the current, and arrived at our landing-place about
four o'clock in a torrent of rain. Here we waited for an hour, crouching
under a leaky mat till the Alfuros arrived who had been sent for from
the village to carry my baggage, when we set off along a path of whose
extreme muddiness I had been warned before starting.

I turned up my trousers as high as possible, grasped a stoat stick to
prevent awkward falls, and then boldly plunged into the first mud-hole,
which was immediately succeeded by another and another. The marl or mud
and water was knee-deep with little intervals of firmer ground between,
making progression exceedingly difficult. The path was bordered with
high rigid grass, brewing in dense clumps separated by water, so that
nothing was to be gained by leaving the beaten track, and we were
obliged to go floundering on, never knowing where our feet would rest,
as the mud was now a few inches, now two feet deep, and the bottom
very uneven, so that the foot slid down to the lowest part, and made
it difficult to keep one's balance. One step would be upon a concealed
stick or log, almost dislocating the ankle, while the next would plunge
into soft mud above the knee. It rained all the way, and the long grass,
six feet high, met over the path; so that we could not see a step of the
way ahead, and received a double drenching. Before we got to the village
it was dark, and we had to cross over a small but deep and swollen
stream by a narrow log of wood, which was more than a foot under water.
There was a slender shaking stick for a handrail, and it was nervous
work feeling in the dark in the rushing water for a safe place on which
to place the advanced foot. After au hour of this most disagreeable
and fatiguing walk we reached the village, followed by the men with
our guns, ammunition, boxes, and bedding all more or less soaked. We
consoled ourselves with some hot tea and cold fowl, and went early to
bed.

The next morning was clear and fine, and I set out soon after sunrise to
explore the neighbourhood. The village had evidently been newly formed,
and consisted of a single straight street of very miserable huts totally
deficient in every comfort, and as bare and cheerless inside as out. It
was situated on a little elevated patch of coarse gravelly soil, covered
with the usual high rigid grass, which came up close to the backs of
the houses. At a short distance in several directions were patches of
forest, but all on low and swampy ground. I made one attempt along the
only path I could find, but soon came upon a deep mud-hole, and found
that I must walk barefoot if at all; so I returned and deferred further
exploration till after breakfast. I then went on into the jungle and
found patches of sago-palms and a low forest vegetation, but the paths
were everywhere full of mud-holes, and intersected by muddy streams
and tracts of swamp, so that walking was not pleasurable, and too much
attention to one's steps was not favourable to insect catching, which
requires above everything freedom of motion. I shot a few birds,
and caught a few butterflies, but all were the same as I had already
obtained about Cajeli.

On my return to the village I was told that the same kind of ground
extended for many miles in every direction, and I at once decided that
Wayapo was not a suitable place to stay at. The next morning early we
waded back again through the mud and long wet grass to our boat, and
by mid-day reached Cajeli, where I waited Ali's return to decide on my
future movements. He came the following day, and gave a very bad account
of Pelah, where he had been. There was a little brush and trees along
the beach, and hills inland covered with high grass and cajuputi
trees--my dread and abhorrence. On inquiring who could give me
trustworthy information, I was referred to the Lieutenant of the
Burghers, who had travelled all round the island, and was a very
intelligent fellow. I asked him to tell me if he knew of any part of
Bouru where there was no "kusu-kusu," as the coarse grass of the country
is called. He assured me that a good deal of the south coast was forest
land, while along the north was almost entirely swamp and grassy hills.
After minute inquiries, I found that the forest country commenced at a
place called Waypoti, only a few miles beyond Pelah, but that, as the
coast beyond that place was exposed to the east monsoon and dangerous
for praus, it was necessary to walk. I immediately went to the Opzeiner,
and he called the Rajah. We had a consultation, and arranged for a boat
to take me the next evening but one, to Pelah, whence I was to proceed
on foot, the Orang-kaya going the day before to call the Alfuros to
carry my baggage.

The journey was made as arranged, and on May 19th we arrived at Waypoti,
having walked about ten miles along the beach, and through stony forest
bordering the sea, with occasional plunges of a mile or two into the
interior. We found no village, but scattered houses and plantations,
with hilly country pretty well covered with forest, and looking rather
promising. A low hut with a very rotten roof, showing the sky through in
several places, was the only one I could obtain. Luckily it did not rain
that night, and the next day we pulled down some of the walls to repair
the roof, which was of immediate importance, especially over our beds
and table.

About half a mile from the house was a fine mountain stream, running
swiftly over a bed of rocks and pebbles, and beyond this was a hill
covered with fine forest. By carefully picking my way I could wade
across this river without getting much above my knees, although I would
sometimes slip off a rock and go into a hole up to my waist, and
about twice a week I went across it in order to explore the forest.
Unfortunately there were no paths here of any extent, and it did
not prove very productive either in insects or birds. To add to my
difficulties I had stupidly left my only pair of strong hoots on board
the steamer, and my others were by this time all dropping to pieces,
so that I was obliged to walk about barefooted, and in constant fear of
hurting my feet, and causing a wound which might lay me up for weeks,
as had happened in Borneo, Are, and Dorey. Although there were numerous
plantations of maize and plantains, there were no new clearings; and as
without these it is almost impossible to find many of the best kinds
of insects, I determined to make one myself, and with much difficulty
engaged two men to clear a patch of forest, from which I hoped to obtain
many fine beetles before I left.

During the whole of my stay, however, insects never became plentiful. My
clearing produced me a few fine, longicorns and Buprestidae, different
from any I had before seen, together with several of the Amboyna
species, but by no means so numerous or, so beautiful as I had found in
that small island. For example, I collected only 210 different kinds
of beetles during my two months' stay at Bourn, while in three weeks
at Amboyna, in 1857, I found more than 300 species: One of the finest
insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut
colour, and with very long antennae. It varied greatly in size, the
largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only
an inch, the antenna varying from one and a half to five inches.

One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking
through some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a
small fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, and far
to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of the herbage. He
jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good
vies of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being
dragged along through the grass. As he lead several times already shot
large snakes, which he declared were all as nothing compared with
this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. Such
creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man living close by showed
me on his thigh the marks where he had been seized by one close to his
house. It was big enough to take the man's thigh in its mouth, and he
would probably have been killed and devoured by it had not his cries
brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their choppers. As
far as I could make out it was about twenty feet long, but Ali's was
probably much larger.

It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have taken
possession of it, a native hut seems quite a comfortable home. My house
at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a large bamboo platform at one side. At
one end of this platform, which was elevated about three feet, I fixed
up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with a large Scotch
plaid, making a comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a
rude table on legs buried in the earthen floor, and had my comfortable
rattan-chair for a seat. A line across one corner carried my
daily-washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my
small stock of crockery and hardware: Boxes were ranged against the
thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections from ants
while drying, were suspended both without and within the house. On my
table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers, and pins, with insect and
bird labels, all of which were unsolved mysteries to the native mind.

Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and the better
informed took a pride in teaching their more ignorant companions the
peculiarities and uses of that strange European production--a needle
with a head, but no eye! Even paper, which we throw away hourly as
rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them picking up little
scraps which had been swept out of the house, and carefully putting
them away in their betel-pouch. Then when I took my morning coffee and
evening tea, how many were the strange things displayed to them! Teapot,
teacups, teaspoons, were all more or less curious in their eyes; tea,
sugar, biscuit, and butter, were articles of human consumption seen
by many of them for the first time. One asks if that whitish powder is
"gula passir" (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse
lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the biscuit is
considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the inhabitants of those
remote regions are obliged to use in the absence of the genuine article.
My pursuit, were of course utterly beyond their comprehension. They
continually asked me what white people did with the birds and insects I
tools so much care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they
might perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and files and small ugly
insects put away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and they were
convinced that there must be some medical or magical use for them
which I kept a profound secret. These people were in fact as completely
unacquainted with civilized life as the Indians of the Rocky Mountains,
or the savages of Central Africa--yet a steamship, that highest triumph
of human ingenuity, with its little floating epitome of European
civilization, touches monthly at Cajeli, twenty miles off; while at
Amboyna, only sixty miles distant, a European population and government
have been established for more than three hundred years.

Having seen a good many of the natives of Bouru from different villages,
and from distant parts of the island, I feel convinced that they consist
of two distinct races now partially amalgamated. The larger portion are
Malays of the Celebes type, often exactly similar to the Tomóre
people of East Celebes, whom I found settled in Batchian; while others
altogether resemble the Alfuros of Ceram.

The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The Sula Islands,
which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach to within forty
miles of the north coast of Bouru, while the island of Manipa offers an
easy point of departure for the people of Ceram. I was confirmed in
this view by finding that the languages of Bouru possessed distinct
resemblances to that of Sula, as well as to those of Ceram.

Soon after we had arrived at Waypoti, Ali had seen a beautiful little
bird of the genus Pitta, which I was very anxious to obtain, as in
almost every island the species are different, and none were yet known
from Bourn. He and my other hunter continued to see it two or three
times a week, and to hear its peculiar note much oftener, but could
never get a specimen, owing to its always frequenting the most dense
thorny thickets, where only hasty glimpses of it could be obtained, and
at so short a distance that it would be difficult to avoid blowing
the bird to pieces. Ali was very much annoyed that he could not get a
specimen of this bird, in going after which he had already severely,
wounded his feet with thorns; and when we had only two days more to
stay, he went of his own accord one evening to sleep at a little but
in the forest some miles off, in order to have a last try for it at
daybreak, when many birds come out to feed, and are very intent on their
morning meal. The next evening he brought me home two specimens, one
with the head blown completely off, and otherwise too much injured to
preserve, the other in very good order, and which I at once saw to be
a new species, very like the Pitta celebensis, but ornamented with a
square patch of bright red on the nape of the neck.

The next day after securing this prize we returned to Cajeli, and
packing up my collections left Bouru by the steamer. During our two
days' stay at Ternate, I took on board what baggage I had left there,
and bade adieu to all my friends. We then crossed over to Menado, on
our way to Macassar and Java, and I finally quitted the Moluccas, among
whose luxuriant and beautiful islands I had wandered for more than three
years.

My collections in Bouru, though not extensive, were of considerable
interest; for out of sixty-six species of birds which I collected there,
no less than seventeen were new, or had not been previously found in any
island of the Moluccas. Among these were two kingfishers, Tanysiptera
acis and Ceyx Cajeli; a beautiful sunbird, Nectarines proserpina; a
handsome little black and white flycatcher, Monarcha loricata, whose
swelling throat was beautifully scaled with metallic blue; and several
of less interest. I also obtained a skull of the babirusa, one specimen
of which was killed by native hunters during my residence at Cajeli.



CHAPTER XXVII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MOLUCCAS.

THE Moluccas consist of three large islands, Gilolo, Ceram, and Bouru,
the two former being each about two hundred miles long; and a great
number of smaller isles and islets, the most important of which are
Batchian, Morty, Obi, Ke, Timor-Laut, and Amboyna; and among the smaller
ones, Ternate, Tidore, Kaióa, and Banda. They occupy a space of ten
degrees of latitude by eight of longitude, and they are connected by
groups of small islets to New Guinea on the east, the Philippines on the
north, Celebes on the west, and Timor on the south. It will be as well
to bear in mind these main features of extent and geographical position,
while we survey their animal productions and discuss their relations
to the countries which surround them on every side in almost equal
proximity.

We will first consider the Mammalia or warm-blooded quadrupeds,
which present us with some singular anomalies. The land mammals are
exceedingly few in number, only ten being yet known from the entire
group. The bats or aerial mammals, on the other hand, are numerous--not
less than twenty-five species being already known. But even this
exceeding poverty of terrestrial mammals does not at all represent the
real poverty of the Moluccas in this class of animals; for, as we shall
soon see, there is good reason to believe that several of the species
have been introduced by man, either purposely or by accident.

The only quadrumanous animal in the group is the curious baboon-monkey,
Cynopithecus nigrescens, already described as being one of the
characteristic animals of Celebes. This is found only in the island of
Batchian; and it seems so much out of place there as it is difficult
to imagine how it could have reached the island by any natural means
of dispersal, and yet not have passed by the same means over the narrow
strait to Gilolo--that it seems more likely to have originated from
some individuals which had escaped from confinement, these and similar
animals being often kept as pets by the Malays, and carried about in
their praus.

Of all the carnivorous animals of the Archipelago the only one found in
the Moluccas is the Viverra tangalunga, which inhabits both Batchian and
Bouru, and probably come of the other islands. I am inclined to think
that this also may have been introduced accidentally, for it is often
made captive by the Malays, who procure civet from it, and it is an
animal very restless and untameable, and therefore likely to escape.
This view is rendered still more probable by what Antonio de Morga tells
us was the custom in the Philippines in 1602. He says that "the natives
of Mindanao carry about civet-cats in cages, and sell them in the
islands; and they take the civet from them, and let them go again." The
same species is common in the Philippines and in all the large islands
of the Indo-Malay region.

The only Moluccan ruminant is a deer, which was once supposed to be a
distinct species, but is now generally considered to be a slight variety
of the Rusa hippelaphus of Java. Deer are often tamed and petted, and
their flesh is so much esteemed by all Malays, that it is very natural
they should endeavour to introduce them into the remote islands in which
they settled, and whose luxuriant forests seem so well adapted for their
subsistence.

The strange babirusa of Celebes is also found in Bouru; but in no other
Moluccan island, and it is somewhat difficult to imagine how it got
there. It is true that there is some approximation between the birds of
the Sula Islands (where the babirusa is also found) and those of Bouru,
which seems to indicate that these islands have recently been closer
together, or that some intervening land has disappeared. At this time
the babirusa may have entered Bouru, since it probably swims as well as
its allies the pigs. These are spread all over the Archipelago, even
to several of the smaller islands, and in many cases the species are
peculiar. It is evident, therefore, that they have some natural means
of dispersal. There is a popular idea that pigs cannot swim, but Sir
Charles Lyell has shown that this is a mistake. In his "Principles of
Geology" (10th Edit. vol. ii p. 355) he adduces evidence to show that
pigs have swum many miles at sea, and are able to swim with great ease
and swiftness. I have myself seen a wild pig swimming across the arm of
the sea that separates Singapore from the Peninsula of Malacca, and we
thus have explained the curious fact, that of all the large mammals of
the Indian region, pigs alone extend beyond the Moluccas and as far as
New Guinea, although it is somewhat curious that they have not found
their way to Australia.

The little shrew, Sorex myosurus, which is common in Sumatra, Borneo,
and Java, is also found in the larger islands of the Moluccas, to which
it may have been accidentally conveyed in native praus.

This completes the list of the placental mammals which are so
characteristic of the Indian region; and we see that, with the single
exception of the pig, all may very probably have been introduced by
man, since all except the pig are of species identical with those now
abounding in the great Malay islands, or in Celebes.

The four remaining mammals are Marsupials, an order of the class
Mammalia, which is very characteristic of the Australian fauna; and
these are probably true natives of the Moluccas, since they are either
of peculiar species, or if found elsewhere are natives only of New
Guinea or North Australia. The first is the small flying opossum,
Belideus ariel, a beautiful little animal, exactly line a small flying
squirrel in appearance, but belonging to the marsupial order. The other
three are species of the curious genus Cuscus, which is peculiar to
the Austro-Malayan region. These are opossum-like animals, with a long
prehensile tail, of which the terminal half is generally bare. They have
small heads, large eyes, and a dense covering of woolly fur, which is
often pure white with irregular black spots or blotches, or sometimes
ashy brown with or without white spots. They live in trees, feeding
upon the leaves, of which they devour large quantities, they move about
slowly, and are difficult to kill, owing to the thickness of their fur,
and their tenacity of life. A heavy charge of shot will often lodge in
the slain and do them no harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing
the brain will not kill them for some hours. The natives everywhere
eat their flesh, and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by
climbing; so that it is wonderful they have not been exterminated. It
may be, however, that their dense woolly fur protects them from birds of
prey, and the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited for man to
be able to exterminate them. The figure represents Cuscus ornatus, a new
species discovered by me in Batchian, and which also inhabits Ternate.
It is peculiar to the Moluccas, while the two other species which
inhabit Ceram are found also in New Guinea and Waigiou.

In place of the excessive poverty of mammals which characterises the
Moluccas, we have a very rich display of the feathered tribes. The
number of species of birds at present known from the various islands of
the Molluccan group is 265, but of these only 70 belong to the usually
abundant tribes of the waders and swimmers, indicating that these are
very imperfectly known. As they are also pre-eminently wanderers, and
are thus little fitted for illustrating the geographical distribution of
life in a limited area, we will here leave them out of consideration and
confine our attention only to the 195 land birds.

When we consider that all Europe, with its varied climate and
vegetation, with every mile of its surface explored, and with the
immense extent of temperate Asia and Africa, which serve as storehouses,
from which it is continually recruited, only supports 251 species of
land birds as residents or regular immigrants, we must look upon the
numbers already procured in the small and comparatively unknown islands
of the Moluccas as indicating a fauna of fully average richness in this
department. But when we come to examine the family groups which go to
make up this number, we find the most curious deficiencies in some,
balanced by equally striking redundancy in other. Thus if we compare
the birds of the Moluccas with those of India, as given in Mr. Jerdon's
work, we find that the three groups of the parrots, kingfishers, and
pigeons, form nearly _one-third_ of the whole land-birds in the former,
while they amount to only _one-twentieth_ in the latter country. On
the other hand, such wide-spread groups as the thrushes, warblers, and
finches, which in India form nearly _one-third_ of all the land-birds,
dwindle down in the Moluccas to _one-fourteenth._

The reason of these peculiarities appears to be, that the Moluccan
fauna has been almost entirely derived from that of New Guinea, in which
country the same deficiency and the same luxuriance is to be observed.
Out of the seventy-eight genera in which the Moluccan land-birds may be
classed, no less than seventy are characteristic of Yew Guinea, while
only six belong specially to the Indo-Malay islands. But this close
resemblance to New Guinea genera does not extend to the species, for
no less than 140 out of the 195 land-birds are peculiar to the Moluccan
islands, while 32 are found also in New Guinea, and 15 in the Indo-Malay
islands. These facts teach us, that though the birds of this group have
evidently been derived mainly from New Guinea, yet the immigration has
not been a recent one, since there has been time for the greater portion
of the species to have become changed. We find, also, that many very
characteristic New Guinea forms lave not entered the Moluccas at all,
while others found in Ceram and Gilolo do not extend so far west as
Bouru. Considering, further, the absence of most of the New Guinea
mammals from the Moluccas, we are led to the conclusion that these
islands are not fragments which have been separated from New Guinea, but
form a distinct insular region, which has been upheaved independently at
a rather remote epoch, and during all the mutations it has undergone
has been constantly receiving immigrants from that great and productive
island. The considerable length of time the Moluccas have remained
isolated is further indicated by the occurrence of two peculiar genera
of birds, Semioptera and Lycocorax, which are found nowhere else.

We are able to divide this small archipelago into two well marked
groups--that of Ceram, including also Bouru. Amboyna, Banda, and Ke; and
that of Gilolo, including Morty, Batchian, Obi, Ternate, and other small
islands. These divisions have each a considerable number of peculiar
species, no less than fifty-five being found in the Ceram group only;
and besides this, most of the separate islands have some species
peculiar to themselves. Thus Morty island has a peculiar kingfisher,
honeysucker, and starling; Ternate has a ground-thrush (Pitta) and
a flycatcher; Banda has a pigeon, a shrike, and a Pitta; Ke has two
flycatchers, a Zosterops, a shrike, a king-crow and a cuckoo; and the
remote Timor-Laut, which should probably come into the Moluccan group,
has a cockatoo and lory as its only known birds, and both are of
peculiar species.

The Moluccas are especially rich in the parrot tribe, no less than
twenty-two species, belonging to ten genera, inhabiting them. Among
these is the large red-crested cockatoo, so commonly seen alive in
Europe, two handsome red parrots of the genus Eclectus, and five of the
beautiful crimson lories, which are almost exclusively confined to these
islands and the New Guinea group. The pigeons are hardly less abundant
or beautiful, twenty-one species being known, including twelve of the
beautiful green fruit pigeons, the smaller kinds of which are
ornamented with the most brilliant patches of colour on the head and
the under-surface. Next to these come the kingfishers, including sixteen
species, almost all of which are beautiful, end many are among the most
brilliantly-coloured birds that exist.

One of the most curious groups of birds, the Megapodii, or mound-makers,
is very abundant in the Moluccas. They are gallinaceous birds, about the
size of a small fowl, and generally of a dark ashy or sooty colour,
and they have remarkably large and strong feet and long claws. They are
allied to the "Maleo" of Celebes, of which an account has already been
given, but they differ in habits, most of these birds frequenting the
scrubby jungles along the sea-shore, where the soil is sandy, and there
is a considerable quantity of debris, consisting of sticks, shells,
seaweed, leaves, &c. Of this rubbish the Megapodius forms immense
mounds, often six or eight feet high and twenty or thirty feet in
diameter, which they are enabled to do with comparative ease, by means
of their large feet, with which they can grasp and throw backwards a
quantity of material. In the centre of this mound, at a depth of two or
three feet, the eggs are deposited, and are hatched by the gentle heat
produced by the fermentation of the vegetable matter of the mound.
When I first saw these mounds in the island of Lombock, I could hardly
believe that they were made by such small birds, but I afterwards met
with them frequently, and have once or twice come upon the birds engaged
in making them. They run a few steps backwards, grasping a quantity of
loose material in one foot, and throw it a long way behind them. When
once properly buried the eggs seem to be no more cared for, the young
birds working their way up through the heap of rubbish, and running off
at once into the forest. They come out of the egg covered with thick
downy feathers, and have no tail, although the wings are full developed.

I was so fortunate as to discover a new species (Megapodius wallacei),
which inhibits Gilolo, Ternate, and Bouru. It is the handsomest bird of
the genus, being richly banded with reddish brown on the back and wings;
and it differs from the other species in its habits. It frequents the
forests of the interior, and comes down to the sea-beach to deposit its
eggs, but instead of making a mound, or scratching a hole to receive
them, it burrows into the sand to the depth of about three feet
obliquely downwards, and deposits its eggs at the bottom. It then
loosely covers up the mouth of the hole, and is said by the natives to
obliterate and disguise its own footmarks leading to and from the hole,
by making many other tracks and scratches in the neighbourhood. It lays
its eggs only at night, and at Bouru a bird was caught early one morning
as it was coming out of its hole, in which several eggs were found. All
these bi

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