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 Tomore 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, Kaioa, 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 birds seem to be semi-nocturnal, for their loud wailing cries may be constantly heard late into the night and long before daybreak in the morning. The eggs are all of a rusty red colour, and very large for the size of the bird, being generally three or three and a quarter inches long, by two or two and a quarter wide. They are very good eating, and are much sought after by the natives.

Another large and extraordinary bird is the Cassowary, which inhabits the island of Ceram only. It is a stout and strong bird, standing five or six feet high, and covered with long coarse black hair-like feathers. The head is ornamented with a large horny calque or helmet, and the bare skin of the neck is conspicuous with bright blue and red colours. The wings are quite absent, and are replaced by a group of horny black spines like blunt porcupine quills.

These birds wander about the vast mountainous forests that cover the island of Ceram, feeding chiefly on fallen fruits, and on insects or crustacea. The female lays from three to five large and beautifully shagreened green eggs upon a bed of leaves, the male and female sitting upon them alternately for about a month. This bird is the helmeted cassowary (Casuarius galeatus) of naturalists, and was for a long time the only species known. Others have since been discovered in New Guinea, New Britain, and North Australia.

It was in the Moluccas that I first discovered undoubted cases of "mimicry" among birds, and these are so curious that I must briefly describe them. It will be as well, however, first to explain what is meant by mimicry in natural history. At page 205 of the first volume of this work, I have described a butterfly which, when at rest, so closely resembles a dead leaf, that it thereby escape the attacks of its enemies. This is termed a "protective resemblance." If however the butterfly, being itself savoury morsel to birds, had closely resembled another butterfly which was disagreeable to birds, and therefore never eaten by them, it would be as well protected as if it resembled a leaf; and this is what has been happily termed "mimicry" by Mr. Bates, who first discovered the object of these curious external imitations of one insect by another belonging to a distinct genus or family, and sometimes even to a distinct order. The clear-winged moth which resemble wasps and hornets are the best examples of "mimicry" in our own country.

For a long time all the known cases of exact resemblance of one creature to quite a different one were confined to insects, and it was therefore with great pleasure that I discovered in the island of Bouru two birds which I constantly mistook for each other, and which yet belonged to two distinct and somewhat distant families. One of these is a honeysucker named Tropidorhynchus bouruensis, and the other a kind of oriole, which has been called Mimeta bouruensis. The oriole resembles the honeysucker in the following particulars: the upper and under surfaces of the two birds are exactly of the same tints of dark and light brown; the Tropidorhynchus has a large bare black patch round the eyes; this is copied in the Mimeta by a patch of black feathers. The top of the head of the Tropidorhynchus has a scaly appearance from the narrow scale-formed feathers, which are imitated by the broader feathers of the Mimeta having a dusky line down each. The Tropidorhynchus has a pale ruff formed of curious recurved feathers on the nape (which has given the whole genus the name of Friar birds); this is represented in the Mimeta by a pale band in the same position. Lastly, the bill of the Tropidorhynchus is raised into a protuberant keel at the base, and the Mimeta has the same character, although it is not a common one in the genus. The result is, that on a superficial examination the birds are identical, although they leave important structural differences, and cannot be placed near each other in any natural arrangement.

In the adjacent island of Ceram we find very distinct species of both these genera, and, strange to say, these resemble each other quite as closely as do those of Bouru The Tropidorhynchus subcornutus is of an earthy brown colour, washed with ochreish yellow, with bare orbits, dusky: cheeks, and the usual recurved nape-ruff: The Mimeta forsteni which accompanies it, is absolutely identical in the tints of every part of the body, and the details are copied just as minutely as in the former species.

We have two kinds of evidence to tell us which bird in this case is the model, and which the copy. The honeysuckers are coloured in a manner which is very general in the whole family to which they belong, while the orioles seem to have departed from the gay yellow tints so common among their allies. We should therefore conclude that it is the latter who mimic the former. If so, however, they must derive some advantage from the imitation, and as they are certainly weak birds, with small feet and claws, they may require it. Now the Tropidorhynchi are very strong and active birds, having powerful grasping claws, and long, curved, sharp beaks. They assemble together in groups and small flocks, and they haw a very loud bawling note which can be heard at a great distance, and serves to collect a number together in time of danger. They are very plentiful and very pugnacious, frequently driving away crows and even hawks, which perch on a tree where a few of them are assembled. It is very probable, therefore, that the smaller birds of prey have learnt to respect these birds and leave them alone, and it may thus be a great advantage for the weaker and less courageous Mimetas to be mistaken for them. This being case, the laws of Variation and Survival of the Fittest, will suffice to explain how the resemblance has been brought about, without supposing any voluntary action on the part of the birds themselves; and those who have read Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species" will have no difficulty in comprehending the whole process.

The insects of the Moluccas are pre-eminently beautiful, even when compared with the varied and beautiful productions of other parts of the Archipelago. The grand bird-winged butterflies (Ornithoptera) here reach their maximum of size and beauty, and many of the Papilios, Pieridae Danaidae, and Nymphalidae are equally preeminent. There is, perhaps, no island in the world so small as Amboyna where so many grand insects are to be found. Here are three of the very finest Ornithopterae—priamus, helena, and remiss; three of the handsomest and largest Papilios—ulysses, deiphobus, and gambrisius; one of the handsomest Pieridae, Iphias leucippe; the largest of the Danaidae, Hestia idea; and two unusually large and handsome Nymphalidae—Diadema pandarus, and Charaxes euryalus. Among its beetles are the extraordinary Euchirus longimanus, whose enormous legs spread over a space of eight inches, and an unusual number of large and handsome Longicorns, Anthribidae, and Buprestidae.

The beetles figured on the plate as characteristic of the Moluccas are: 1. A small specimen of the Euchirus longimanus, or Long-armed Chafer, which has been already mentioned in the account of my residence at Amboyna (Chapter XX.). The female has the fore legs of moderate length. 2. A fine weevil, (an undescribed species of Eupholus,) of rich blue and emerald green colours, banded with black. It is a native of Ceram and Goram, and is found on foliage. 3. A female of Xenocerus semiluctuosus, one of the Anthribidae of delicate silky white and black colours. It is abundant on fallen trunks and stumps in Ceram and Amboyna. 4. An undescribed species of Xenocerus; a male, with very long and curious antenna, and elegant black and white markings. It is found on fallen trunks in Batchian. 5. An undescribed species of Arachnobas, a curious genus of weevils peculiar to the Moluccas and New Guinea, and remarkable for their long legs, and their habit of often sitting on leaves, and turning rapidly round the edge to the under-surface when disturbed. It was found in Gilolo. All these insects are represented of the natural size.

Like the birds, the insects of the Moluccas show a decided affinity with those of New Guinea rather than with the productions of the great western islands of the Archipelago, but the difference in form and structure between the productions of the east and west is not nearly so marked here as in birds. This is probably due to the more immediate dependence of insects on climate and vegetation, and the greater facilities for their distribution in the varied stages of egg, pupa, and perfect insect. This has led to a general uniformity in the insect-life of the whole Archipelago, in accordance with the general uniformity of its climate and vegetation; while on the other hand the great susceptibility of the insect organization to the action of external conditions has led to infinite detailed modifications of form and colour, which have in many cases given a considerable diversity to the productions of adjacent islands.

Owing to the great preponderance among the birds, of parrots, pigeons, kingfishers, and sunbirds, almost all of gay or delicate colours, and many adorned with the most gorgeous plumage, and to the numbers of very large and showy butterflies which are almost everywhere to be met with, the forests of the Moluccas offer to the naturalist a very striking example of the luxuriance and beauty of animal life in the tropics. Yet the almost entire absence of Mammalia, and of such wide-spread groups of birds as woodpeckers, thrushes, jays, tits, and pheasants, must convince him that he is in a part of the world which has, in reality but little in common with the great Asiatic continent, although an unbroken chain of islands seems to link them to it.



CHAPTER XXVIII. MACASSAR TO THE ARU ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU.

(DECEMBER, 1856.)

IT was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at Macassar had just set in. For nearly three months had beheld the sun rise daily above the palm-groves, mount to the zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into the ocean, unobscured for a single moment of his course. Now dark leaden clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and seemed to have rendered him permanently invisible. The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust-laden, which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by variable gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and nights together; and the parched and fissured rice stubbles which during the dry weather had extended in every direction for miles around the town, were already so flooded as to be only passable by boats, or by means of a labyrinth of paths on the top of the narrow banks which divided the separate properties.

Five months of this kind of weather might be expected in Southern Celebes, and I therefore determined to seek some more favourable climate for collecting in during that period, and to return in the next dry season to complete my exploration of the district. Fortunately for me I was in one of the treat emporiums of the native trade of the archipelago. Rattans from Borneo, sandal-wood and bees'-was from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, cajputi-oil from Bouru, wild nutmegs and mussoi-bark from New Guinea, are all to be found in the stores of the Chinese and Bugis merchants of Macassar, along with the rice and coffee which are the chief products of the surrounding country. More important than all these however is the trade to Aru, a group of islands situated on the south-west coast of New Guinea, and of which almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. These islands are quite out of the track of all European trade, and are inhabited only by black mop-headed savages, who yet contribute to the luxurious tastes of the most civilized races. Pearls, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell find their way to Europe, while edible birds' nests and "tripang" or sea-slug are obtained by shiploads for the gastronomic enjoyment of the Chinese.

The trade to these islands has existed from very early times, and it is from them that Birds of Paradise, of the two kinds known to Linnaeus were first brought The native vessels can only make the voyage once a year, owing to the monsoons. They leave Macassar in December or January at the beginning of the west monsoon, and return in July or August with the full strength of the east monsoon. Even by the Macassar people themselves, the voyage to the Aru Islands is looked upon as a rather wild and romantic expedition, fall of novel sights and strange adventures. He who has made it is looked up to as an authority, and it remains with many the unachieved ambition of their lives. I myself had hoped rather than expected ever to reach this "Ultima Thule" of the East: and when I found that I really could do so now, had I but courage to trust myself for a thousand miles' voyage in a Bugis prau, and for six or seven months among lawless traders and ferocious savages, I felt somewhat as I did when, a schoolboy, I was for the first time allowed to travel outside the stage-coach, to visit that scene of all that is strange and new and wonderful to young imaginations-London!

By the help of some kind friends I was introduced to the owner of one of the large praus which was to sail in a few days. He was a Javanese half-caste, intelligent, mild, and gentlemanly in his manners, and had a young and pretty Dutch wife, whom he was going to leave behind during his absence. When we talked about passage money he would fix no sum, but insisted on leaving it entirely to me to pay on my return exactly what I liked. "And then," said he, "whether you give me one dollar or a hundred, I shall be satisfied, and shall ask no more."

The remainder of my stay was fully occupied in laying in stores, engaging servants, and making every other preparation for an absence of seven months from even the outskirts of civilization. On the morning of December 13th, when we went on board at daybreak, it was raining hard. We set sail and it came on to blow. Our boat was lost astern, our sails damaged, and the evening found us hack again in Macassar harbour. We remained there four days longer, owing to its raining all the time, thus rendering it impossible to dry and repair the huge mat sails. All these dreary days I remained on board, and during the rare intervals when it didn't rain, made myself acquainted with our outlandish craft, some of the peculiarities of which I will now endeavour to describe.

It was a vessel of about seventy tons burthen, and shaped something like a Chinese junk. The deck sloped considerably downward to the bows, which are thus the lowest part of the ship. There were two large rudders, but instead of being planed astern they were hung on the quarters from strong cross beams, which projected out two or three feet on each side, and to which extent the deck overhung the sides of the vessel amidships. The rudders were not hinged but hung with slings of rattan, the friction of which keeps them in any position in which they are placed, and thus perhaps facilitates steering. The tillers were not on deck, but entered the vessel through two square openings into a lower or half deck about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high to the ridge; and one compartment of this, forming a cabin six and a half feet long by five and a half wide, I had all to myself, and it was the snuggest and most comfortable little place I ever enjoyed at sea. It was entered by a low sliding door of thatch on one side, and had a very small window on the other. The floor was of split bamboo, pleasantly elastic, raised six inches above the deck, so as to be quite dry. It was covered with fine cane mats, for the manufacture of which Macassar is celebrated; against the further wall were arranged my guncase, insect-boxes, clothes, and books; my mattress occupied the middle, and next the door were my canteen, lamp, and little store of luxuries for the voyage; while guns, revolver, and hunting knife hung conveniently from the roof. During these four miserable days I was quite jolly in this little snuggery more so than I should have been if confined the same time to the gilded and uncomfortable saloon of a first-class steamer. Then, how comparatively sweet was everything on board—no paint, no tar, no new rope, (vilest of smells to the qualmish!) no grease, or oil, or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan, and coir rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell pleasantly if they smell at all, and recall quiet scenes in the green and shady forest.

Our ship had two masts, if masts they can be called c which were great moveable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the shrouds and backstay by strong timbers, and take away the mast altogether, you have the arrangement adopted on board a prau. Above my cabin, and resting on cross-beams attached to the masts, was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo. The mainyard, an immense affair nearly a hundred feet long, was formed of many pieces of wood and bamboo bound together with rattans in an ingenious manner. The sail carried by this was of an oblong shape, and was hung out of the centre, so that when the short end was hauled down on deck the long end mounted high in the air, making up for the lowness of the mast itself. The foresail was of the same shape, but smaller. Both these were of matting, and, with two jibs and a fore and aft sail astern of cotton canvas, completed our rig.

The crew consisted of about thirty men, natives of Macassar and the adjacent coasts and islands. They were mostly young, and were short, broad-faced, good-humoured looking fellows. Their dress consisted generally of a pair of trousers only, when at work, and a handkerchief twisted round the head, to which in the evening they would add a thin cotton jacket. Four of the elder men were "jurumudis," or steersmen, who had to squat (two at a time) in the little steerage before described, changing every six hours. Then there was an old man, the "juragan," or captain, but who was really what we should call the first mate; he occupied the other half of the little house on deck. There were about ten respectable men, Chinese or Bugis, whom our owner used to call "his own people." He treated them very well, shared his meals with them, and spoke to them always with perfect politeness; yet they were most of them a kind of slave debtors, bound over by the police magistrate to work for him at mere nominal wages for a term of years till their debts were liquidated. This is a Dutch institution in this part of the world, and seems to work well. It is a great boon to traders, who can do nothing in these thinly-populated regions without trusting goods to agents and petty dealers, who frequently squander them away in gambling and debauchery. The lower classes are almost all in a chronic state of debt. The merchant trusts them again and again, till the amount is something serious, when he brings them to court and has their services allotted to him for its liquidation. The debtors seem to think this no disgrace, but rather enjoy their freedom from responsibility, and the dignity of their position under a wealthy and well-known merchant. They trade a little on their own account, and both parties seem to get on very well together. The plan seems a more sensible one than that which we adopt, of effectually preventing a man from earning anything towards paying his debts by shutting him up in a jail.

My own servants were three in number. Ali, the Malay boy whom I had picked up in Borneo, was my head man. He had already been with me a year, could turn his hand to anything, and was quite attentive and trustworthy. He was a good shot, and fond of shooting, and I had taught him to skin birds very well. The second, named Baderoon, was a Macassar lad; also a pretty good boy, but a desperate gambler. Under pretence of buying a house for his mother, and clothes, for himself, he had received four months' wages about a week before we sailed, and in a day or two gambled away every dollar of it. He had come on board with no clothes, no betel, or tobacco, or salt fish, all which necessary articles I was obliged to send Ali to buy for him. These two lads were about sixteen, I should suppose; the third was younger, a sharp little rascal named Baso, who had been with me a month or two, and had learnt to cook tolerably. He was to fulfil the important office of cook and housekeeper, for I could not get any regular servants to go to such a terribly remote country; one might as well ask a chef de cuisine to go to Patagonia.

On the fifth day that I had spent on board (Dec. 15th) the rain ceased, and final preparations were made for starting. Sails were dried and furled, boats were constantly coming and going, and stores for the voyage, fruit, vegetables, fish, and palm sugar, were taken on board. In the afternoon two women arrived with a large party of friends and relations, and at parting there was a general noserubbing (the Malay kiss), and some tears shed. These were promising symptoms for our getting off the next day; and accordingly, at three in the morning, the owner came on board, the anchor was immediately weighed, and by four we set sail. Just as we were fairly off and clear of the other praus, the old juragan repeated some prayers, all around responding with "Allah il Allah," and a few strokes on a gong as an accompaniment, concluding with all wishing each other "Salaamat jalan," a safe and happy journey. We had a light breeze, a calm sea, and a fine morning, a prosperous commencement of our voyage of about a thousand miles to the far-famed Aru Islands.

The wind continued light and variable all day, with a calm in the evening before the land breeze sprang up, were then passing the island of "Tanakaki" (foot of the land), at the extreme south of this part of Celebes. There are some dangerous rocks here, and as I was standing by the bulwarks, I happened to spit over the side; one of the men begged I would not do so just now, but spit on deck, as they were much afraid of this place. Not quite comprehending, I made him repeat his request, when, seeing he was in earnest, I said, "Very well, I suppose there are 'hantus' (spirits) here." "Yes," said he, "and they don't like anything to be thrown overboard; many a prau has been lost by doing it." Upon which I promised to be very careful. At sunset the good Mahometans on board all repeated a few words of prayer with a general chorus, reminding me of the pleasing and impressive "Ave. Maria" of Catholic countries.

Dec. 20th.-At sunrise we were opposite the Bontyne mountain, said to be one of the highest in Celebes. In the afternoon we passed the Salayer Straits and had a little squall, which obliged us to lower our huge mast, sails, and heavy yards. The rest of the evening we had a fine west wind, which carried us on at near five knots an hour, as much as our lumbering old tub can possibly go.

Dec. 21st.-A heavy swell from the south-west rolling us about most uncomfortably. A steady wind was blowing however, and we got on very well.

Dec. 22d.-The swell had gone down. We passed Boutong, a large island, high, woody, and populous, the native place of some of our crew. A small prau returning from Bali to the island of Goram overtook us. The nakoda (captain) was known to our owner. They had been two years away, but were full of people, with several black Papuans on board. At 6 P.M. we passed Wangiwangi, low but not flat, inhabited and subject to Boutong. We had now fairly entered the Molucca Sea. After dark it was a beautiful sight to look down on our rudders, from which rushed eddying streams of phosphoric light gemmed with whirling sparks of fire. It resembled (more nearly than anything else to which I can compare it) one of the large irregular nebulous star-clusters seen through a good telescope, with the additional attraction of ever-changing form and dancing motion.

Dec. 23d.-Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening barely visible behind us. The Goram prau about a mile south of us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true course during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction of which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night. In these seas they are never (in fine weather) more than two days without seeing land. Of course adverse winds or currents sometimes carry them away, but they soon fall in with some island, and there are always some old sailors on board who know it, and thence take a new course. Last night a shark about five feet long was caught, and this morning it was cut up and cooked. In the afternoon they got another, and I had a little fried, and found it firm and dry, but very palatable. In the evening the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, which, as darkness came on, assumed a fearfully black appearance. According to custom, when strong wind or rain is expected, our large sails-were furled, and with their yards let down on deck, and a small square foresail alone kept up. The great mat sails are most awkward things to manage in rough weather. The yards which support them are seventy feet long, and of course very heavy, and the only way to furl them being to roll up the sail on the boom, it is a very dangerous thing to have them standing when overtaken by a squall. Our crew; though numerous enough for a vessel of 700 instead of one of 70 tons, have it very much their own way, and there seems to be seldom more than a dozen at work at a time. When anything important is to be done, however, all start up willingly enough, but then all think themselves at liberty to give their opinion, and half a dozen voices are heard giving orders, and there is such a shrieking and confusion that it seems wonderful anything gets done at all.

Considering we have fifty men of several tribes and tongues onboard, wild, half-savage looking fellows, and few of them feeling any of the restraints of morality or education, we get on wonderfully well. There is no fighting or quarrelling, as there would certainly be among the same number of Europeans with as little restraint upon their actions, and there is scarcely any of that noise and excitement which might be expected. In fine weather the greater part of them are quietly enjoying themselves—some are sleeping under the shadow of the sails; others, in little groups of three or four, are talking or chewing betel; one is making a new handle to his chopping-knife, another is stitching away at a new pair of trousers or a shirt, and all are as quiet and well-conducted as on board the best-ordered English merchantman. Two or three take it by turns to watch in the bows and see after the braces and halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock. This is a very ingenious contrivance, which measures time well in both rough weather and fine. It is simply a bucket half filled with water, in which floats the half of a well-scraped cocoa-nut shell. In the bottom of this shell is a very small hole, so that when placed to float in the bucket a fine thread of water squirts up into it. This gradually fills the shell, and the size of the hole is so adjusted to the capacity of the vessel that, exactly at the end of an hour, plump it goes to the bottom. The watch then cries out the number of hours from sunrise and sets the shell afloat again empty. This is a very good measurer of time. I tested it with my watch and found that it hardly varied a minute from one hour to another, nor did the motion of the vessel have any effect upon it, as the water in the bucket of course kept level. It has a great advantage for a rude people in being easily understood, in being rather bulky and easy to see, and in the final submergence being accompanied with a little bubbling and commotion of the water, which calls the attention to it. It is also quickly replaced if lost while in harbour.

Our captain and owner I find to be a quiet, good-tempered man, who seems to get on very well with all about him. When at sea he drinks no wine or spirits, but indulges only in coffee and cakes, morning and afternoon, in company with his supercargo and assistants. He is a man of some little education, can read and write well both Dutch and Malay, uses a compass, and has a chart. He has been a trader to Aru for many years, and is well known to both Europeans and natives in this part of the world.

Dec. 24th.-Fine, and little wind. No land in sight for the first time since we left Macassar. At noon calm, with heavy showers, in which our crew wash their clothes, anti in the afternoon the prau is covered with shirts, trousers, and sarongs of various gay colours. I made a discovery to-day which at first rather alarmed me. The two ports, or openings, through which the tillers enter from the lateral rudders are not more than three or four feet above the surface of the water, which thus has a free entrance into the vessel. I of course had imagined that this open space from one side to the other was separated from the hold by a water-tight bulkhead, so that a sea entering might wash out at the further side, and do no more harm than give the steersmen a drenching. To my surprise end dismay, however, I find that it is completely open to the hold, so that half-a-dozen seas rolling in on a stormy night would nearly, or quite, swamp us. Think of a vessel going to sea for a month with two holes, each a yard square, into the hold, at three feet above the water-line,-holes, too, which cannot possibly be closed! But our captain says all praus are so; and though he acknowledges the danger, "he does not know how to alter it—the people are used to it; he does not understand praus so well as they do, and if such a great alteration were made, he should be sure to have difficulty in getting a crew!" This proves at all events that praus must be good sea-boats, for the captain has been continually making voyages in them for the last ten years, and says he has never known water enough enter to do any harm.

Dec.25th.-Christmas-day dawned upon us with gusts of wind, driving rain, thunder and lightning, added to which a short confused sea made our queer vessel pitch and roll very uncomfortably. About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with clouds, while its lower lands were still invisible. The afternoon was fine, and the wind got round again to the west; but although this is really the west monsoon, there is no regularity or steadiness about it, calms and breezes from every point of the compass continually occurring. The captain, though nominally a Protestant, seemed to have no idea of Christmas-day as a festival. Our dinner was of rice and curry as usual, and an extra glass of wine was all I could do to celebrate it.

Dec. 26th.—Fine view of the mountains of Bouru, which we have now approached considerably. Our crew seem rather a clumsy lot. They do not walk the deck with the easy swing of English sailors, but hesitate and stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower boom of our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning repairing it. It consisted of two bamboos lashed together, thick end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The rigging and arrangement of these praus contrasts strangely with that of European vessels, in which the various ropes and spars, though much more numerous, are placed so as not to interfere with each other's action. Here the case is quite different; for though there are no shrouds or stays to complicate the matter, yet scarcely anything can be done without first clearing something else out of the way. The large sails cannot be shifted round to go on the other tack without first hauling down the jibs, and the booms of the fore and aft sails have to be lowered and completely detached to perform the same operation. Then there are always a lot of ropes foul of each other, and all the sails can never be set (though they are so few) without a good part of their surface having the wind kept out of them by others. Yet praus are much liked even by those who have had European vessels, because of their cheapness both in first cost and in keeping up; almost all repairs can be done by the crew, and very few European stores are required.

Dec. 28th.—This day we saw the Banda group, the volcano first appearing,—a perfect cone, having very much the outline of the Egyptian pyramids, and looking almost as regular. In the evening the smoke rested over its summit like a small stationary cloud. This was my first view of an active volcano, but pictures and panoramas have so impressed such things on one's mind, that when we at length behold them they seem nothing extraordinary.

Dec. 30th.—Passed the island of Teor, and a group near it, which are very incorrectly marked on the charts. Flying-fish were numerous to-day. It is a smaller species than that of the Atlantic, and more active and elegant in its motions. As they skim along the surface they turn on their sides, so as fully to display their beautiful fins, taking a flight of about a hundred yards, rising and falling in a most graceful manner. At a little distance they exactly resemble swallows, and no one who sees them can doubt that they really do fly, not merely descend in an oblique direction from the height they gain by their first spring. In the evening an aquatic bird, a species of booby (Sula fiber.) rested on our hen-coop, and was caught by the neck by one of my boys.

Dec. 31st—At daybreak the Ke Islands (pronounced Kay) were in sight, where we are to stay a few days. About noon we rounded the northern point, and endeavoured to coast along to the anchorage; but being now on the leeward side of the island, the wind came in violent irregular gusts, and then leaving us altogether, we were carried back by a strong current. Just then two boats-load of natives appeared, and our owner having agreed with them to tow us into harbour, they tried to do so, assisted by our own boat, but could make no way. We were therefore obliged to anchor in a very dangerous place on a rocky bottom, and we were engaged till nearly dark getting hawsers secured to some rocks under water. The coast of Ke along which we had passed was very picturesque. Light coloured limestone rocks rose abruptly from the water to the height of several hundred feet, everywhere broken into jutting peaks and pinnacles, weather-worn into sharp points and honeycombed surfaces, and clothed throughout with a most varied and luxuriant vegetation. The cliffs above the sea offered to our view screw-pines and arborescent Liliaceae of strange forms, mingled with shrubs and creepers; while the higher slopes supported a dense growth of forest trees. Here and there little bays and inlets presented beaches of dazzling whiteness. The water was transparent as crystal, and tinged the rock-strewn slope which plunged steeply into its unfathomable depths with colours varying from emerald to lapis-lazuli. The sea was calm as a lake, and the glorious sun of the tropics threw a flood of golden light over all. The scene was to me inexpressibly delightful. I was in a new world, and could dream of the wonderful productions hid in those rocky forests, and in those azure abysses. But few European feet had ever trodden the shores I gazed upon its plants, and animals, and men were alike almost unknown, and I could not help speculating on what my wanderings there for a few days might bring to light.



CHAPTER XXIX. THE KE ISLANDS.

(JANUARY 1857)

THE native boats that had come to meet us were three or four in number, containing in all about fifty men.

They were long canoes, with the bow and stern rising up into a beak six or night feet high, decorated with shells and waving plumes of cassowaries hair. I now had my first view of Papuans in their own country, and in less than five minutes was convinced that the opinion already arrived at by the examination of a few Timor and New Guinea slaves was substantially correct, and that the people I now had an opportunity of comparing side by side belonged to two of the most distinct and strongly marked races that the earth contains. Had I been blind, I could have been certain that these islanders were not Malays. The loud, rapid, eager tones, the incessant motion, the intense vital activity manifested in speech and action, are the very antipodes of the quiet, unimpulsive, unanimated Malay These Ke men came up singing and shouting, dipping their paddles deep in the water and throwing up clouds of spray; as they approached nearer they stood up in their canoes and increased their noise and gesticulations; and on coming alongside, without asking leave, and without a moment's hesitation, the greater part of them scrambled up on our deck just as if they were come to take possession of a captured vessel. Then commenced a scene of indescribable confusion. These forty black, naked, mop-headed savages seemed intoxicated with joy and excitement. Not one of them could remain still for a moment. Every individual of our crew was in turn surrounded and examined, asked for tobacco or arrack, grinned at and deserted for another. All talked at once, and our captain was regularly mobbed by the chief men, who wanted to be employed to tow us in, and who begged vociferously to be paid in advance. A few presents of tobacco made their eyes glisten; they would express their satisfaction by grins and shouts, by rolling on deck, or by a headlong leap overboard. Schoolboys on an unexpected holiday, Irishmen at a fair, or mid-shipmen on shore, would give but a faint idea of the exuberant animal enjoyment of these people.

Under similar circumstances Malays could not behave as these Papuans did. If they came on board a vessel (after asking permission), not a word would be at first spoken, except a few compliments, and only after some time, and very cautiously, world any approach be made to business. One would speak at a time, with a low voice and great deliberation, and the mode of making a bargain would be by quietly refusing all your offers, or even going away without saying another word about the matter, unless advanced your price to what they were willing to accept. Our crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, seemed quite scandalized at such unprecedented bad manners, and only very gradually made any approach to fraternization with the black fellows. They reminded me of a party of demure and well-behaved children suddenly broken in upon by a lot of wild romping, riotous boys, whose conduct seems most extraordinary and very naughty. These moral features are more striking and more conclusive of absolute diversity than oven the physical contrast presented by the two races, though that is sufficiently remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like head of frizzly hair, and, most important of all, the marked form of countenance of quite a different type from that of the Malay, are what we cannot believe to result from mere climatal or other modifying influences on one and the same race. The Malay face is of the Mongolian type, broad and somewhat flat. The brows are depressed, the mouth wide, but not projecting, and the nose small and well formed but for the great dilatation of the nostrils. The face is smooth, and rarely develops the trace of a beard; the hair black, coarse, and perfectly straight. The Papuan, on the other hand, has a face which we may say is compressed and projecting. The brows are protuberant and overhanging, the mouth large and prominent, while the nose is very large, the apex elongated downwards, the ridge thick, and the nostrils large. It is an obtrusive and remarkable feature in the countenance, the very reverse of what obtains in the Malay face. The twisted beard and frizzly hair complete this remarkable contrast. Hero then I had reached a new world, inhabited by a strange people. Between the Malayan tribes, among whom I had for some years been living, and the Papuan races, whose country I had now entered, we may fairly say that there is as much difference, both moral and physical, as between the red Indians of South America and the negroes of Guinea on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

Jan. 1st, 1857.-This has been a day of thorough enjoyment. I have wandered in the forests of an island rarely seen by Europeans. Before daybreak we left our anchorage, and in an hour reached the village of Har, where we were to stay three or four days. The range of hills here receded so as to form a small bay, and they were broken up into peaks and hummocks with intervening flats and hollows. A broad beach of the whitest sand lined the inner part of the bay, backed by a mass of cocoa-nut palms, among which the huts were concealed, and surmounted by a dense and varied growth of timber. Canoes and boats of various sizes were drawn up on the beach and one or two idlers, with a few children and a dog, gazed at our prau as we came to an anchor.

When we went on shore the first thing that attracted us was a large and well-constructed shed, under which a long boat was being built, while others in various stages of completion were placed at intervals along the beach. Our captain, who wanted two of moderate size for the trade among the islands at Aru, immediately began bargaining for them, and in a short tine had arranged the nuns number of brass guns, gongs, sarongs, handkerchiefs, axes, white plates, tobacco, and arrack, which he was to give for a hair which could be got ready in four days. We then went to the village, which consisted only of three or four huts, situated immediately above the beach on an irregular rocky piece of ground overshadowed with cocoa-nuts, palms, bananas, and other fruit trees. The houses were very rude, black, and half rotten, raised a few feet on posts with low sides of bamboo or planks, and high thatched roofs. They had small doors and no windows, an opening under the projecting gables letting the smoke out and a little light in. The floors were of strips of bamboo, thin, slippery, and elastic, and so weak that my feet were in danger of plunging through at every step. Native boxes of pandanus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very neatly constructed, mats of the same, jars and cooking pots of native pottery, and a few European plates and basins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the extreme.

Accompanied by Ali and Baderoon, I now attempted to make some explorations, and we were followed by a train of boys eager to see what we were going to do. The most trodden path from the beach led us into a shady hollow, where the trees were of immense height and the undergrowth scanty. From the summits of these trees came at intervals a deep booming sound, which at first puzzled us, but which we soon found to proceed from some large pigeons. My boys shot at them, and after one or two misses, brought one down. It was a magnificent bird twenty inches long, of a bluish white colour, with the back wings and tail intense metallic green, with golden, blue, and violet reflexions, the feet coral red, and the eyes golden yellow. It is a rare species, which I have named Carpophaga concinna, and is found only in a few small islands, where, however, it abounds. It is the same species which in the island of Banda is called the nutmeg-pigeon, from its habit of devouring the fruits, the seed or nutmeg being thrown up entire and uninjured. Though these pigeons have a narrow beak, yet their jaws and throat are so extensible that they can swallow fruits of very large size. I had before shot a species much smaller than this one, which had a number of hard globular palm-fruits in its crop, each more than an inch in diameter.

A little further the path divided into two, one leading along the beach, and across mangrove and sago swamps the other rising to cultivated grounds. We therefore returned, and taking a fresh departure from the village, endeavoured to ascend the hills and penetrate into the interior. The path, however, was a most trying one. Where there was earth, it was a deposit of reddish clay overlying the rock, and was worn so smooth by the attrition of naked feet that my shoes could obtain no hold on the sloping surface. A little farther we came to the bare rock, and this was worse, for it was so rugged and broken, and so honeycombed and weatherworn into sharp points and angles, that my boys, who had gone barefooted all their lives, could not stand it. Their feet began to bleed, and I saw that if I did not want them completely lamed it would be wise to turn lack. My own shoes, which were rather thin, were but a poor protection, and would soon have been cut to pieces; yet our little naked guides tripped along with the greatest ease and unconcern, and seemed much astonished at our effeminacy in not being able to take a walk which to them was a perfectly agreeable one. During the rest of our stay in the island we were obliged to confine ourselves to the vicinity of the shore and the cultivated grounds, and those more level portions of the forest where a little soil had accumulated and the rock had been less exposed to atmospheric action.

The island of Ke (pronounced exactly as the letter K, but erroneously spelt in our maps Key or Ki) is long and narrow, running in a north and south direction, and consists almost entirely of rock and mountain. It is everywhere covered with luxuriant forests, and in its bays and inlets the sand is of dazzling whiteness, resulting from the decomposition of the coralline limestone of which it is entirely composed. In all the little swampy inlets and valleys sago trees abound, and these supply the main subsistence of the natives, who grow no rice, and have scarcely any other cultivated products but cocoa-nuts, plantains, and yams. From the cocoa-nuts, which surround every hut, and which thrive exceedingly on the porous limestone soil and under the influence of salt breezes, oil is made which is sold at a good price to the Aru traders, who all touch here to lay in their stuck of this article, as well as to purchase boats and native crockery. Wooden bowls, pans, and trays are also largely made here, hewn out of solid blocks of wood with knife and adze; and these are carried to all parts of the Moluccas. But the art in which the natives of Ke pre-eminently excel is that of boat building. Their forests supply abundance of fine timber, though, probably not more so than many other islands, and from some unknown causes these remote savages have come to excel in what seems a very difficult art. Their small canoes are beautifully formed, broad and low in the centre, but rising at each end, where they terminate in high-pointed beaks more or less carved, and ornamented with a plume of feathers. They are not hollowed out of a tree, but are regularly built of planks running from ego to end, and so accurately fitted that it is often difficult to find a place where a knife-blade can be inserted between the joints. The larger ones are from 20 to 30 tons burthen, and are finished ready for sea without a nail or particle of iron being used, and with no other tools than axe, adze, and auger. These vessels are handsome to look at, good sailers, and admirable sea-boats, and will make long voyages with perfect safety, traversing the whole Archipelago from New Guinea to Singapore in seas which, as every one who has sailed much in them can testify, are not so smooth and tempest-free as word-painting travellers love to represent them.

The forests of Ke produce magnificent timber, tall, straight, and durable, of various qualities, some of which are said to be superior to the best Indian teak. To make each pair of planks used in the construction of the larger boats an entire tree is consumed. It is felled, often miles away from the shore, cut across to the proper length, and then hewn longitudinally into two equal portions. Each of these forms a plank by cutting down with the axe to a uniform thickness of three or four inches, leaving at first a solid block at each end to prevent splitting. Along the centre of each plank a series of projecting pieces are left, standing up three or four inches, about the same width, and a foot long; these are of great importance in the construction of the vessel. When a sufficient number of planks have been made, they are laboriously dragged through the forest by three or four men each to the beach, where the boat is to be built. A foundation piece, broad in the middle and rising considerably at each end, is first laid on blocks and properly shored up. The edges of this are worked true and smooth with the adze, and a plank, properly curved and tapering at each end, is held firmly up against it, while a line is struck along it which allows it to be cut so as to fit exactly. A series of auger holes, about as large as one's finger, are then bored along the opposite edges, and pins of very hard wood are fitted to these, so that the two planks are held firmly, and can be driven into the closest contact; and difficult as this seems to do without any other aid than rude practical skill in forming each edge to the true corresponding curves, and in poring the holes so as exactly to match both in position and direction, yet so well is it done that the best European shipwright cannot produce sounder or closer-fitting joints. The boat is built up in this way by fitting plank to plank till the proper height and width are obtained. We have now a skin held together entirely by the hardwood pins connecting the edges of the planks, very strong and elastic, but having nothing but the adhesion of these pins to prevent the planks gaping. In the smaller boats seats, in the larger ones cross-beams, are now fixed. They are sprung into slight notches cut to receive them, and are further secured to the projecting pieces of the plank below by a strong lashing of rattan. Ribs are now formed of single pieces of tough wood chosen and trimmed so as exactly to fit on to the projections from each plank, being slightly notched to receive them, and securely bound to them by rattans passed through a hole in each projecting piece close to the surface of the plank. The ends are closed against the vertical prow and stern posts, and further secured with pegs and rattans, and then the boat is complete; and when fitted with rudders, masts, and thatched covering, is ready to do battle with, the waves. A careful consideration of the principle of this mode of construction, and allowing for the strength and binding qualities of rattan (which resembles in these respects wire rather than cordage), makes me believe that a vessel carefully built in this manner is actually stronger and safer than one fastened in the ordinary way with nails.

During our stay here we were all very busy. Our captain was daily superintending the completion of his two small praus. All day long native boats were coming with fish, cocoa-nuts, parrots and lories, earthen pans, sirip leaf, wooden bowls, and trays, &c. &e., which every one of the fifty inhabitants of our prau seemed to be buying on his own account, till all available and most unavailable space of our vessel was occupied with these miscellaneous articles: for every man on board a prau considers himself at liberty to trade, and to carry with him whatever he can afford to buy.

Money is unknown and valueless here—knives, cloth, and arrack forming the only medium of exchange, with tobacco for small coin. Every transaction is the subject of a special bargain, and the cause of much talking. It is absolutely necessary to offer very little, as the natives are never satisfied till you add a little more. They are then far better pleased than if you had given them twice the amount at first and refused to increase it.

I, too, was doing a little business, having persuaded some of the natives to collect insects for me; and when they really found that I gave them most fragrant tobacco for worthless black and green beetles, I soon had scores of visitors, men, women, and children, bringing bamboos full of creeping things, which, alas! too frequently had eaten each other into fragments during the tedium of a day's confinement. Of one grand new beetle, glittering with ruby and emerald tints, I got a large quantity, having first detected one of its wing-cases ornamenting the outside of a native's tobacco pouch. It was quite a new species, and had not been found elsewhere than on this little island. It is one of the Buprestidae, and has been named Cyphogastra calepyga.

Each morning after an early breakfast I wandered by myself into the forest, where I found delightful occupation in capturing the large and handsome butterflies, which were tolerably abundant, and most of them new to me; for I was now upon the confines of the Moluccas and New Guinea,—a region the productions of which were then among the most precious and rare in the cabinets of Europe. Here my eyes were feasted for the first time with splendid scarlet lories on the wing, as well as by the sight of that most imperial butterfly, the "Priamus" of collectors, or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I did not succeed in capturing a specimen. One of them was brought me in a bamboo, bored up with a lot of beetles, and of course torn to pieces. The principal drawback of the place for a collector is the want of good paths, and the dreadfully rugged character of the surface, requiring the attention to be so continually directed to securing a footing, as to make it very difficult to capture active winged things, who pass out of reach while one is glancing to see that the next step may not plunge one into a chasm or over a precipice. Another inconvenience is that there are no running streams, the rock being of so porous a nature that the surface-water everywhere penetrates its fissures; at least such is the character of the neighbourhood we visited, the only water being small springs trickling out close to the sea-beach.

In the forests of Ke, arboreal Liliaceae and Pandanaceae abound, and give a character to the vegetation in the more exposed rocky places. Flowers were scarce, and there were not many orchids, but I noticed the fine white butterfly-orchis, Phalaenopsis grandiflora, or a species closely allied to it. The freshness and vigour of the vegetation was very pleasing, and on such an arid rocky surface was a sure indication of a perpetually humid climate. Tall clean trunks, many of them buttressed, and immense trees of the fig family, with aerial roots stretching out and interlacing and matted together for fifty or a hundred feet above the ground, were the characteristic features; and there was an absence of thorny shrubs and prickly rattans, which would have made these wilds very pleasant to roam in, had it not been for the sharp honeycombed rocks already alluded to. In damp places a fine undergrowth of broadleaved herbaceous plants was found, about which swarmed little green lizards, with tails of the most "heavenly blue," twisting in and out among the stalks and foliage so actively that I often caught glimpses of their tails only, when they startled me by their resemblance to small snakes. Almost the only sounds in these primeval woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two notes struck upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like croak, altogether peculiar and remarkable. Only two quadrupeds are said by the natives to inhabit the island—a wild pig and a Cuscus, or Eastern opossum, of neither of which could I obtain specimens.

The insects were more abundant, and very interesting. Of butterflies I caught thirty-five species, most of them new to me, and many quite unknown in European collections. Among them was the fine yellow and black Papilio euchenor, of which but few specimens had been previously captured, and several other handsome butterflies of large size, as well as some beautiful little "blues," and some brilliant dayflying moths. The beetle tribe were less abundant, yet I obtained some very fine and rare species. On the leaves of a slender shrub in an old clearing I found several fine blue and black beetles of the genus Eupholus, which almost rival in beauty the diamond beetles of South America. Some cocoa-nut palms in blossom on the beach were frequented by a fine green floral beetle (Lomaptera) which, when the flowers were shaken, flew off like a small swarm of bees. I got one of our crew to climb up the tree, and he brought me a good number in his hand; and seeing they were valuable, I sent him up again with my net to shake the flowers into, and thus secured a large quantity. My best capture, however, was the superb insect of the Buprestis family, already mentioned as having been obtained from the natives, who told me they found it in rotten trees in the mountains.

In the forest itself the only common and conspicuous coleoptera were two tiger beetles. One, Therates labiata, was much larger than our green tiger beetle, of a purple black colour, with green metallic glosses, and the broad upper lip of a bright yellow. It was always found upon foliage, generally of broad-leaned herbaceous plants, and in damp and gloomy situations, taking frequent short flights from leaf to leaf, and preserving an alert attitude, as if always looking out for its prey. Its vicinity could be immediately ascertained, often before it was seen, by a very pleasant odour, like otto of roses, which it seems to emit continually, and which may probably be attractive to the small insects on which it feeds. The other, Tricondyla aptera, is one of the most curious forms in the family of the Cicindelidae, and is almost exclusively confined to the Malay islands. In shape it resembles a very large ant, more than an inch long, and of a purple black colour. Like an ant also it is wingless, and is generally found ascending trees, passing around the trunks in a spiral direction when approached, to avoid capture, so that it requires a sudden run and active fingers to secure a specimen. This species emits the usual fetid odour of the ground beetles. My collections during our four days' stay at Ke were as follow:—Birds, 13 species; insects, 194 species; and 3 kinds of land-shells.

There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands—the indigenes, who have the Papuan characters strongly marked, and who are pagans; and a mixed race, who are nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing, while the former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These Mahometans are said to have been driven out of Banda by the early European settlers. They were probably a brown race, more allied to the Malays, and their mixed descendants here exhibit great variations of colour, hair, and features, graduating between the Malay and Papuan types. It is interesting to observe the influence of the early Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of their language, which still remain in use even among these remote and savage islanders. "Lenco" for handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the exclusion of the proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected more rapid changes in the countries they conquered than any other nations of modern times, resembling the Romans in their power of impressing their own language, religion, and manners on rode and barbarous tribes.

The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays is exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the forest, an old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood very quiet till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed a hearty roar of laughter. Every one will recognise this as a true negro trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh, never heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom, however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable than the most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here were not so much frightened at strangers, or made to keep themselves so much secluded as among the Malay races; the children were more merry and had the "nigger grin," while the noisy confusion of tongues among the men, and their excitement on very ordinary occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity and reserve of the Malay.

The language of the Ke people consists of words of one, two, or three syllables in about equal proportions, and has many aspirated and a few guttural sounds. The different villages have slight differences of dialect, but they are mutually intelligible, and, except in words that have evidently been introduced during a long-continued commercial intercourse, seem to have no affinity whatever with the Malay languages.

Jan. 6th.-The small boats being finished, we sailed for Aru at 4 P.M., and as we left the shores of Ke had a line view of its rugged and mountainous character; ranges of hills, three or four thousand feet high, stretching southwards as far as the eye could reach, everywhere covered with a lofty, dense, and unbroken forest. We had very light winds, and it therefore took us thirty hours to make the passage of sixty miles to the low, or flat, but equally forest-covered Aru Islands, where we anchored in the harbour of Dobbo at nine in the evening of the next day.

My first voyage in a prau being thus satisfactorily terminated, I must, before taking leave of it for some months, bear testimony to the merits of the queer old-world vessel. Setting aside all ideas of danger, which is probably, after all, not more than in any other craft, I must declare that I have never, either before or since, made a twenty days' voyage so pleasantly, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, with so little discomfort. This I attribute chiefly to having my small cabin on deck, and entirely to myself, to having my own servants to wait upon me, and to the absence of all those marine-store smells of paint, pitch, tallow, and new cordage, which are to me insupportable. Something is also to be put down to freedom from all restraint of dress, hours of meals, &c., and to the civility and obliging disposition of the captain. I had agreed to have my meals with him, but whenever I wished it I had them in my own berth, and at what hours I felt inclined. The crew were all civil and good-tempered, and with very little discipline everything went on smoothly, and the vessel was kept very clean and in pretty good order, so that on the whole I was much delighted with the trip, and was inclined to rate the luxuries of the semi-barbarous prau as surpassing those of the most magnificent screw-steamer, that highest result of our civilisation.



CHAPTER XXX. THE ARU ISLANDS—RESIDENCE IN DOBBO

(JANUARY TO MARCH 1857.)

On the 8th of January, 1857, I landed at Dobbo, the trading settlement of the Bugis and Chinese, who annually visit the Aru Islands. It is situated on the small island of Wamma, upon a spit of sand which projects out to the north, and is just wide enough to contain three rows of houses. Though at first sight a most strange and desolate-looking place to build a village on, it has many advantages. There is a clear entrance from the west among the coral reefs that border the land, and there is good anchorage for vessels, on one side of the village or the other, in both the east and west monsoons. Being fully exposed to the sea-breezes in three directions it is healthy, and the soft sandy heath offers great facilities for hauling up the praus, in order to secure them from sea-worms and prepare them for the homeward voyage. At its southern extremity the sand-bank merges in the beach of the island, and is backed by a luxuriant growth of lofty forest. The houses are of various sizes, but are all built after one pattern, being merely large thatched sheds, a small portion of which, next the entrance, is used as a dwelling, while the rest is parted oft; and often divided by one or two floors, in order better to stow away merchandise and native produce.