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[Illustration: MAGELLAN VISITING THE KING OF SEBU]
PIONEERS IN AUSTRALASIA
by
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
With Eight Coloured Illustrations by Alec Ball
Blackie and Son Limited
London Glasgow Bombay
Printed and bound in Great Britain
PREFACE
I have been asked to write a series of works which should deal
with "real adventures", in parts of the world either wild and
uncontrolled by any civilized government, or at any rate regions
full of dangers, of wonderful discoveries; in which the daring
and heroism of white men (and sometimes of white women) stood out
clearly against backgrounds of unfamiliar landscapes, peopled with
strange nations, savage tribes, dangerous beasts, or wonderful
birds. These books would again and again illustrate the first coming
of the white race into regions inhabited by people of a different
type, with brown, black, or yellow skins; how the European was
received, and how he treated these races of the soil which gradually
came under his rule owing to his superior knowledge, weapons,
wealth, or powers of persuasion. The books were to tell the plain
truth, even if here and there they showed the white man to have
behaved badly, or if they revealed the fact that the American
Indian, the Negro, the Malay, the black Australian was sometimes
cruel and treacherous.
A request thus framed was almost equivalent to asking me to write
stories of those pioneers who founded the British Empire; in any
case, the volumes of this series do relate the adventures of those
who created the greater part of the British Dominions beyond the
Seas, by their perilous explorations of unknown lands and waters.
In many instances the travellers were all unconscious of their
destinies, of the results which would arise from their actions. In
some cases they would have bitterly railed at Fate had they known
that the result of their splendid efforts was to be the enlargement
of an empire under the British flag. Perhaps if they could know by
now that we are striving under that flag to be just and generous to
all types of men, and not to use our empire solely for the benefit
of English-speaking men and women, the French who founded the
Canadian nation, the Germans and Dutch who helped to create British
Africa, Malaysia, and Australia, the Spaniards who preceded us in
the West Indies and in New Guinea, and the Portuguese in West,
Central, and East Africa, in Newfoundland, Ceylon, and Malaysia,
might--if they have any consciousness or care for things in this
world--be not so sorry after all that we are reaping where they
sowed.
It is (as you will see) impossible to tell the tale of these early
days in the British Dominions beyond the Seas, without describing
here and there the adventures of men of enterprise and daring who
were not of our own nationality. The majority, nevertheless, were
of British stock; that is to say, they were English, Welsh, Scots,
Irish, perhaps here and there a Channel Islander and a Manxman; or
Nova Scotians, Canadians, and New Englanders. The bulk of them were
good fellows, a few were saints, a few were ruffians with redeeming
features. Sometimes they were common men who blundered into great
discoveries which will for ever preserve their names from perishing;
occasionally they were men of Fate, predestined, one might say,
to change the history of the world by their revelations of new
peoples, new lands, new rivers, new lakes, snow mountains, and gold
mines. Here and there is a martyr like Marquette, or Livingstone,
or Gordon, dying for the cause of a race not his own. And others
again are mere boys, whose adventures come to them because they are
adventurous, and whose feats of arms, escapes, perils, and successes
are quite as wonderful as those attributed to the juvenile heroes of
Marryat, Stevenson, and the author of _The Swiss Family Robinson_.
I have tried, in describing these adventures, to give my readers
some idea of the scenery, animals, and vegetation of the new lands
through which these pioneers passed on their great and small
purposes; as well as of the people, native to the soil, with whom
they came in contact. And in treating of these subjects I have
thought it best to give the scientific names of the plant or animal
which was of importance in my story, so that any of my readers who
were really interested in natural history could at once ascertain
for themselves the exact type alluded to, and, if they wished, look
it up in a museum, a garden, or a natural history book.
I hope this attempt at scientific accuracy will not frighten away
readers young and old; and, if you can have patience with the
author, you will, by reading this series of books on the great
pioneers of British West Africa, Canada, Malaysia, West Indies,
South Africa, and Australasia, get a clear idea of how the British
Colonial Empire came to be founded.
You will find that I have often tried to tell the story in the words
of the pioneers, but in these quotations I have adopted the modern
spelling, not only in my transcript of the English original or
translation, but also in the place and tribal names, so as not to
puzzle or delay the reader. Otherwise, if you were to look out some
of the geographical names of the old writers, you might not be able
to recognize them on the modern atlas. The pronunciation of this
modern geographical spelling is very simple and clear: the vowels
are pronounced _a_ = ah, _e_ = eh, _i_ = ee, _o_ = o, _ô_ = oh, _ō_
= aw, _ö_ = u in 'hurt', and _u_ = oo, as in German, Italian, or
most other European languages; and the consonants as in English.
H.H. JOHNSTON.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. THE GENERAL FEATURES OF AUSTRALASIA 15
II. THE FIRST HUMAN INHABITANTS OF AUSTRALASIA 46
III. SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS LEAD THE WAY
TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN 88
IV. DUTCH DISCOVERIES 129
V. DAMPIER'S VOYAGES 148
VI. JAMES COOK'S FIRST VOYAGE 178
VII. NEW SOUTH WALES 225
VIII. COOK'S SECOND AND THIRD VOYAGES 252
IX. BLIGH AND THE "BOUNTY" 278
X. THE RESULTS OF THE PIONEERS' WORK 290
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOURED PLATES
Page
Magellan visiting the King of Sebu _Frontispiece_
An Australian Aborigine navigating a Raft 48
Tasman's Men attacked by Natives off the Coast of New Zealand 136
Dampier and his Crew watching a Volcanic Eruption 174
Captain Cook's Arrival at Tahiti (1769) 192
Captain Cook at Botany Bay 228
Captain Bligh and his Men searching for Oysters off the Great
Barrier Reef 282
Whaling in the South Seas 298
BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
The Biggest of the Kangaroos 38
Papuan of South-east New Guinea, near Port Moresby, and
Oceanic Negro Type from the Northernmost Solomon Islands 60
A Typical Polynesian, and an Australoid Type from Northern
Queensland 80
The Two Dutch Ships under Tasman's Command (the _Heemskerk_
and the _Zeehaen_) at Anchor in the Tonga Islands, Pacific 140
The Island of Tahiti and its extraordinary Double Canoes: as
seen by Captain Cook 206
A View of Dusky Bay, on the Great South Island of New Zealand,
with a Maori Family: as seen by Captain Cook 222
A Chief at St. Christina, in the Marquezas Archipelago, and a
Man of Easter Island 266
A Dancing Ground and Drums at Port Sandwich, Malekala
(Mallicolo) Island, New Hebrides. Tambu House (Temple)
in Background 276
* * * * *
Map of the Malay Archipelago 26
Map of Australasia 148
Map of Australia and New Zealand 300
BIBLIOGRAPHY
=Magellan's Voyage Around the World.= By Antonio Pigafetta. Translated
and annotated by James Alexander Robertson. 2 Vols. Cleveland,
U.S.A. The Arthur H. Clark Company. 1906. (This is the best work
dealing with Magellan's voyage to the Philippines and the after
events of his expedition.)
=The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan.= Translated from
the accounts of Pigafetta, &c., by Lord Stanley of Alderley.
London. Hakluyt Society. 1874. (This work contains a great deal of
supplementary information regarding the doings of the Spaniards and
Portuguese in the Pacific and Malaysia.)
=Early Voyages to Australia.= By R.H. Major. London. Hakluyt Society.
1859.
=Tasman's Journal ... Facsimiles of the Original MS. with Life of
Tasman.= By J.E. Heeres. Amsterdam. 1898.
=Dampier's Voyages.= Edited by John Masefield. 2 Vols. London. E.
Grant Richards. 1906.
=The History of Mankind.= By Professor Friedrich Ratzel. Translated
from the second German edition by A.J. Butler, M.A. 3 Vols. London.
Macmillan & Co. 1896.
=The History of the Australian Colonies.= By Edward Jenks, M.A.
Cambridge University Press. 1896.
=Voyage Autour du Monde.= By De Bougainville. Paris. 1771.
=The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo.= By H. Ling Roth.
London. 1896.
=Cook's Voyages.= (Original edition in 6 Vols., including plates.)
London. 1772, 1777, and 1784.
Captain Cook's Journal during his First Voyage Round the World.=
Edited by Captain W.J.L. Wharton, R.N., F.R.S. London. Elliot Stock.
1893.
=Journal of the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.= Edited by Sir Joseph D.
Hooker. Macmillan & Co. 1896.
=Captain James Cook.= By Arthur Kitson. London. John Murray. 1907.
(This is the best life of Cook.)
=The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S.
"Bounty".= London. John Murray. 1831.
=Gonzalez's Voyage to Easter Island, 1770-1.= Translated by Bolton
Glanville Corney. Hakluyt Society. 1908.
=Terre Napoléon.= (The French attempts to explore Australia at the
beginning of the 19th Century.) By Ernest Scott. London. Methuen.
1910.
=Murihiku.= (A study of New Zealand history.) By the Hon. R. M'Nab.
New Zealand. 1907. (A most interesting, accurate, and comprehensive
work.)
=Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, &c., in Company with the Rev.
Samuel Marsden.= By John Liddiard Nicholas. 2 Vols. London. 1817.
=New Zealand: being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, &c.=
By J.S. Pollack. 2 Vols. London. Richard Bentley. 1838. (Gives
interesting information regarding the whale fishery round about New
Zealand.)
=Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. "Fly".= By J.B. Jukes.
2 Vols. London. 1847. (Treats of the exploration of the coasts of
Torres Straits, South New Guinea, and Malaysia.)
=Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake".= By John
Macgillivray. 2 Vols. London. 1852. (This deals with the exploration
of South-east New Guinea, &c. Professor Huxley accompanied this
expedition as surgeon, and contributed illustrations to the book.)
=The Malay Archipelago, &c.= By Alfred Russel Wallace. 2 Vols. London.
Macmillan. 1869.
=A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago.= By H.O.
Forbes. London. 1885.
=Life of Sir James Brooke.= By Sir Spencer St. John. London. 1879.
PIONEERS
IN AUSTRALASIA
CHAPTER I
The General Features of Australasia
In previous books of this series dealing with the achievements and
adventures of the pioneers whose journeys led to the foundation of
the British Empire beyond the seas, I have described the revelation
of West Africa, the exploration of British North America, and the
experiences of those who laid the foundations of our knowledge
concerning India and Further India. The scope of this last volume
brought us to Sumatra, Singapore, and Java: that is to say the
western part of Malaysia. I now propose to set before my readers
the more remarkable among the voyages and strange happenings which
led to the discovery of Australasia, and to the inclusion within
the British Empire of northern Borneo, south-eastern New Guinea,
the continent of Australia, the large islands of New Zealand, and a
good many islands and archipelagoes in the Pacific Ocean. The most
convenient general term for this region of innumerable islands,
large and small, is "Australasia", since it lies mostly in the
southern hemisphere and yet is more nearly connected by affinity or
proximity with Asia rather than any other continent.
Yet this title is not strictly correct, for Borneo, like Sumatra
and Java, is really part of Asia so far as its geological and
human history, animals, and plants are concerned; whereas the
Malay islands farthest to the east--such as Timor, the Moluccas,
and Jilolo--more correctly belong to a distinct region of the
world, of which New Guinea and Australia are the headquarters,
and New Zealand, Easter Island, the Marquezas Islands, and Hawaii
the farthest outlying portions. But in regard to the landing of
Europeans and the order of its exploration, Borneo, like the
Philippines, forms part of that "Australasia" which was first
reached (1521) from the direction of the Pacific Ocean.
Australasia (it is necessary, if wearisome, to repeat) consists of
islands, great, small, and very small; Australia being so large an
island that it ranks as the fifth and smallest of the continents.
The insular character of Australasia has caused most of the great
adventures connected with its discovery and colonization to be
extraordinary feats of ocean rather than of land travel. But when we
consider the size of the sailing ships, or of the mere junks, boats,
or canoes in which some of the journeys were made, and the fact that
the home of the explorers was not two, three, or four thousand miles
away across the sea (as in the discovery of America and the West
African coast), but more than treble that distance; that these hardy
adventurers had to reach the unknown islands of the Pacific either
round the stormy Cape of Good Hope or the still more stormy Cape
Horn in ships on which we might hesitate to embark in order to cross
the Bay of Biscay or the Irish Channel: the achievements of the
Australasian pioneers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth,
and early nineteenth centuries become almost unbelievable in their
heroism and power of endurance. The _Victoria_ of Magellan's fleet
which sailed from Spain to the Pacific and back across the Atlantic
and Indian oceans was of 85 tons capacity! Matthew Flinders in 1803
crossed the Indian Ocean from North Australia to Mauritius in a
schooner of 29 tons! Sir James Brooke sailed in 1883 from the mouth
of the Thames to conquer North Borneo from the pirates in a sailing
yacht of 148 tons.
Think of the courage that must have been required by a Magellan,
a de Quiros, or even a Captain Cook, when they steered into the
Unknown from the coast of South America across the broad waters of
the Pacific! They had only a limited stock of fresh water: how long
would it be before an island or a continent was encountered whereon
they could land to replenish their supplies from some spring near
the seashore or some stream falling from the hills? They had very
little in the way of fresh provisions: when these were exhausted
might not their mariners develop that dread disease scurvy,[1] and
rot into madness or death? or before arriving at such an extremity
mutiny and murder their officers? Food of any kind might become
exhausted before fresh supplies could be obtained; and we know from
many instances how ready the ship's crew of famished, uneducated
sailors was, first to talk of cannibalism, and at last to lay
violent hands on an officer or a comrade, kill him, and eat him. Or
the undiscovered lands which would be their only resource against
a death from starvation, disease, or thirst might be populated by
ferocious man-eating savages (as indeed many of them were) and the
landing parties of seamen and officers be promptly massacred. Or it
might be a desert island, and the pleasing-looking herbs or fruits
be deadly poison, or the strange fish, mussels, oysters, clams,
whelks, or turtles prove to be so unwholesome that all who ate of
this new fare were prostrated with illness. The gallant little
sailing ship--little in our eyes whether its capacity were of 30
or even 400 tons--might be charged by a bull cachalot whale as big
as an islet, and then and there spring a leak and founder with all
on board. There might well be--and there were--treacherous coral
reefs just masked by two or three feet of water on which the vessel
would be driven at night-time and break her back. The crew would
take to their frail boats and then have a thousand or more sea miles
to cross, with oar and ineffective sail, before they could find a
landing place and sustenance. Perhaps on the way thither (the giant,
greedy sharks following in their wake) they died of sunstroke or
thirst, or went mad and jumped into the sea and the shark's maw. Or
they did reach some South Sea island--not to be discovered again
for a century or two--where they were received as demigods by the
astonished savages, but where they had to pass the rest of their
lives as savages too; consoling themselves as best they could with a
Polynesian wife or husband (for there were women sometimes in these
ventures, especially on the Spanish vessels) and the growing up of
a half-caste family; but never heard of again in their far-away
homes, and ever and anon weeping and crying in vain to Heaven to be
restored once more to the fair cities and romantic life of Spain or
Portugal, or to the comfort and the orderly beauty of a Norman or an
English homestead.
[1] It has been computed that, during the years between 1510 and
1530, the Spanish and Portuguese ships exploring the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Indian oceans lost ten thousand seamen from scurvy.
After sailing, sailing, sailing across the equatorial belt of the
Pacific Ocean they at length reached--if no disaster arrested
their progress--the limits of the known: they came to some part of
Malaysia where the natives were no longer naked, black, unreasoning
cannibals, or crafty, yellow, naked thieves; some seaport in the
Philippines, Celebes, Timor, or Java where they met men of the
Muhammadan religion, or even other European Christians who had
reached Australasia round the Cape of Good Hope. But the Muhammadans
might out of jealousy or of revenge for wrongs they had suffered
from other Christians cause them to be imprisoned or murdered, while
more often than not the fellow Christians they were greeting after a
twelve-thousand miles' voyage half round the world belonged to some
nation in rivalry or at war with their own. Then they might be held
long years in captivity, or be executed (with or without torture)
outright. (Matthew Flinders was imprisoned in Mauritius for six and
a half years by the French not much more than a hundred years ago.)
At any rate they would probably be refused those sea stores and
materials necessary for repairing a crazy ship, and have to face the
return voyage across the Indian Ocean, round the stormy extremity of
Africa, and through the violent gales of the northern Atlantic with
but a slender hope of reaching home, or even of surviving the perils
of the sea, in a leaky, worm-eaten ship with splintered masts and
rotten sails.
* * * * *
This fifth division of the earth's surface which they had come to
explore consisted of an almost uncountable number of islands ranging
in size from Australia, with an area of 2,946,691 square miles, New
Guinea, which has about 312,330, and Borneo, with another 290,000,
to tiny islets like the Fanning atoll, 9 miles by 4, or little
Pitcairn, 2 miles square, on which the mutineers of the _Bounty_
long hid themselves. The larger islands nearer to Asia were for
the most part fragments of a former extension of the Asiatic or
Australian continents; even New Zealand (104,000 square miles) must
once have formed part of a huge strip of continental land stretching
southwards from New Guinea and north-east Australia. But most of the
islands of Micronesia and Polynesia (as distinct from Melanesia[2]),
though they may have been larger than they are now and have risen
out of comparatively shallow seas, were nevertheless always oceanic,
that is to say, never connected with any great continent in recent
ages.
[2] At this stage it may assist the reader if I give in a footnote
the principal geographic divisions of Australasia.
Beginning on the west there is _Malaysia_, a term which comprises
all the islands of the Malay Archipelago up to the vicinity of
New Guinea. New Guinea and the islands and archipelagoes near
it constitute the region of _Papuasia_; south of Papuasia is
_Australia_ (including Tasmania, Lord Howe, and Norfolk Islands,
and perhaps New Caledonia); to the south-east of Australia lies
_New Zealand_, which dominion comprises naturally and politically
the Kermadec islets, the Chatham Islands and Macquarie Island;
_Melanesia_ is the domain of the dark-skinned people who are
half-Papuan and half-Polynesian, and is generally held to include
the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz, and New Hebrides archipelagoes,
and the Fiji group. All the foregoing (together with the Samoa and
Tonga Islands) were once connected by land with each other and with
the continent of Asia.
North of Papuasia is the division of small islands known as
_Micronesia_; it includes the Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, and
Ladrone archipelagoes. Almost in the middle of the northern half
of the Pacific is the isolated ridge or shelf from which rises
the _Hawaii_ or Sandwich Islands, two of which are rather large
(for Pacific islands). The Hawaii group is quite distinct from
any other, and has never been joined to a continent. Finally,
there remains the division of _Polynesia_, which likewise, in all
probability, has never been continental, and which includes the
separate archipelagoes of Marquezas, Tuamotu, Tubuai, Tahiti (the
Society Islands), the Palmyra, Phœnix, and Malden groups, and the
remote Easter Island, only 2374 miles from South America. The
term "Polynesia" often covers the Samoa and the Tonga Islands,
because they are peopled by the Polynesian race; but these groups
are in other respects part of Melanesia. Finally, _Oceania_ is a
convenient term for all the islands, including New Guinea and New
Zealand, which lie to the east of Malaysia, to the north and east of
Australia.
These small islands are divided into two classes: the mountainous
or volcanic and the coral or flat islands, also called "atolls",
from a word in a South Indian language. Atolls, or coral islands,
in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are made by the coral animals (a
polyp or minute jellyfish-like creature living in communities like
the cells of a human body), building upwards towards the surface
of the sea the lime structures in which they exist. They start, of
course, from some reef or submerged volcanic cone which is not far
below the surface of the water. The limestone rock which they make
out of secretions from the sea water gradually forms an irregular
circle of narrow islets, with a lagoon in the centre and one or
more deep openings to the sea. Vegetation--always coconuts--slowly
covers these coral islands, and at last they become habitable by
man. If the land beneath them is rising above the waves, the coral
fossilizes into coralline rock and the living coral animals go on
building and extending farther out to sea. If the land is sinking
faster than the coral animal can build, then by degrees the once
pleasant islets become a jumble of barren and crumbling rocks, only
haunted by sea birds (but sometimes valuable for their guano), and
finally a dangerous reef or shoal.
Of the smaller Pacific islands that are not mere coral reefs and
atolls the Hawaii group, the Marquezas, Tahiti, Easter Island,
Pitcairn, the Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji groups, the New Hebrides,
most of the Ladrones, and one or two of the Caroline Islands are
_volcanic_, high, and of recent formation, even though like the New
Hebrides and the Marquezas they may rest on submerged extensions
of sunken lands. The Solomon Islands are also mainly volcanic, but
with the Bismarck archipelago practically form an extension of New
Guinea; while New Caledonia is a very old fragment of unsubmerged
land, and so is tiny Norfolk Island between New Caledonia and New
Zealand. The southern island of New Zealand is, like New Caledonia,
a portion of an ancient continent which has never been submerged;
and the north island of that dominion is a very volcanic region.
The volcanic islands of the Pacific are always of more importance
than the coral, partly because they are larger, but still more
on account of their singularly fertile soil, high peaks, good
rainfall, and picturesque scenery. They are, in fact, the "summer
isles of Eden, set in dark purple spheres of sea", of Tennyson's
poem. The climate is almost invariably healthy, the temperature a
perpetual summer, with a never-absent invigorating sea breeze. The
only grim reminder that there is another side to Nature lies in the
occasional hurricane which drives great ships on to the coral or the
basalt rocks, which lays low many a dwelling and plantation, or the
earthquake followed by the still more alarming tidal wave. In Hawaii
there is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, into the
seething crater of which victims used to be thrown as sacrifices to
the god of fire. In the New Hebrides and Santa Cruz Islands there
are other volcanoes, also active and occasionally emitting great
streams of molten lava. This is, or was, also the case in the little
islands--mere volcanic peaks rising above the waves--that form a
broken chain round the north coast of New Guinea. Here were the
"burning islets" so often noted in Tasman's and Dampier's voyages.
Weird was the sight of them at night--a great cone standing out of
the blue-black darkness, vomiting red fiery gas and red-hot ashes,
columns of dense smoke turned gold and orange by the incandescent
lava bubbling up and boiling over the crater's lips, and streaming
in blazing cascades down the mountain's sides. The thundering
discharges of gas, the crackling of electricity, added to the terror
of the scene; and yet one can realize that after a time and the
passing of many such small active volcanoes the Dutch, Spanish, and
English sailors became used to them, and even found the presence of
a burning mountain in the dark tropic night a cheering beacon in the
pathless seas.
Borneo, Celebes, Buru, Jilolo, and the Spice Islands, Timor, Ceram,
the eastern Sunda Islands were, of course, with Java and Sumatra
on the west, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago on the east,
and the Philippines on the north, _continental_ islands; that is to
say, fragments of the former prolongation of Asia towards Australia:
old lands, large or small portions of which have always risen above
the very shallow sea which now separates them from one another.
Yet MALAYSIA, like Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, is very
volcanic. Of all its islands Borneo is the least so at the present
day, in fact there is no active or recently active volcano in that
huge island; whereas the Philippines are occasionally racked with
earthquakes and have twelve active volcanoes. Java has a long range
of lofty craters--some hundred and twenty-five in all, of which at
least thirteen are active. The Lesser Sunda Islands, east of Java,
likewise contain many volcanoes: Lombok and Sumbawa are little more
than exceedingly large groups of craters, and when the Sumbawa
volcano (of which something like 6 cubic miles was blown away)
erupted in 1815, its red-hot lava and ashes killed forty thousand
of the inhabitants on its slopes. There are volcanoes in Celebes,
the Moluccas, Jilolo, and some of the islands off the west end of
New Guinea. Timor only shows traces of past volcanic activity. In
consequence of its being the most volcanic region in the world,
Malaysia is very subject to earthquakes; and these disturbances of
the earth's surface not only cause devastating tidal waves on the
seacoasts, but in some way affect the atmosphere, provoking fearful
cyclones of wind, followed by torrential rain. Similar disturbances
of the atmosphere, however, occur frequently before or after the
rainy season. Borneo is frightfully hot--perhaps hotter all the
year round than any other country--but it is less afflicted with
devastating winds. Nearly all Malaysia has a tremendous rainfall,
though one or two islands, such as Flores and parts of Timor, have
a rather drier climate, more suggestive of northern Australia. As
a rule, however, Malaysia, in consequence of its perpetual summer
under an equatorial sun, its rich alluvial soil--often of that
peculiar richness associated with volcanic materials--and its
plentiful rainfall, is clothed with a primeval forest which for
luxuriance can scarcely be matched in West Africa or Brazil. These
lands have been styled "the gardens of the sun"; "enormous forcing
houses crammed with vegetation"; "great zoological gardens, full of
rare and curious beasts". Here may be seen many species of palms:
the gloriously beautiful Cyrtostachys palm of Java, with vividly
red sheaths to the fronds and flower stalks, and bright yellow
inflorescence changing to scarlet fruit; the creeping, climbing
palms (the "rattan" or _Calamus_); stately Areca palms (which
produce the betel nut, and the smaller species the "cabbage", so
often described by travellers in Australia and the Pacific islands);
useful Sago palms (_Metroxylon_); the sugar-yielding _Arenga_; the
toddy or "rum" palm (_Caryota_); the Nipa, used for thatching; and,
of course, the Coconut. As one travels eastward into the Pacific,
this variety of palms thins out until at last only the Coconut
remains on the coral islands.
Of the other far-famed trees of the Malaysian forest there is the
tall Duriān, with its evil-smelling, delicious-tasting fruit;
there are stately, evergreen oaks, chestnuts, and mulberries;
many kinds of fig trees--some growing like the Indian Banyan,
with dependent roots that reach down from the far-spreading
branches and form a grove of trees in time; others that live like
grey, snaky parasites writhing about the trunks of victim trees,
which in time they strangle; there are giant laurels, cinnamon
laurels, huge myrtles, clove myrtles with their intensely aromatic
flowerbuds, caoutchouc trees producing indiarubber, nutmeg trees,
with their fragrant spice which so early drew traders to the most
eastern part of the Malay Archipelago; and there are trees of
sweet-smelling wood like the sandalwood and the _Aquilaria_ or
eaglewood, others like the damar-attam (_Hopea_), which produce a
valuable glass-like resin; there are two or more kinds of big-leaved
Bread-fruit trees (_Artocarpus_), yielding their farinaceous,
fig-like pods; and Artocarpi of a creeping habit whose branches are
covered with small fig-like fruits remarkable for their gorgeous
coloration--scarlet spotted with white, scarlet and purple, white
and orange. Bamboos, often of huge girth, grow everywhere; orchids
of incredible loveliness in colour and strangeness of form fringe
the great boughs of the forest trees, which also afford harbourage
to parasitic aroids of fantastic appearance; the glades are full
of pitcher plants, ground orchids, brilliantly-coloured Cannas,
"Grains-of-Paradise", calladiums with painted leaves, and wild
bananas, with their beautiful, glossy, emerald-green fronds, or in
some species with vividly coloured flower spikes. The marshy places
are thickly grown with rushes resembling the papyrus of Africa; the
shores of estuaries and low-lying coasts are the domain of tall
mangroves and of the pandanus or screw pine--a semi-aquatic tree
of the tropical parts of the Old World, which, with many aerial
roots, and long, pointed, sword-like leaves, is distantly akin to
the palms, and in Australasia produces fruit which is much eaten
by the natives, especially in the Pacific Islands. These dense
jungles of mangrove, pandanus, and other trees growing in the mud
and brackish water--the habitat of mud-hopping fish, and numbers of
large, brightly-coloured shore crabs, some so blue and so white and
glossy that they are called "porcelain" crabs--were often a great
barrier to the early explorers on the coasts of Borneo, Celebes,
and Timor, besides being a prime hiding place for the _praus_ of
the Malay pirates. In the dense forests the lianas and climbing
plants are a remarkable feature in the pictures of triumphant
vegetation--pictures of which my untravelled readers can gain some
faint idea by ascending the winding staircase in the great Palm
House at Kew Gardens and looking down on the complex assemblage
of tropical trees and plants. In these Malaysian woods there are
many species of wild vines, with small brightly-coloured grapes;
there are exquisite wreaths of the climbing asparagus--_Smilax_;
festoons of climbing ferns, of the various kinds of pepper that hang
their clusters of aromatic seeds from tree to tree, of the ipomœas
(convolvuluses), passion flowers, bignonias, jasmines, purple and
scarlet loranthus (a kind of mistletoe), and many climbing peas and
beans, remarkable for their delicate or brightly-coloured flowers,
which often exhale a delicious scent. In the higher parts of Java,
Borneo, the Philippines, and even of New Guinea there are jungles
of rhododendrons with vivid crimson blossoms. It is, however, a
common mistake to suppose that the entire surface of the Malay
islands is covered with primeval forest. Considerable spaces have
been cleared for cultivation, or after such clearing have relapsed
into jungle; and this jungle is either a second growth of poor and
scattered trees or more often a coarse and luxuriant grass. In the
hilly interior of Dutch Borneo there are dry moors, deep in sand and
sparsely covered with scrub. On the high plateaus and the mountain
ranges of Flores and Timor considerable areas are open, treeless
spaces, but covered instead with low-growing herbs, offering to the
eye spectacles of brilliant colour when they blossom during the
rainy season.
The splendid vegetation of Malaysia extends throughout New Guinea
and the adjacent archipelagos, but with a diminution of species
eastwards and a gradual infiltration of Australian forms, such
as the _Eucalyptus_ (a relation of the Myrtle family), the
Casuarinas,[3] and the Araucaria conifers. More and more attenuated,
the Malaysian flora spreads out over the tropical Pacific islands,
wearing itself out finally in Hawaii, to which the sandalwood and a
few other Malayan trees extend; and Pitcairn Island, where, however,
the few Malayan species may have been anciently introduced by man.
[3] A tree in appearance like a conifer, but in reality belonging
to an isolated and very peculiar sub-class of flowering plants,
distantly akin to oaks and catkin-bearing trees.
The larger and more western islands of the Malay Archipelago have
a fauna of beasts, birds, and reptiles, fish and insects, spiders
and land crabs as remarkable as the wealth of their flora, and next
to Africa the richest in the world. Here may still be seen--in
Borneo--the wild Indian elephant and a two-horned rhinoceros;
in Java there is a tiger and a small form of one-horned Indian
rhinoceros. In Borneo exists the large red-haired ape called
Orang-utan; in Java there are smaller anthropoid apes known as
Gibbons. Java and Borneo both have a handsome wild ox, the Banteng,
besides more or less wild long-horned Indian buffaloes. The smallest
and most remarkable of all the buffaloes is the Anoa, found only
on the island of Celebes, and a larger but similar short-horned
buffalo is found in the Philippines. Nearly all the islands have
wild swine--generally of a type near to the wild boar, but with a
very long head--the parent form of the domestic pig of Polynesia.
But the queer island of Celebes, and Buru, which lies to the east,
possess the strangest pig in the world: the Babirusa, a type
with--for pigs--a small and slender head and (in the male) tusks
which grow up and out through the cheeks. In Borneo there is a large
monkey with an immense drooping nose; in Celebes a creature called
the Black Ape--an intermediate form between baboons, macaques, and
the higher apes. The macaque monkeys--creatures with short tails and
bare faces, rather like small baboons (the Gibraltar monkey is a
macaque)--are very common throughout Malaysia, extending as near to
New Guinea and Australia as the islands of Buru and Timor. The other
monkeys belong to the _Semnopithecus_ genus, the long-tailed sacred
monkeys of India. One of these found in Borneo is a combination
in colouring of black, white, and chestnut red. The more northern
and western of the Malay Islands possess a few strange lemurs, a
large flying creature, the colugo, allied to lemurs and bats, and
the Tupaias or squirrel-tailed Insectivores. Deer, without any
white spots and related to the Sambar type of India, are found in
the Philippines, Borneo, Java, the eastern Sunda Islands as far as
Timor, Celebes, and the Moluccas; and in the Philippines there are
spotted deer like the hog deer of India. Carnivorous mammals are
represented more especially by a small tiger and a leopard in Java,
the Clouded tiger of Borneo (a kind of leopard), several small cats,
numerous civets, a small bear, and wild dogs. Cats and civets extend
their range to Timor and the Philippines, and a civet--probably
brought by the Malays--is found in Celebes. The fruit-eating bats or
flying foxes are very large, often attaining to 5 feet across the
wings. Their range extends eastwards beyond the Solomon Islands to
north-east Australia and the New Hebrides. Nearly all the Pacific
islands, including New Zealand and Hawaii, have bats of their
own, but they are insect-eating, and very often day-flying. In
the eastern islands of Malaysia begin to appear the marsupials of
Australia, but until New Guinea is reached there is only one type
to be seen, the Cuscus--a kind of phalanger akin to the "Opossum"
of Australia.[4] There are porcupines, squirrels, and many strange
rodents of the Rat family in western Malaysia. Peculiar genera and
species of rats penetrate not only to New Guinea and the Solomon
Islands, but also to Australia. The native rats of New Zealand
and the Polynesian islands, however, have been introduced by man,
chiefly for food.
[4] The real opossums are only found in America. Phalangers are
woolly haired lemur-like marsupials, living in trees, which have
their thumb and big toe opposite the other digits for grasping,
besides a tail with a prehensile tip. In the arrangement of their
teeth they are distantly related to kangaroos, which are really only
phalangers, whose far-back ancestors have taken to a life on the
ground.
The wealth in birds in Malaysia makes the naturalist's and
artist's mouth water! There are no vultures, but several types
of eagle--amongst them, in the Philippine Islands, a very large
monkey-eating eagle with a huge, narrow beak--and some very
handsomely coloured kites and hawks. Amongst the parrots are the
gorgeous crimson Eclectus, the lovely Lories, and those "white
parrots"--Cockatoos--which furnished so much amazement and delight
to the early Italian voyagers. But the strangest looking of all
the parrots are the black cockatoos, peculiar to New Guinea. The
peacock reaches to Java but not to Borneo, but in Borneo and Palawan
there are superb pheasants and peacock-pheasants, and most of the
Malaysian islands possess wild jungle fowl. Peculiar to Malaysia
and Australia are the Megapodes, a family of gallinaceous birds
allied to the Curassows of America, and which hatch their eggs
by depositing them in mounds of decaying vegetation. There are
very large cuckoos, the size of big pheasants; but perhaps the
most remarkable bird groups in their Malaysian developments are
the Hornbills and the Pigeons. The Fruit Pigeons of this region
transcend description in their exquisite tints of peach colour,
green of several shades, crimson, purple, and maize yellow. One
kind is jet-black and pale-cream colour. These fruit-eating pigeons
extend their range into New Guinea, Australia, and the Pacific
Islands. In New Guinea there is the celebrated Victoria Crowned
Pigeon, largest living of all the tribe; and in the Samoa Islands,
without any near relation, the _Didunculus_, or Little Dodo--a
ground-frequenting bird (which has since taken to the trees) that
shows us how the large Dodo of Mauritius developed from the ordinary
fruit-pigeon type. The Kingfishers of Malaysia are also very
wonderful, and reach their climax of development in the New Guinea
region. Some species are remarkable for their long storklike beaks,
their long racquet tails, and superb plumage of ultramarine blue,
purple, and white.
But the crown of glory which rests on eastern Malaysia and New
Guinea in regard to bird life has been bestowed on this region
because of the presence here--and here only together with the north
extremity of Australia--of the Paradise Birds. These marvels of
creation, which are fast becoming exterminated by the agents of the
wicked plumage trade, and without any opposition from the Dutch,
German, or British Australian Governments of these countries,
first make their appearance to a traveller coming from the west
when he reaches the island of Jilolo or the Aru Islands, neither
of which groups is very far from New Guinea. The Paradise Birds do
not extend their range to the Bismarck Archipelago. East of the
Solomon Islands there are fewer and fewer species of birds. Two
Lories and three or four Parrakeets are found in Fiji, a beautiful
blue and white lory inhabits Tahiti, together with a species of
parrakeet. An ultramarine-blue and purple lory is found in the
remote Marquezas archipelago, the farthest prolongation eastwards of
the Malayan fauna. The other land birds of the Polynesian islands
are pigeons, thrushes, flower-peckers, starlings, shrikes, babblers,
a screech-owl, one or two plovers and rails, a sea-eagle, and two
or three species of ducks. This seems to represent the totality of
the resident birds of the Pacific islands east of Fiji and the New
Hebrides. The birds of the Hawaii archipelago are very peculiar and
have come thither chiefly from America. They include a peculiar
family of starling-like birds--the _Drepanidæ_--celebrated for the
beauty of their plumage which, in fact, has led to the extinction of
several species.
The reptile life of Malaysia comprises many strange and remarkable
forms, but, like the beasts, birds, and freshwater fish, it thins
out in variety of species as the traveller crosses the boundary
line between the Malay islands of Asiatic affinities and those
belonging more to the Australian region; while, of course, in
Polynesia reptiles are very few, or absent altogether. One or two
species of harmless snakes are found as far eastwards as Fiji and
Samoa. No land reptile of any kind exists in Tahiti or in Hawaii.
Perhaps the biggest Crocodile in the world[5] (_Crocodilus porosus_)
is found in all the great Malay Islands, and its range extends
through New Guinea to the Solomon archipelago and Fiji, and to the
extreme north coast of Australia. A much smaller--barely 7 feet
long--crocodile with a long, narrow muzzle is found in northern
and north-eastern Australia, and is quite harmless. Borneo has a
peculiar gavial (fish-eating crocodile) with a very narrow snout.
Large Pythons--perhaps the biggest known to science--extend over
the same Austro-Malayan region, but do not reach lands to the east
of New Guinea and Australia. Their place in the Melanesian islands
of the Pacific is taken by small Boa snakes of a harmless nature. A
prominent reptile in the life of the aborigines in Austro-Malaysia
is the Monitor lizard, nearly always miscalled by Europeans
"Iguana". This Monitor is the largest of the lizards, with a long,
flexible tail, and sometimes as much as 8 feet in length in its
Melanesian types, and is not infrequently mistaken for a crocodile
by Europeans. It has very sharp teeth and can give a severe but not
a very dangerous bite, its most powerful weapon being its whip-like
tail. It is often eaten by the natives, and in its turn devours
their fowls. Curiously enough, there is a _real_ iguana in the Fiji
Islands--one of the puzzles of animal distribution, for the Iguana
family of vegetable-eating lizards is otherwise confined to Tropical
America and Madagaskar. The seas of Malaysia and of Polynesia (as
far south as the New Zealand coasts) swarm at times with different
types of real sea-serpents, that is to say, snakes that live
entirely in the water and resort only to the shore to give birth to
their young, which are born alive. These sea-snakes are of the Cobra
family and are very poisonous. They are sometimes brightly coloured
and marked in bold patterns.
[5] A specimen 33 feet long has been recorded.
[Illustration: The MALAY ARCHIPELAGO Scale, 1:22,500,00]
Very different in climate, flora, and fauna to Malaysia and
Polynesia are the great southern lands of Australia and New Zealand,
together with New Caledonia and Norfolk Island. The northern,
eastern, and south-western coast regions of Australia have a fairly
abundant rainfall--quite as much as that which prevails in the more
southerly of the Malay islands. But the centre, south, west, and
north-west of Australia is much of it an almost hopeless desert,
though not such a complete sandy desert as may be seen in Mongolia
and northern Africa. The vegetation of this dry region of Australia
consists mainly of a close-growing, spiny-seeded grass--the
celebrated _Spinifex_. There are also gouty-looking Baobab trees
like those of Tropical Africa. In New Guinea, where the rich flora
contains not a few Australian elements, there are mountains rising
considerably above the line of perpetual snow[6] both in the
south-east and west, and many of the volcanoes, active and extinct,
of Malaysia attain altitudes of over ten and eleven thousand feet.
There are mountains nearly as lofty in the Solomon Islands, while
in New Zealand we have the superb Southern Alps (12,349 feet at
their highest), which give a magnificent display of snow peaks
and glaciers. But much of Australia is flat and undulating, and
the highest mountain in that continent is only 7328 feet. Another
thing which marks off Australia from the rest of Australasia is
the complete absence of active volcanoes. But this is only quite a
recent fact in its history, for at periods scarcely more distant
than fifty thousand or sixty thousand years ago there were still
volcanoes in the eastern part of the island continent vomiting out
boiling lava and red-hot ashes, even after the land was inhabited
by man. Still, as compared with Malaysia, Polynesia, and northern
New Zealand, Australia is a very stable region, not persecuted by
earthquakes or the present results of volcanic activity.
[6] The New Guinea mountains are the highest in Australasia, higher
than any land between the Himalayas and the Andes. They rise to over
16,000 feet in the west of New Guinea, and nearly 14,000 feet in the
east. High mountains are common features on the great Malay islands.
They rise to over 10,000 feet in Celebes and the Philippines, to
13,700 feet in North Borneo, and to altitudes of over 11,000 feet in
Java and nearly as high in Timor.
Its flora, like its fauna, is so peculiar that it constitutes one
of the most distinct and separate regions of the world. There are
a few patches of forest in the far north-east which are almost
Malayan in their richness, and which contain quite a number of
Malay types; and in the extreme south-west the Araucaria pine
forests attain a certain luxuriance of growth. The predominant tree
throughout Australia is the Eucalyptus, a peculiar development of
the Myrtle order (anciently inhabiting Europe), which extends into
New Guinea but not into New Caledonia or New Zealand. The Eucalyptus
genus in Australia develops something like one hundred and fifty
species, some of these trees 200 feet high, like the splendid
Jarra timber, others--the Mallee scrub--making low thickets of 12
to 14 feet above the ground. The Australian "pines", important
in the timber trade, belong to the genus _Frenela_, (which is
akin to the African _Callitris_), to the cypresses, the yews,
junipers, and to the genus _Araucaria_, the "Monkey Puzzle" type
of conifer. These Araucarias are also met with in Norfolk Island,
New Caledonia, and on the mountains of New Guinea. They furnish
the Norfolk Island pine, 200 feet high and 30 feet in girth; but
the equally celebrated Kauri "pine" of New Zealand belongs to the
quite different genus _Agathis_. The "She-oaks", "swamp-oaks",
"beef-wood", "iron-wood" trees one reads about in the literature
of Australia, are all species of Casuarina trees. (The Casuarinas
form a separate sub-class of flowering plants. See note on p.
27.) There are no real oaks in Australia, but there is a kind of
beech tree in the south. A type of tree most characteristic of
Australia is the Acacia in various forms, but not looking at all
like the Acacia of Africa and India with its pinnate leaves. The
three hundred kinds of Australian acacias mostly develop a foliage
which consists of long, undivided leaves. They are famous for the
beauty and odour of their yellow blossoms, and under the incorrect
name of "Mimosa" are now widely grown all over the world where the
climate is sufficiently mild, just as the _Eucalyptus globulus_ or
Blue Gum tree of Australia has been spread by cultivation far and
wide through Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. But Australia has
comparatively few palms,[7] and those chiefly in the north-east,
and no bread-fruit tree (except where introduced). Conspicuous
objects in the landscape are the "Grass trees" (_Xanthorrhœa_ and
_Kingia_)--plants allied to lilies and rushes. The Grass tree has a
great bunch of wiry-looking leaves at its base, out of which rises a
straight smooth stem like a long walking-stick. This is surmounted
by a spike of white flowers. The _Doryanthis_ lily grows to a height
of 15 feet from the ground. Another conspicuous object in the
"bush" is the splendid Flame tree, with bunches of crimson flowers
(_Brachychiton_, a genus of the _Sterculiaceæ_, distant relations
of the Baobab and the Mallows). A common sight in the well-watered
regions is the Australian "tulip" (nearly everything in Australia is
mis-named)--the great red Waratah flower, really a kind of _Protea_.
To this same order (_Proteaceæ_), which is so well represented
in Australia and South Africa, belong the beautiful-foliaged
_Grevillea_ trees and the celebrated _Banksia_, a shrub named after
Sir Joseph Banks, and found in Australia and New Guinea. In the
marshes and creeks of Queensland there are superb water lilies with
leaves 18 inches in diameter. The gouty Baobab trees of the desert
have been already mentioned.
[7] See p. 241.
Beautiful scenery is only to be met with in Australia in the
mountain ranges of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, and
in the vicinity of Perth (south-west Australia). Here there are
glades with superb tree-ferns, but the mountain peaks above the
tree zone are bare and desolate. A large proportion of the interior
is a dismal flat of scrub and stones, its monotony only broken by
6- to 20-feet-high mounds of the Termites or white ants. A good
deal of the north coast is obstructed by forests of mangroves--a
dismal-looking tree with its dull-green, leathery foliage,
grey-white stems and pendent air-roots.
An interesting feature, however, in Australian scenery is the
Great Barrier Reef. This is the remains of a former north-eastward
extension of Australia--an immense coral reef stretching out for
several hundred miles from the coast of Queensland in the direction
of New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. This reef of visible and
sunken rocks acted as a great barrier in the past, and prevented
timid navigators from finding the north-east coast of Australia
and establishing its separation from New Guinea. But the reef is
of importance to commerce, for it maintains enormous quantities
of the Trepang or Sea-slug, a creature which makes delicious soup
and is passionately liked by the Chinese. [It is not really a slug
but a relation of the star-fish, and is called scientifically a
Holothurian.] The Great Barrier Reef is famous for the variety
and almost incredible beauty of its corals and of the painted and
decorated fish, anemones, and crabs of these shallow waters. It is,
in fact, a region of such wonderful and strange beauty that one can
only hope it will some day be made a kind of national aquarium by
the Commonwealth of Australia, and constantly visited by those who
like to gaze on the marvellous animals of a tropical coral sea.
The rocky coasts of Australia and Tasmania (besides those of the
Philippines and the Pacific Islands) are remarkable for their
abundant supplies of oysters, clams, whelks, and other shell-fish,
which for ages have been a great food supply to savage man,[8] who
had in fact merely to take at low tide what nature offered to him,
at very little trouble to himself. Some of the clams (_Tridacna_)
are enormous, measuring 3 feet and even 5 feet across the upper
shell.
[8] And since the discovery of Australasia began, a sustenance for
shipwrecked mariners
The crocodiles, pythons, and monitor lizards of Australia have been
already alluded to in the description of Austro-Malaysia. There
should, however, be mentioned in addition the long-necked tortoises
of the continent and the turtles of the seacoasts. Australia once
produced immense horned and armoured tortoises, but they became
extinct soon after man entered this remote land. There are no
vipers or rattlesnakes in Australia; all the poisonous snakes (and
there are many) belong to the Cobra family. The most singular
in appearance of the living land reptiles is a very large Agama
lizard (the _Chlamydosaurus_), which is as much as 3 feet long,
runs or hops on its hind limbs, and when angry erects a huge frill
of leathery skin round the chest and shoulders. Another equally
strange form of the Agama family is the Moloch lizard, about 1 foot
long, with a very small mouth, but protected by the covering of its
skin--a mass of sharp spines, thorns, and knobs. Its skin is not
only very rough, but very absorbent, so that it will suck up water
like blotting paper.
The beasts and birds of Australia are, in most cases, peculiar
to that continent. The former belong almost entirely to the
marsupial sub-class, that is to say, they consist of creatures
like the Kangaru, Phalanger, and Thylacine (besides the Opossums
of America), which, after the young is born, place it in a pouch
on the outside of the mother's stomach, where it is kept until it
is able to forage for itself. In many respects these marsupials
evince a low organization, and really resemble, in their jaws and
teeth, primitive mammals of ancient times discovered in fossil in
Great Britain and North America. New Guinea also possesses some
of these marsupial types, derived probably from Australia. The
most widespread of these is the Spotted Cuscus, a phalanger with a
woolly coat, the male of which has large black or brown spots on
a cream-coloured ground, while the female is uniform brown. This
animal ranges through the easternmost Malay islands from Celebes to
New Guinea and north Australia, while another species, the Grey
Cuscus, is found as far east as the Bismarck Archipelago and the
northern Solomon islands. These outlying groups of islands to the
east of New Guinea also possess a flying Phalanger, but otherwise
no marsupials penetrate into the Pacific islands beyond New Guinea
and Australia. For the rest, New Guinea has Short-legged Kangarus
(_Dorcopsis_), Tree Kangaroos (_Dendrolagus_), Striped Phalangers,
Dormice Phalangers, Flying Phalangers, Feather-tailed Phalangers,
Ring-tailed Phalangers, a species of white-spotted Dasyure
("Marsupial Cat"), and several forms of insectivorous marsupials
("Bandicoots" of the genera _Phascologale_ and _Perameles_). But the
true Kangarus--especially the big species--the Banded Ant-eater,
the Wombats (which look like huge rabbits), the Koala or Tailless
Phalanger (the "native bear"), the striped marsupial wolf or
Thylacine, the Tasmanian Devil, the Marsupial Mole, most of the
Dasyures and Bandicoots, are confined in their distribution to
Australia and Tasmania, Tasmania being the richest part of Australia
in marsupial types.
But this region, in common with New Guinea, possesses mammals
still more primitive and interesting than the marsupials--the
egg-laying sub-class, which contains the two existing forms of
Echidna (Porcupine Ant-eater) and Duckbill. The Duckbill, a furry
creature the size of a large cat, with the jaws converted into a
leathery beak, is only found in the south-east of Australia and in
Tasmania. The Echidna and Duckbill do not produce their young alive,
but lay eggs from which the young are hatched. Apart from these
marsupials and egg-laying mammals, Australia possesses only a few
species of the higher mammals: a wild dog, a number of rats--aquatic
and terrestrial--and bats; besides, of course, seals on the coasts
and rivers, and the strange Dugong.[9] The bats are both of the
insect-eating and fruit-eating kinds, and have probably flown over
in recent times from New Guinea. From the same direction likewise
have travelled the Australian rats, some of which have taken to
a water life. As to the Dingo or Wild Dog, that may have been
introduced by the early human inhabitants who came to Australia from
Malaysia, but it has inhabited Australia for a very long period,
though it did not reach Tasmania. It is related to a wild dog of
Java. There is said to be a wild dingo in New Guinea.
[9] The Dugong, very commonly met with in the early stories of
Australasian adventure, is an aquatic mammal, the size of a large
porpoise, which belongs to the order of the Sirenians. It frequents
the shores of estuaries and seacoasts with plenty of seaweed. It is
a vegetable feeder only. See p. 165.
Australian birds are very noteworthy. In the extreme north there
is the Cassowary, which elsewhere is only found in New Guinea, the
Bismarck Archipelago, and the Island of Ceram. Nearly the whole
of Australia, however, was at one time frequented by the Emu, a
large, flightless bird only second in size to the Ostrich. The
Emu once extended its range to Tasmania as well as to Kangaroo
Island, off the south coast of the continent. The Parrot order is
more abundantly represented in Australia than anywhere else. In
New Zealand and the tiny Norfolk Island there are species of a
remarkable type of Parrot--the Nestor--which has a very long beak,
not deep, like that of other parrots. The family of brush-tongued
Lories is represented in the island continent by many beautiful
forms. Here also developed originally the Cockatoos, which have
since spread to New Guinea and the eastern Malay islands. The True
Parrots and Parrakeets are well represented in New Guinea and
Australia, and assume in some cases the most lovely and delicate
coloration.
[Illustration: THE BIGGEST OF THE KANGAROOS
(From a specimen sent from Australia to the New York Zoological
Park)]
Amongst other noteworthy Australian birds is the Lyre Bird, in two
or three species. This is a distant connection of thrushes and
warblers, the size of a pheasant, and with very pheasantlike habits.
Although the colour of its body is simply brown of various tints,
the male bird has a most remarkable tail, the larger feathers of
which exactly reproduce the form of a lyre. This creature is one
of the minor wonders of the world, and it is therefore surprising
that the great Commonwealth of Australia should take no measures to
prevent its extermination at the hands of thoughtless and ignorant
settlers, for, unlike the cockatoos, it does no damage to crops.
Australia also possesses the Black Swan, and it has a
strange-looking, long-legged Goose, which has scarcely any web
between its toes. There are numerous Eagles and Hawks, but there
is no Vulture. There is also no True Crow, but there are Choughs
and many crow-like developments of the Shrike, Oriole, and
Starling groups, and in the extreme north of Australia, besides
one or two Birds of Paradise, there are the singular Bower Birds
(really belonging to the same family), who build little palaces
and ornamental gardens of sticks, shells, feathers, pebbles, and
other bright and attractive objects, as places in which they can go
through their courtship ceremonies. The mound-building Megapodes or
Brush Turkeys (which do not hatch their eggs by sitting on them,
but bury the egg in a mound of decaying vegetation) also inhabit
eastern and northern Australia, and are the only representatives
there of the gallinaceous order. Amongst Kingfishers is the
celebrated Laughing Jackass, which lives not on fish but on insects
and carrion. Australia has no Woodpeckers, no Hornbills, no Cuckoos,
and no True Pheasants, and a good many other bird families are
remarkable for their absence from this region.
The scenery of New Zealand, in contrast to that of Australia,
is nearly everywhere beautiful--as nature made it--though the
modern settlers have robbed the island of much of its loveliness
by cutting down the forests recklessly, destroying the ferns,
and shooting the song birds. In the North Island of New Zealand
are the most remarkable examples of volcanic activity, and this
region has, or had--for they sometimes disappear in earthquake
convulsions--beautiful crater lakes of deep blue or emerald green
and terraces of congealed lava or pumicestone that assume lovely
tints of pink, pale yellow, green or bluish grey.
The trees and plants of New Zealand have a character quite as
peculiar and distinct as those of Australia. Amongst them grow beech
trees similar to those of South Australia, and allied to the beeches
of South America. There are only two species of a single genus of
palm (_Rhopalostylis_), but there are many conifers allied to those
of New Guinea and South America rather than to the conifers of
Australia. The Kauri "pine" (_Agathis_) has been already mentioned.
None of the conifers of Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and
New Caledonia are "pines", "cedars", or "firs". The members of the
pine family are entirely restricted to the Northern Hemisphere.
The magnificent "pines" of New Caledonia and its adjacent islands
are Araucarias ("monkey puzzles"). Besides an abundance of ferns
(including the bracken), the undergrowth of New Zealand is chiefly
composed of Veronica bushes, of fuchsias, and calceolarias. New
Zealand has no deserts, and is blessed with a constant and a fairly
abundant rainfall. It is as unlike Australia in appearance as it
could well be, and much more resembles in general appearance our own
country of England or the southernmost parts of South America.
New Zealand and New Caledonia were evidently cut off from their
ancient connection with the New Hebrides and New Guinea before
mammals had spread in that direction. New Zealand was entirely
without any form of beast, except bats and seals, when first
colonized by the Maoris; but this Polynesian people brought with
them in their canoes a rat which they bred for eating, and a small,
foxy-looking, domestic dog. Of the bats there are two kinds:
one a small nocturnal bat, allied to the European Pipistrelle;
and the other a very remarkable and isolated form, a "day" bat
(_Mystacops_), which climbs about the trees, has very narrow
wings, and does not fly much. The seals on the coast, which made
New Zealand so attractive to the American and English whaling
ships, consisted of a "Sea Bear" (_Otaria_), the Sea Elephant (now
extinct), and four other large Antarctic species of true Seal. New
Zealand had no great variety in species of birds, which belonged
mainly to the Goose, Rail, Eagle, Parrot, Honeyeater, and Corvine
groups. Amongst the most noteworthy of modern New Zealand birds
are the Kaka Parrot of North Island and the handsome Kea Parrot
of the South Island (both of the genus _Nestor_). The last-named
has lately taken to attacking sheep. Another very interesting form
is the _Stringops_ or Tarapo Ground Parrot (sometimes called the
Owl Parrot). The Huia is a chough-like bird with orange wattles
and a beak which, though straight in the male is sickle-shaped in
the female. The Tui Honeyeater or parson bird has two delicate
white plumes below each cheek. But it is the extinct birds which
will always make New Zealand interesting. Amongst these was the
largest type of bird which has probably ever existed--the Moa. We
now know that besides Moas with long necks and small heads, which
stood about 12 feet high, and were bigger than ostriches, there
were other and much smaller types of the same order. One of these
still survives: it is the so-called wingless Apteryx, which comes
out at night, and with its long beak searches for worms. These Moas,
of many sorts and sizes, probably still lived in the three islands
of the New Zealand dominion when they were first discovered by the
Polynesians; but being without any adequate means of defence, and
quite unable to fly, they were soon exterminated, only the nocturnal
Apteryx remaining. It is possible that these great ostrich-like
birds reached New Zealand from the direction of Queensland and New
Caledonia. [New Caledonia possesses one bird, which is found nowhere
else in the world, though it has relations in South America. This
is the Kagu, a pretty, grey, heron-like creature, which is really a
sort of dwarf crane.] Two other remarkable bird developments once
existed in New Zealand: a large, flightless goose (_Cnemiornis_),
and a huge, thick-set Harpy Eagle (_Harpagornis_). This last no
doubt fed mainly on the Moas, and died out when they became extinct.
New Zealand has only one kind of frog, no snakes, no tortoises,
and only one true lizard (a Gecko), but it possesses all to itself
an indigenous reptile of the greatest possible interest. This is
the Tuatera (or _Sphenodon_), now restricted in its range to three
or four islets off the northernmost coasts of New Zealand. Once
this creature, which is about 3 to 4 feet long, ranged over the
whole of New Zealand. It has been killed out mainly by the white
settlers, and unless some effort is made will soon have disappeared
altogether. This would be a great pity, for it is one of the most
interesting of living things. It is the scarcely changed descendant
of a very early order of reptiles which came into being millions of
years ago and inhabited Europe and Asia.