MAY AND JUNE 1861.
I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due
west of Ceram, and of which scarcely anything appeared to be known
to naturalists, except that it contained a babirusa very like that of
Celebes. I therefore made arrangements for staying there two months
after leaving Timor Delli in 1861. This I could conveniently do by means
of the Dutch mail-steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas.
We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired,
the Commandant of the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive
the post-packet, and took me and my baggage on shore, the steamer going
off again without coming to an anchor. We went to the horse of the
Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna--Bouru being too poor a place
to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village
was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency
the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat
brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese
soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in
comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous
staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major. Yet this, as well as most
of the forts in the Moluccas, was originally built by the Portuguese
themselves. Oh! Lusitania, how art thou fallen!
While the Opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk round
the village with a guide in search of a horse. The whole place was
dreadfully damp and muddy, being built in a swamp with not a spot of
ground raised a foot above it, and surrounded by swamps on every side.
The houses were mostly well built, of wooden framework filled in with
gaba-gaba (leaf-stems of the sago-palm), but as they had no whitewash,
and the floors were of bare black earth like the roads, and generally on
the same level, they were extremely damp and gloomy. At length I found
one with the floor raised about a foot, and succeeded in making a
bargain with the owner to turn out immediately, so that by night I had
installed myself comfortably. The chairs and tables were left for me;
and as the whole of the remaining furniture in the house consisted of a
little crockery and a few clothes-boxes, it was not much trouble for the
owners to move into the house of some relatives, and thus obtain a
few silver rupees very easily. Every foot of ground between the homes
throughout the village is crammed with fruit trees, so that the sun and
air have no chance of penetrating. This must be very cool and pleasant
in the dry season, but makes it damp and unhealthy at other times of the
year. Unfortunately I had come two months too soon, for the rains were
not yet over, and mud and water were the prominent features of the
country.
About a mile behind and to the east of the village the hills commence,
but they are very barren, being covered with scanty coarse grass and
scattered trees of the Melaleuca cajuputi, from the leaves of which the
celebrated cajeput oil is made. Such districts are absolutely destitute
of interest for the zoologist. A few miles further on rose higher
mountains, apparently well covered with forest, but they were entirely
uninhabited and trackless, and practically inaccessible to a traveller
with limited time and means. It became evident, therefore, that I must
leave Cajeli for some better collecting ground, and finding a man who
was going a few miles eastward to a village on the coast where he said
there were hills and forest, I sent my boy Ali with him to explore and
report on the capabilities of the district. At the same time I arranged
to go myself on a little excursion up a river which flows into the bay
about five miles north of the town, to a village of the Alfuros, or
indigenes, where I thought I might perhaps find a good collecting
ground.
The Rajah of Cajeli, a good-tempered old man, offered to accompany me,
as the village was under his government; and we started one morning
early, in a long narrow boat with eight rowers. In about two hours
we entered the river, and commenced our inland journey against a very
powerful current. The stream was about a hundred yards wide, and
was generally bordered with high grass, and occasionally bushes and
palm-trees. The country round was flat and more or less swampy, with
scattered trees and shrubs. At every bend we crossed the river to avoid
the strength of the current, and arrived at our landing-place about
four o'clock in a torrent of rain. Here we waited for an hour, crouching
under a leaky mat till the Alfuros arrived who had been sent for from
the village to carry my baggage, when we set off along a path of whose
extreme muddiness I had been warned before starting.
I turned up my trousers as high as possible, grasped a stoat stick to
prevent awkward falls, and then boldly plunged into the first mud-hole,
which was immediately succeeded by another and another. The marl or mud
and water was knee-deep with little intervals of firmer ground between,
making progression exceedingly difficult. The path was bordered with
high rigid grass, brewing in dense clumps separated by water, so that
nothing was to be gained by leaving the beaten track, and we were
obliged to go floundering on, never knowing where our feet would rest,
as the mud was now a few inches, now two feet deep, and the bottom
very uneven, so that the foot slid down to the lowest part, and made
it difficult to keep one's balance. One step would be upon a concealed
stick or log, almost dislocating the ankle, while the next would plunge
into soft mud above the knee. It rained all the way, and the long grass,
six feet high, met over the path; so that we could not see a step of the
way ahead, and received a double drenching. Before we got to the village
it was dark, and we had to cross over a small but deep and swollen
stream by a narrow log of wood, which was more than a foot under water.
There was a slender shaking stick for a handrail, and it was nervous
work feeling in the dark in the rushing water for a safe place on which
to place the advanced foot. After au hour of this most disagreeable
and fatiguing walk we reached the village, followed by the men with
our guns, ammunition, boxes, and bedding all more or less soaked. We
consoled ourselves with some hot tea and cold fowl, and went early to
bed.
The next morning was clear and fine, and I set out soon after sunrise to
explore the neighbourhood. The village had evidently been newly formed,
and consisted of a single straight street of very miserable huts totally
deficient in every comfort, and as bare and cheerless inside as out. It
was situated on a little elevated patch of coarse gravelly soil, covered
with the usual high rigid grass, which came up close to the backs of
the houses. At a short distance in several directions were patches of
forest, but all on low and swampy ground. I made one attempt along the
only path I could find, but soon came upon a deep mud-hole, and found
that I must walk barefoot if at all; so I returned and deferred further
exploration till after breakfast. I then went on into the jungle and
found patches of sago-palms and a low forest vegetation, but the paths
were everywhere full of mud-holes, and intersected by muddy streams
and tracts of swamp, so that walking was not pleasurable, and too much
attention to one's steps was not favourable to insect catching, which
requires above everything freedom of motion. I shot a few birds,
and caught a few butterflies, but all were the same as I had already
obtained about Cajeli.
On my return to the village I was told that the same kind of ground
extended for many miles in every direction, and I at once decided that
Wayapo was not a suitable place to stay at. The next morning early we
waded back again through the mud and long wet grass to our boat, and
by mid-day reached Cajeli, where I waited Ali's return to decide on my
future movements. He came the following day, and gave a very bad account
of Pelah, where he had been. There was a little brush and trees along
the beach, and hills inland covered with high grass and cajuputi
trees--my dread and abhorrence. On inquiring who could give me
trustworthy information, I was referred to the Lieutenant of the
Burghers, who had travelled all round the island, and was a very
intelligent fellow. I asked him to tell me if he knew of any part of
Bouru where there was no "kusu-kusu," as the coarse grass of the country
is called. He assured me that a good deal of the south coast was forest
land, while along the north was almost entirely swamp and grassy hills.
After minute inquiries, I found that the forest country commenced at a
place called Waypoti, only a few miles beyond Pelah, but that, as the
coast beyond that place was exposed to the east monsoon and dangerous
for praus, it was necessary to walk. I immediately went to the Opzeiner,
and he called the Rajah. We had a consultation, and arranged for a boat
to take me the next evening but one, to Pelah, whence I was to proceed
on foot, the Orang-kaya going the day before to call the Alfuros to
carry my baggage.
The journey was made as arranged, and on May 19th we arrived at Waypoti,
having walked about ten miles along the beach, and through stony forest
bordering the sea, with occasional plunges of a mile or two into the
interior. We found no village, but scattered houses and plantations,
with hilly country pretty well covered with forest, and looking rather
promising. A low hut with a very rotten roof, showing the sky through in
several places, was the only one I could obtain. Luckily it did not rain
that night, and the next day we pulled down some of the walls to repair
the roof, which was of immediate importance, especially over our beds
and table.
About half a mile from the house was a fine mountain stream, running
swiftly over a bed of rocks and pebbles, and beyond this was a hill
covered with fine forest. By carefully picking my way I could wade
across this river without getting much above my knees, although I would
sometimes slip off a rock and go into a hole up to my waist, and
about twice a week I went across it in order to explore the forest.
Unfortunately there were no paths here of any extent, and it did
not prove very productive either in insects or birds. To add to my
difficulties I had stupidly left my only pair of strong hoots on board
the steamer, and my others were by this time all dropping to pieces,
so that I was obliged to walk about barefooted, and in constant fear of
hurting my feet, and causing a wound which might lay me up for weeks,
as had happened in Borneo, Are, and Dorey. Although there were numerous
plantations of maize and plantains, there were no new clearings; and as
without these it is almost impossible to find many of the best kinds
of insects, I determined to make one myself, and with much difficulty
engaged two men to clear a patch of forest, from which I hoped to obtain
many fine beetles before I left.
During the whole of my stay, however, insects never became plentiful. My
clearing produced me a few fine, longicorns and Buprestidae, different
from any I had before seen, together with several of the Amboyna
species, but by no means so numerous or, so beautiful as I had found in
that small island. For example, I collected only 210 different kinds
of beetles during my two months' stay at Bourn, while in three weeks
at Amboyna, in 1857, I found more than 300 species: One of the finest
insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut
colour, and with very long antennae. It varied greatly in size, the
largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only
an inch, the antenna varying from one and a half to five inches.
One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking
through some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a
small fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, and far
to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of the herbage. He
jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good
vies of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being
dragged along through the grass. As he lead several times already shot
large snakes, which he declared were all as nothing compared with
this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. Such
creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man living close by showed
me on his thigh the marks where he had been seized by one close to his
house. It was big enough to take the man's thigh in its mouth, and he
would probably have been killed and devoured by it had not his cries
brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their choppers. As
far as I could make out it was about twenty feet long, but Ali's was
probably much larger.
It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have taken
possession of it, a native hut seems quite a comfortable home. My house
at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a large bamboo platform at one side. At
one end of this platform, which was elevated about three feet, I fixed
up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with a large Scotch
plaid, making a comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a
rude table on legs buried in the earthen floor, and had my comfortable
rattan-chair for a seat. A line across one corner carried my
daily-washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my
small stock of crockery and hardware: Boxes were ranged against the
thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections from ants
while drying, were suspended both without and within the house. On my
table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers, and pins, with insect and
bird labels, all of which were unsolved mysteries to the native mind.
Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and the better
informed took a pride in teaching their more ignorant companions the
peculiarities and uses of that strange European production--a needle
with a head, but no eye! Even paper, which we throw away hourly as
rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them picking up little
scraps which had been swept out of the house, and carefully putting
them away in their betel-pouch. Then when I took my morning coffee and
evening tea, how many were the strange things displayed to them! Teapot,
teacups, teaspoons, were all more or less curious in their eyes; tea,
sugar, biscuit, and butter, were articles of human consumption seen
by many of them for the first time. One asks if that whitish powder is
"gula passir" (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse
lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the biscuit is
considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the inhabitants of those
remote regions are obliged to use in the absence of the genuine article.
My pursuit, were of course utterly beyond their comprehension. They
continually asked me what white people did with the birds and insects I
tools so much care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they
might perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and files and small ugly
insects put away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and they were
convinced that there must be some medical or magical use for them
which I kept a profound secret. These people were in fact as completely
unacquainted with civilized life as the Indians of the Rocky Mountains,
or the savages of Central Africa--yet a steamship, that highest triumph
of human ingenuity, with its little floating epitome of European
civilization, touches monthly at Cajeli, twenty miles off; while at
Amboyna, only sixty miles distant, a European population and government
have been established for more than three hundred years.
Having seen a good many of the natives of Bouru from different villages,
and from distant parts of the island, I feel convinced that they consist
of two distinct races now partially amalgamated. The larger portion are
Malays of the Celebes type, often exactly similar to the Tomóre
people of East Celebes, whom I found settled in Batchian; while others
altogether resemble the Alfuros of Ceram.
The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The Sula Islands,
which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach to within forty
miles of the north coast of Bouru, while the island of Manipa offers an
easy point of departure for the people of Ceram. I was confirmed in
this view by finding that the languages of Bouru possessed distinct
resemblances to that of Sula, as well as to those of Ceram.
Soon after we had arrived at Waypoti, Ali had seen a beautiful little
bird of the genus Pitta, which I was very anxious to obtain, as in
almost every island the species are different, and none were yet known
from Bourn. He and my other hunter continued to see it two or three
times a week, and to hear its peculiar note much oftener, but could
never get a specimen, owing to its always frequenting the most dense
thorny thickets, where only hasty glimpses of it could be obtained, and
at so short a distance that it would be difficult to avoid blowing
the bird to pieces. Ali was very much annoyed that he could not get a
specimen of this bird, in going after which he had already severely,
wounded his feet with thorns; and when we had only two days more to
stay, he went of his own accord one evening to sleep at a little but
in the forest some miles off, in order to have a last try for it at
daybreak, when many birds come out to feed, and are very intent on their
morning meal. The next evening he brought me home two specimens, one
with the head blown completely off, and otherwise too much injured to
preserve, the other in very good order, and which I at once saw to be
a new species, very like the Pitta celebensis, but ornamented with a
square patch of bright red on the nape of the neck.
The next day after securing this prize we returned to Cajeli, and
packing up my collections left Bouru by the steamer. During our two
days' stay at Ternate, I took on board what baggage I had left there,
and bade adieu to all my friends. We then crossed over to Menado, on
our way to Macassar and Java, and I finally quitted the Moluccas, among
whose luxuriant and beautiful islands I had wandered for more than three
years.
My collections in Bouru, though not extensive, were of considerable
interest; for out of sixty-six species of birds which I collected there,
no less than seventeen were new, or had not been previously found in any
island of the Moluccas. Among these were two kingfishers, Tanysiptera
acis and Ceyx Cajeli; a beautiful sunbird, Nectarines proserpina; a
handsome little black and white flycatcher, Monarcha loricata, whose
swelling throat was beautifully scaled with metallic blue; and several
of less interest. I also obtained a skull of the babirusa, one specimen
of which was killed by native hunters during my residence at Cajeli.