Produced by Martin Adamson, David Widger and Colin Choat
THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, VOLUME I. (of II.)
By Alfred Russel Wallace
The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise.
A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature.
To CHARLES DARWIN,
AUTHOR OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,"
I dedicate this book,
Not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship
But also
To express my deep admiration
For
His genius and his works.
Contents
PREFACE.
THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER II. SINGAPORE.
CHAPTER III. MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR.
CHAPTER IV. BORNEO--THE ORANGUTAN.
CHAPTER V. BORNEO--JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.
CHAPTER VI. BORNEO--THE DYAKS.
CHAPTER VII. JAVA.
CHAPTER VIII. SUMATRA.
CHAPTER IX. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS.
CHAPTER X. BALI AND LOMBOCK.
CHAPTER XI. LOMBOCK: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER XII. LOMBOCK: HOW THE RAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS.
CHAPTER XIII. TIMOR.
CHAPTER XIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TIMOR GROUP.
CHAPTER XV. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVI. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVII. CELEBES.
CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.
CHAPTER XIX. BANDA.
CHAPTER XX. AMBOYNA.
PREFACE.
My readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this book
for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them full
satisfaction on this point.
When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself surrounded
by a room full of packing cases containing the collections that I had,
from time to time, sent home for my private use. These comprised nearly
three thousand bird-skins of about one thousand species, at least twenty
thousand beetles and butterflies of about seven thousand species, and
some quadrupeds and land shells besides. A large proportion of these
I had not seen for years, and in my then weakened state of health, the
unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a mass of specimens occupied a
long time.
I very soon decided that until I had done something towards naming and
describing the most important groups in my collection, and had worked
out some of the more interesting problems of variation and geographical
distribution (of which I had had glimpses while collecting them), I
would not attempt to publish my travels. Indeed, I could have printed
my notes and journals at once, leaving all reference to questions of
natural history for a future work; but, I felt that this would be as
unsatisfactory to myself as it would be disappointing to my friends, and
uninstructive to the public.
Since my return, up to this date, I have published eighteen papers
in the "Transactions" or "Proceedings of the Linnean Zoological and
Entomological Societies", describing or cataloguing portions of my
collections, along with twelve others in various scientific periodicals
on more general subjects connected with them.
Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my
butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists,
British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among
those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must
name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of
London, who had almost completed the classification and description
of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession),
comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred
were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets.
The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two
thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saunders,
who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good
entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred
species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of
ants, of which two hundred were new.
The six years' delay in publishing my travels thus enables me to give
what I hope may be an interesting and instructive sketch of the main
results yet arrived at by the study of my collections; and as the
countries I have to describe are not much visited or written about, and
their social and physical conditions are not liable to rapid change, I
believe and hope that my readers will gain much more than they will
lose by not having read my book six years ago, and by this time perhaps
forgotten all about it.
I must now say a few words on the plan of my work.
My journeys to the various islands were regulated by the seasons and
the means of conveyance. I visited some islands two or three times at
distant intervals, and in some cases had to make the same voyage four
times over. A chronological arrangement would have puzzled my readers.
They would never have known where they were, and my frequent references
to the groups of islands, classed in accordance with the peculiarities
of their animal productions and of their human inhabitants, would have
been hardly intelligible. I have adopted, therefore, a geographical,
zoological, and ethnological arrangement, passing from island to island
in what seems the most natural succession, while I transgress the order
in which I myself visited them, as little as possible.
I divide the Archipelago into five groups of islands, as follows:
I. THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS: comprising the Malay Peninsula and Singapore,
Borneo, Java, and Sumatra.
II. THE TIMOR GROUP: comprising the islands of Timor, Flores, Sumbawa,
and Lombock, with several smaller ones.
III. CELEBES: comprising also the Sula Islands and Bouton.
IV. THE MOLUCCAN GROUP: comprising Bouru, Ceram, Batchian, Gilolo,
and Morty; with the smaller islands of Ternate, Tidore, Makian, Kaióa,
Amboyna, Banda, Goram, and Matabello.
V. THE PAPUAN GROUP: comprising the great island of New Guinea, with
the Aru Islands, Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and several others. The Ke
Islands are described with this group on account of their ethnology,
though zoologically and geographically they belong to the Moluccas.
The chapters relating to the separate islands of each of these groups
are followed by one on the Natural History of that group; and the work
may thus be divided into five parts, each treating one of the natural
divisions of the Archipelago.
The first chapter is an introductory one, on the Physical Geography of
the whole region; and the last is a general sketch of the races of man
in the Archipelago and the surrounding countries. With this explanation,
and a reference to the maps which illustrate the work, I trust that my
readers will always know where they are, and in what direction they are
going.
I am well aware that my book is far too small for the extent of the
subjects it touches upon. It is a mere sketch; but so far as it goes,
I have endeavoured to make it an accurate one. Almost the whole of the
narrative and descriptive portions were written on the spot, and
have had little more than verbal alterations. The chapters on Natural
History, as well as many passages in other parts of the work, have been
written in the hope of exciting an interest in the various questions
connected with the origin of species and their geographical
distribution. In some cases I have been able to explain my views in
detail; while in others, owing to the greater complexity of the subject,
I have thought it better to confine myself to a statement of the more
interesting facts of the problem, whose solution is to be found in the
principles developed by Mr. Darwin in his various works. The numerous
illustrations will, it is believed, add much to the interest and value
of the book. They have been made from my own sketches, from photographs,
or from specimens--and such, only subjects that would really illustrate
the narrative or the descriptions, have been chosen.
I have to thank Messrs. Walter and Henry Woodbury, whose acquaintance
I had the pleasure of making in Java, for a number of photographs of
scenery and of natives, which have been of the greatest assistance to
me. Mr. William Wilson Saunders has kindly allowed me to figure the
curious horned flies; and to Mr. Pascoe I am indebted for a loan of
two of the very rare Longicorns which appear in the plate of Bornean
beetles. All the other specimens figured are in my own collection.
As the main object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of natural
history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to
museums and amateurs, I will give a general statement of the number of
specimens I collected, and which reached home in good condition. I must
premise that I generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay
servants to assist me; and for nearly half the time had the services of
an English lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from England,
but as I travelled about fourteen thousand miles within the Archipelago,
and made sixty or seventy separate journeys, each involving some
preparation and loss of time, I do not think that more than six years
were really occupied in collecting.
I find that my Eastern collections amounted to:
310 specimens of Mammalia.
100 specimens of Reptiles.
8,050 specimens of Birds.
7,500 specimens of Shells.
13,100 specimens of Lepidoptera.
83,200 specimens of Coleoptera.
13,400 specimens of other Insects.
125,660 specimens of natural history in all.
It now only remains for me to thank all those friends to whom I am
indebted for assistance or information. My thanks are more especially
due to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, through whose
valuable recommendations I obtained important aid from our own
Government and from that of Holland; and to Mr. William Wilson Saunders,
whose kind and liberal encouragement in the early portion of my journey
was of great service to me. I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Samuel
Stevens (who acted as my agent), both for the care he took of my
collections, and for the untiring assiduity with which he kept me
supplied, both with useful information and with whatever necessaries I
required.
I trust that these, and all other friends who have been in any way
interested in my travels and collections, may derive from the perusal of
my book, some faint reflexion of the pleasures I myself enjoyed amid the
scenes and objects it describes.
THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall
perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands
forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and
having little connection with either of them. Situated upon the Equator,
and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region
enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part
of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere
unknown. The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are
Indigenous here. It produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the
great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes),
the man-like Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is
inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind--the Malay,
found nowhere beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence
been named the Malay Archipelago.
To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the
globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our
travellers go to explore it; and in many collections of maps it is
almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the Pacific Islands. It
thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable
with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate
islands are larger than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller,
however, soon acquires different ideas. He sails for days or even weeks
along the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its
inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages
among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that
their several inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are
the native races of the northern to those of the southern continent of
America. He soon comes to look upon this region as one apart from the
rest of the world, with its own races of men and its own aspects of
nature; with its own ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and
with a climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to
itself.
From many points of view these islands form one compact geographical
whole, and as such they have always been treated by travellers and men
of science; but, a more careful and detailed study of them under various
aspects reveals the unexpected fact that they are divisible into two
portions nearly equal in extent which differ widely in their natural
products, and really form two parts of the primary divisions of the
earth. I have been able to prove this in considerable detail by
my observations on the natural history of the various parts of the
Archipelago; and, as in the description of my travels and residence in
the several islands I shall have to refer continually to this view, and
adduce facts in support of it, I have thought it advisable to commence
with a general sketch of the main features of the Malayan region as will
render the facts hereafter brought forward more interesting, and their
bearing upon the general question more easily understood. I proceed,
therefore, to sketch the limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to
point out the more striking features of its geology, physical geography,
vegetation, and animal life.
Definition and Boundaries.--For reasons which depend mainly on the
distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include
the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenasserim and the Nicobar Islands on the
west, the Philippines on the north, and the Solomon Islands, beyond New
Guinea, on the east. All the great islands included within these limits
are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one
of them seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few
exceptions all enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are
covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we study their form
and distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to island, our
first impression will be that they form a connected whole, all the parts
of which are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands.--The Malay Archipelago extends
for more than 4,000 miles in length from east to west, and is about
1,300 in breadth from north to south. It would stretch over an expanse
equal to that of all Europe from the extreme west far into Central Asia,
or would cover the widest parts of South America, and extend far beyond
the land into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands
larger than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the
British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea of
forests. New Guinea, though less compact in shape, is probably larger
than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain; Java,
Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more
islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica; more than a hundred
are as large as the Isle of Wight; while the isles and islets of smaller
size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater than that
contained by Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but, owing to the
manner in which the land is broken up and divided, the variety of its
productions is rather in proportion to the immense surface over which
the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land which they contain.
Geological Contrasts.--One of the chief volcanic belts upon the globe
passes through the Archipelago, and produces a striking contrast in the
scenery of the volcanic and non-volcanic islands. A curving line, marked
out by scores of active, and hundreds of extinct, volcanoes may be
traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by the
islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda,
Amboyna, Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island.
Here there is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200
miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt begins again in North
Celebes, and passes by Siau and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands along
the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their
northern extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of this belt at Banda,
we pass onwards for 1,000 miles over a non-volcanic district to the
volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699, on the north-eastern coast
of New Guinea, and can there trace another volcanic belt through New
Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of
the Archipelago.
In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and for a
considerable breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of continual
recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of every few weeks or
months, while more severe ones, shaking down whole villages, and doing
more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in one
part or another of this district, almost every year. On many of the
islands the years of the great earthquakes form the chronological
epochs of the native inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their
children are remembered, and the dates of many important events are
determined.
I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken
place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and
in the magnitude of their effects, they have not been surpassed by
any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the eruption of
Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by
repeated explosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great
eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed,
and the ashes darkened the air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea
for 300 miles around. Even quite recently, since I left the country, a
mountain which had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly burst
into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent
open in 1646 by a violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one side,
extending into the heart of the mountain. It was, when I last visited
it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit, and contained twelve
populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years
of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and
completely altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the
greater part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes
as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely
destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than
any other known district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in
number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful examples of the volcanic
cone on a large scale, single or double, with entire or truncated
summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.
It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly
built up by the accumulation of matter--mud, ashes, and lava--ejected
by themselves. The openings or craters, however, frequently shift their
position, so that a country may be covered with a more or less irregular
series of hills in chains and masses, only here and there rising into
lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true volcanic action.
In this manner the greater part of Java has been formed. There has been
some elevation, especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs
of coral limestone are found; and there may be a substratum of older
stratified rocks; but still essentially Java is volcanic, and that noble
and fertile island--the very garden of the East, and perhaps upon the
whole the richest, the best cultivated, and the best governed tropical
island in the world--owes its very existence to the same intense
volcanic activity which still occasionally devastates its surface.
The great island of Sumatra exhibits, in proportion to its extent, a
much smaller number of volcanoes, and a considerable portion of it has
probably a non-volcanic origin.
To the eastward, the long string of islands from Java, passing by the
north of Timor and away to Banda, are probably all due to volcanic
action. Timor itself consists of ancient stratified rocks, but is said
to have one volcano near its centre.
Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Bouru, and the west end of Ceram,
the north part of Gilolo, and all the small islands around it, the
northern extremity of Celebes, and the islands of Siau and Sanguir, are
wholly volcanic. The Philippine Archipelago contains many active
and extinct volcanoes, and has probably been reduced to its present
fragmentary condition by subsidences attending on volcanic action.
All along this great line of volcanoes are to be found more or less
palpable signs of upheaval and depression of land. The range of islands
south of Sumatra, a part of the south coast of Java and of the islands
east of it, the west and east end of Timor, portions of all the
Moluccas, the Ke and Aru Islands, Waigiou, and the whole south and east
of Gilolo, consist in a great measure of upraised coral-rock, exactly
corresponding to that now forming in the adjacent seas. In many places
I have observed the unaltered surfaces of the elevated reefs, with great
masses of coral standing up in their natural position, and hundreds of
shells so fresh-looking that it was hard to believe that they had
been more than a few years out of the water; and, in fact, it is very
probable that such changes have occurred within a few centuries.
The united lengths of these volcanic belts is about ninety degrees,
or one-fourth of the entire circumference of the globe. Their width is
about fifty miles; but, for a space of two hundred miles on each side
of them, evidences of subterranean action are to be found in recently
elevated coral-rock, or in barrier coral-reefs, indicating recent
submergence. In the very centre or focus of the great curve of volcanoes
is placed the large island of Borneo, in which no sign of recent
volcanic action has yet been observed, and where earthquakes, so
characteristic of the surrounding regions, are entirely unknown. The
equally large island of New Guinea occupies another quiescent area,
on which no sign of volcanic action has yet been discovered. With the
exception of the eastern end of its northern peninsula, the large and
curiously-shaped island of Celebes is also entirely free from volcanoes;
and there is some reason to believe that the volcanic portion has once
formed a separate island. The Malay Peninsula is also non-volcanic.
The first and most obvious division of the Archipelago would therefore
be into quiescent and volcanic regions, and it might, perhaps, be
expected that such a division would correspond to some differences in
the character of the vegetation and the forms of life. This is the case,
however, to a very limited extent; and we shall presently see that,
although this development of subterranean fires is on so vast a
scale--has piled up chains of mountains ten or twelve thousand feet
high--has broken up continents and raised up islands from the ocean--yet
it has all the character of a recent action which has not yet succeeded
in obliterating the traces of a more ancient distribution of land and
water.
Contrasts of Vegetation.--Placed immediately upon the Equator and
surrounded by extensive oceans, it is not surprising that the various
islands of the Archipelago should be almost always clothed with a forest
vegetation from the level of the sea to the summits of the loftiest
mountains. This is the general rule. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the
Philippines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and
Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant
tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental
fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the island
of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is
absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this
character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and
Bali.
In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species, also
characteristic of Australia, with sandalwood, acacia, and other sorts
in less abundance. These are scattered over the country more or less
thickly, but, never so as to deserve the name of a forest. Coarse
and scanty grasses grow beneath them on the more barren hills, and a
luxuriant herbage in the moister localities. In the islands between
Timor and Java there is often a more thickly wooded country abounding
in thorny and prickly trees. These seldom reach any great height, and
during the force of the dry season they almost completely lose
their leaves, allowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and
contrasting strongly with the damp, gloomy, ever-verdant forests of the
other islands. This peculiar character, which extends in a less degree
to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end of Java, is most
probably owing to the proximity of Australia. The south-east monsoon,
which lasts for about two-thirds of the year (from March to November),
blowing over the northern parts of that country, produces a degree of
heat and dryness which assimilates the vegetation and physical aspect of
the adjacent islands to its own. A little further eastward in Timor and
the Ke Islands, a moister climate prevails; the southeast winds blowing
from the Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests of New
Guinea, and as a consequence, every rocky islet is clothed with verdure
to its very summit. Further west again, as the same dry winds blow
over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have time to absorb fresh
moisture, and we accordingly find the island of Java possessing a less
and less arid climate, until in the extreme west near Batavia, rain
occurs more or less all the year round, and the mountains are everywhere
clothed with forests of unexampled luxuriance.
Contrasts in Depth of Sea.--It was first pointed out by Mr. George
Windsor Earl, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society
in 1845, and subsequently in a pamphlet "On the Physical Geography
of South-Eastern Asia and Australia", dated 1855, that a shallow sea
connected the great islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo with the
Asiatic continent, with which their natural productions generally
agreed; while a similar shallow sea connected New Guinea and some of the
adjacent islands to Australia, all being characterised by the presence
of marsupials.
We have here a clue to the most radical contrast in the Archipelago, and
by following it out in detail I have arrived at the conclusion that
we can draw a line among the islands, which shall so divide them that
one-half shall truly belong to Asia, while the other shall no less
certainly be allied to Australia. I term these respectively the
Indo-Malayan and the Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago.
On referring to pages 12, 13, and 36 of Mr. Earl's pamphlet, it will be
seen that he maintains the former connection of Asia and Australia as
an important part of his view; whereas, I dwell mainly on their
long continued separation. Notwithstanding this and other important
differences between us, to him undoubtedly belongs the merit of first
indicating the division of the Archipelago into an Australian and an
Asiatic region, which it has been my good fortune to establish by more
detailed observations.
Contrasts in Natural Productions.--To understand the importance of this
class of facts, and its bearing upon the former distribution of land and
sea, it is necessary to consider the results arrived at by geologists
and naturalists in other parts of the world.
It is now generally admitted that the present distribution of living
things on the surface of the earth is mainly the result of the last
series of changes that it has undergone. Geology teaches us that
the surface of the land, and the distribution of land and water, is
everywhere slowly changing. It further teaches us that the forms of life
which inhabit that surface have, during every period of which we possess
any record, been also slowly changing.
It is not now necessary to say anything about how either of those
changes took place; as to that, opinions may differ; but as to the fact
that the changes themselves have occurred, from the earliest geological
ages down to the present day, and are still going on, there is no
difference of opinion. Every successive stratum of sedimentary rock,
sand, or gravel, is a proof that changes of level have taken place; and
the different species of animals and plants, whose remains are found
in these deposits, prove that corresponding changes did occur in the
organic world.
Taking, therefore, these two series of changes for granted, most of the
present peculiarities and anomalies in the distribution of species may
be directly traced to them. In our own islands, with a very few trifling
exceptions, every quadruped, bird, reptile, insect, and plant, is found
also on the adjacent continent. In the small islands of Sardinia and
Corsica, there are some quadrupeds and insects, and many plants, quite
peculiar. In Ceylon, more closely connected to India than Britain is to
Europe, many animals and plants are different from those found in India,
and peculiar to the island. In the Galapagos Islands, almost every
indigenous living thing is peculiar to them, though closely resembling
other kinds found in the nearest parts of the American continent.
Most naturalists now admit that these facts can only be explained by
the greater or less lapse of time since the islands were upraised from
beneath the ocean, or were separated from the nearest land; and this
will be generally (though not always) indicated by the depth of the
intervening sea. The enormous thickness of many marine deposits through
wide areas shows that subsidence has often continued (with intermitting
periods of repose) during epochs of immense duration. The depth of sea
produced by such subsidence will therefore generally be a measure of
time; and in like manner, the change which organic forms have undergone
is a measure of time. When we make proper allowance for the continued
introduction of new animals and plants from surrounding countries by
those natural means of dispersal which have been so well explained by
Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Darwin, it is remarkable how closely these two
measures correspond. Britain is separated from the continent by a very
shallow sea, and only in a very few cases have our animals or plants
begun to show a difference from the corresponding continental species.
Corsica and Sardinia, divided from Italy by a much deeper sea, present
a much greater difference in their organic forms. Cuba, separated from
Yucatan by a wider and deeper strait, differs more markedly, so that
most of its productions are of distinct and peculiar species; while
Madagascar, divided from Africa by a deep channel three hundred miles
wide, possesses so many peculiar features as to indicate separation at
a very remote antiquity, or even to render it doubtful whether the two
countries have ever been absolutely united.
Returning now to the Malay Archipelago, we find that all the wide
expanse of sea which divides Java, Sumatra, and Borneo from each other,
and from Malacca and Siam, is so shallow that ships can anchor in any
part of it, since it rarely exceeds forty fathoms in depth; and if we go
as far as the line of a hundred fathoms, we shall include the Philippine
Islands and Bali, east of Java. If, therefore, these islands have
been separated from each other and the continent by subsidence of the
intervening tracts of land, we should conclude that the separation
has been comparatively recent, since the depth to which the land has
subsided is so small. It is also to be remarked that the great chain
of active volcanoes in Sumatra and Java furnishes us with a sufficient
cause for such subsidence, since the enormous masses of matter they have
thrown out would take away the foundations of the surrounding district;
and this may be the true explanation of the often-noticed fact that
volcanoes and volcanic chains are always near the sea. The subsidence
they produce around them will, in time, make a sea, if one does not
already exist.
But, it is when we examine the zoology of these countries that we find
what we most require--evidence of a very striking character that these
great islands must have once formed a part of the continent, and could
only have been separated at a very recent geological epoch. The elephant
and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhinoceros of Sumatra and the
allied species of Java, the wild cattle of Borneo and the kind long
supposed to be peculiar to Java, are now all known to inhabit some part
or other of Southern Asia. None of these large animals could possibly
have passed over the arms of the sea which now separate these countries,
and their presence plainly indicates that a land communication must have
existed since the origin of the species. Among the smaller mammals, a
considerable portion are common to each island and the continent; but
the vast physical changes that must have occurred during the breaking up
and subsidence of such extensive regions have led to the extinction of
some in one or more of the islands, and in some cases there seems also
to have been time for a change of species to have taken place. Birds
and insects illustrate the same view, for every family and almost every
genus of these groups found in any of the islands occurs also on the
Asiatic continent, and in a great number of cases the species are
exactly identical. Birds offer us one of the best means of determining
the law of distribution; for though at first sight it would appear that
the watery boundaries which keep out the land quadrupeds could be easily
passed over by birds, yet practically it is not so; for if we leave out
the aquatic tribes which are pre-eminently wanderers, it is found that
the others (and especially the Passeres, or true perching-birds, which
form the vast majority) are generally as strictly limited by straits and
arms of the sea as are quadrupeds themselves. As an instance, among the
islands of which I am now speaking, it is a remarkable fact that Java
possesses numerous birds which never pass over to Sumatra, though they
are separated by a strait only fifteen miles wide, and with islands in
mid-channel. Java, in fact, possesses more birds and insects peculiar
to itself than either Sumatra or Borneo, and this would indicate that it
was earliest separated from the continent; next in organic individuality
is Borneo, while Sumatra is so nearly identical in all its animal forms
with the peninsula of Malacca, that we may safely conclude it to have
been the most recently dismembered island.
The general result therefore, at which we arrive, is that the great
islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo resemble in their natural
productions the adjacent parts of the continent, almost as much as such
widely-separated districts could be expected to do even if they still
formed a part of Asia; and this close resemblance, joined with the fact
of the wide extent of sea which separates them being so uniformly and
remarkably shallow, and lastly, the existence of the extensive range of
volcanoes in Sumatra and Java, which have poured out vast quantities
of subterranean matter and have built up extensive plateaux and lofty
mountain ranges, thus furnishing a vera causa for a parallel line of
subsidence--all lead irresistibly to the conclusion that at a very
recent geological epoch, the continent of Asia extended far beyond its
present limits in a south-easterly direction, including the islands of
Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, and probably reaching as far as the present
100-fathom line of soundings.
The Philippine Islands agree in many respects with Asia and the other
islands, but present some anomalies, which seem to indicate that they
were separated at an earlier period, and have since been subject to many
revolutions in their physical geography.
Turning our attention now to the remaining portion of the Archipelago,
we shall find that all the islands from Celebes and Lombock eastward
exhibit almost as close a resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as
the Western Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the natural
productions of Australia differ from those of Asia more than those of
any of the four ancient quarters of the world differ from each other.
Australia, in fact, stands alone: it possesses no apes or monkeys, no
cats or tigers, wolves, bears, or hyenas; no deer or antelopes, sheep or
oxen; no elephant, horse, squirrel, or rabbit; none, in short, of those
familiar types of quadruped which are met with in every other part
of the world. Instead of these, it has Marsupials only: kangaroos and
opossums; wombats and the duckbilled Platypus. In birds it is almost as
peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no pheasants--families which
exist in every other part of the world; but instead of them it has the
mound-making brush-turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the
brush-tongued lories, which are found nowhere else upon the globe. All
these striking peculiarities are found also in those islands which form
the Austro-Malayan division of the Archipelago.
The great contrast between the two divisions of the Archipelago is
nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing from the island of Bali to
that of Lombock, where the two regions are in closest proximity. In Bali
we have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers; on passing over to
Lombock these are seen no more, but we have abundance of cockatoos,
honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali, or
any island further west. [I was informed, however, that there were a
few cockatoos at one spot on the west of Bali, showing that the
intermingling of the productions of these islands is now going on.] The
strait is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from
one great division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in
their animal life as Europe does from America. If we travel from Java
or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, the difference is still more
striking. In the first, the forests abound in monkeys of many kinds,
wild cats, deer, civets, and otters, and numerous varieties of squirrels
are constantly met with. In the latter none of these occur; but the
prehensile-tailed Cuscus is almost the only terrestrial mammal seen,
except wild pigs, which are found in all the islands, and deer (which
have probably been recently introduced) in Celebes and the Moluccas. The
birds which are most abundant in the Western Islands are woodpeckers,
barbets, trogons, fruit-thrushes, and leaf-thrushes; they are seen
daily, and form the great ornithological features of the country. In
the Eastern Islands these are absolutely unknown, honeysuckers and small
lories being the most common birds, so that the naturalist feels himself
in a new world, and can hardly realize that he has passed from the one
region to the other in a few days, without ever being out of sight of
land.
The inference that we must draw from these facts is, undoubtedly, that
the whole of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do essentially
form a part of a former Australian or Pacific continent, although some
of them may never have been actually joined to it. This continent must
have been broken up not only before the Western Islands were separated
from Asia, but probably before the extreme southeastern portion of Asia
was raised above the waters of the ocean; for a great part of the
land of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent
formation, while the very great difference of species, and in many cases
of genera also, between the productions of the Eastern Malay Islands and
Australia, as well as the great depth of the sea now separating them,
all point to a comparatively long period of isolation.
It is interesting to observe among the islands themselves how a shallow
sea always intimates a recent land connexion. The Aru Islands, Mysol,
and Waigiou, as well as Jobie, agree with New Guinea in their species of
mammalia and birds much more closely than they do with the Moluccas,
and we find that they are all united to New Guinea by a shallow sea.
In fact, the 100-fathom line round New Guinea marks out accurately the
range of the true Paradise birds.
It is further to be noted--and this is a very interesting point in
connection with theories of the dependence of special forms of life
on external conditions--that this division of the Archipelago into
two regions characterised by a striking diversity in their natural
productions does not in any way correspond to the main physical or
climatal divisions of the surface. The great volcanic chain runs through
both parts, and appears to produce no effect in assimilating their
productions. Borneo closely resembles New Guinea not only in its vast
size and its freedom from volcanoes, but in its variety of geological
structure, its uniformity of climate, and the general aspect of the
forest vegetation that clothes its surface. The Moluccas are the
counterpart of the Philippines in their volcanic structure, their
extreme fertility, their luxuriant forests, and their frequent
earthquakes; and Bali with the east end of Java has a climate almost
as dry and a soil almost as arid as that of Timor. Yet between these
corresponding groups of islands, constructed as it were after the same
pattern, subjected to the same climate, and bathed by the same oceans,
there exists the greatest possible contrast when we compare their animal
productions. Nowhere does the ancient doctrine--that differences
or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different
countries are due to corresponding physical differences or similarities
in the countries themselves--meet with so direct and palpable a
contradiction. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two
distinct countries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder;
while Australia, with its dry winds, its open plains, its stony deserts,
and its temperate climate, yet produces birds and quadrupeds which are
closely related to those inhabiting the hot damp luxuriant forests,
which everywhere clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea.
In order to illustrate more clearly the means by which I suppose this
great contrast has been brought about, let us consider what would occur
if two strongly contrasted divisions of the earth were, by natural
means, brought into proximity. No two parts of the world differ so
radically in their productions as Asia and Australia, but the difference
between Africa and South America is also very great, and these two
regions will well serve to illustrate the question we are considering.
On the one side we have baboons, lions, elephants, buffaloes, and
giraffes; on the other spider-monkeys, pumas, tapirs, anteaters,
and sloths; while among birds, the hornbills, turacos, orioles, and
honeysuckers of Africa contrast strongly with the toucans, macaws,
chatterers, and hummingbirds of America.
Now let us endeavour to imagine (what it is very probable may occur in
future ages) that a slow upheaval of the bed of the Atlantic should take
place, while at the same time earthquake-shocks and volcanic action on
the land should cause increased volumes of sediment to be poured down
by the rivers, so that the two continents should gradually spread out by
the addition of newly-formed lands, and thus reduce the Atlantic which
now separates them, to an arm of the sea a few hundred miles wide. At
the same time we may suppose islands to be upheaved in mid-channel; and,
as the subterranean forces varied in intensity, and shifted their points
of greatest action, these islands would sometimes become connected with
the land on one side or other of the strait, and at other times again be
separated from it. Several islands would at one time be joined together,
at another would be broken up again, until at last, after many long ages
of such intermittent action, we might have an irregular archipelago
of islands filling up the ocean channel of the Atlantic, in whose
appearance and arrangement we could discover nothing to tell us which
had been connected with Africa and which with America. The animals and
plants inhabiting these islands would, however, certainly reveal this
portion of their former history. On those islands which had ever formed
a part of the South American continent, we should be sure to find such
common birds as chatterers and toucans and hummingbirds, and some of the
peculiar American quadrupeds; while on those which had been separated
from Africa, hornbills, orioles, and honeysuckers would as certainly be
found. Some portion of the upraised land might at different times have
had a temporary connection with both continents, and would then contain
a certain amount of mixture in its living inhabitants. Such seems to
have been the case with the islands of Celebes and the Philippines.
Other islands, again, though in such close proximity as Bali and
Lombock, might each exhibit an almost unmixed sample of the productions
of the continents of which they had directly or indirectly once formed a
part.
In the Malay Archipelago we have, I believe, a case exactly parallel
to that which I have here supposed. We have indications of a vast
continent, with a peculiar fauna and flora having been gradually and
irregularly broken up; the island of Celebes probably marking its
furthest westward extension, beyond which was a wide ocean. At the
same time Asia appears to have been extending its limits in a southeast
direction, first in an unbroken mass, then separated into islands as
we now see it, and almost coming into actual contact with the scattered
fragments of the great southern land.
From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how important an
adjunct Natural History is to Geology; not only in interpreting
the fragments of extinct animals found in the earth's crust, but in
determining past changes in the surface which have left no geological
record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact that an accurate
knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should enable us to
map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath the ocean long
before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wherever the geologist
can explore the earth's surface, he can read much of its past history,
and can determine approximately its latest movements above and below the
sea-level; but wherever oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing
but speculate on the very limited data afforded by the depth of the
waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this
great gap in the past history of the earth.
One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evidence of this
nature; and my search after such evidence has been rewarded by great
success, so that I have been able to trace out with some probability the
past changes which one of the most interesting parts of the earth has
undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here
given would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than
at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which supplied the facts.
In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give
such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous
islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant
reference to these generalizations which add so much to their interest.
Having given this general sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show
how the same principles can be applied to the individual islands of a
group, as to the whole Archipelago; and thereby make my account of the
many new and curious animals which inhabit them both, more interesting
and more instructive than if treated as mere isolated facts.
Contrasts of Races.--Before I had arrived at the conviction that the
eastern and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to distinct
primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the
Archipelago under two radically distinct races. In this I differed from
most ethnologists who had before written on the subject; for it had
been the almost universal custom to follow William von Humboldt and
Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as modifications of one
type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays and Papuans
differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character; and
more detailed research, continued for eight years, satisfied me that
under these two forms, as types, the whole of the peoples of the Malay
Archipelago and Polynesia could be classified. On drawing the line which
separates these races, it is found to come near to that which divides
the zoological regions, but somewhat eastward of it; a circumstance
which appears to me very significant of the same causes having
influenced the distribution of mankind that have determined the range of
other animal forms.
The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is sufficiently
intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea which animals do not
possess; and a superior race has power to press out or assimilate an
inferior one. The maritime enterprise and higher civilization of the
Malay races have enabled them to overrun a portion of the adjacent
region, in which they have entirely supplanted the indigenous
inhabitants if it ever possessed any; and to spread much of their
language, their domestic animals, and their customs far over the
Pacific, into islands where they have but slightly, or not at all,
modified the physical or moral characteristics of the people.
I believe, therefore, that all the peoples of the various islands can be
grouped either with the Malays or the Papuans; and that these two have
no traceable affinity to each other. I believe, further, that all the
races east of the line I have drawn have more affinity for each other
than they have for any of the races west of that line; that, in fact,
the Asiatic races include the Malays, and all have a continental origin,
while the Pacific races, including all to the east of the former
(except perhaps some in the Northern Pacific), are derived, not from
any existing continent, but from lands which now exist or have recently
existed in the Pacific Ocean. These preliminary observations will enable
the reader better to apprehend the importance I attach to the details of
physical form or moral character, which I shall give in describing the
inhabitants of many of the islands.