(JANUARY 1857)
THE native boats that had come to meet us were three or four in number,
containing in all about fifty men.
They were long canoes, with the bow and stern rising up into a beak
six or night feet high, decorated with shells and waving plumes of
cassowaries hair. I now had my first view of Papuans in their own
country, and in less than five minutes was convinced that the opinion
already arrived at by the examination of a few Timor and New Guinea
slaves was substantially correct, and that the people I now had an
opportunity of comparing side by side belonged to two of the most
distinct and strongly marked races that the earth contains. Had I been
blind, I could have been certain that these islanders were not Malays.
The loud, rapid, eager tones, the incessant motion, the intense vital
activity manifested in speech and action, are the very antipodes of the
quiet, unimpulsive, unanimated Malay These Ke men came up singing and
shouting, dipping their paddles deep in the water and throwing up clouds
of spray; as they approached nearer they stood up in their canoes and
increased their noise and gesticulations; and on coming alongside,
without asking leave, and without a moment's hesitation, the greater
part of them scrambled up on our deck just as if they were come to take
possession of a captured vessel. Then commenced a scene of indescribable
confusion. These forty black, naked, mop-headed savages seemed
intoxicated with joy and excitement. Not one of them could remain still
for a moment. Every individual of our crew was in turn surrounded and
examined, asked for tobacco or arrack, grinned at and deserted for
another. All talked at once, and our captain was regularly mobbed by
the chief men, who wanted to be employed to tow us in, and who begged
vociferously to be paid in advance. A few presents of tobacco made their
eyes glisten; they would express their satisfaction by grins and shouts,
by rolling on deck, or by a headlong leap overboard. Schoolboys on an
unexpected holiday, Irishmen at a fair, or mid-shipmen on shore, would
give but a faint idea of the exuberant animal enjoyment of these people.
Under similar circumstances Malays could not behave as these Papuans
did. If they came on board a vessel (after asking permission), not a
word would be at first spoken, except a few compliments, and only after
some time, and very cautiously, world any approach be made to business.
One would speak at a time, with a low voice and great deliberation,
and the mode of making a bargain would be by quietly refusing all your
offers, or even going away without saying another word about the matter,
unless advanced your price to what they were willing to accept.
Our crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, seemed quite
scandalized at such unprecedented bad manners, and only very gradually
made any approach to fraternization with the black fellows. They
reminded me of a party of demure and well-behaved children suddenly
broken in upon by a lot of wild romping, riotous boys, whose conduct
seems most extraordinary and very naughty. These moral features are
more striking and more conclusive of absolute diversity than oven
the physical contrast presented by the two races, though that is
sufficiently remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like
head of frizzly hair, and, most important of all, the marked form of
countenance of quite a different type from that of the Malay, are
what we cannot believe to result from mere climatal or other modifying
influences on one and the same race. The Malay face is of the Mongolian
type, broad and somewhat flat. The brows are depressed, the mouth wide,
but not projecting, and the nose small and well formed but for the great
dilatation of the nostrils. The face is smooth, and rarely develops the
trace of a beard; the hair black, coarse, and perfectly straight. The
Papuan, on the other hand, has a face which we may say is compressed and
projecting. The brows are protuberant and overhanging, the mouth
large and prominent, while the nose is very large, the apex elongated
downwards, the ridge thick, and the nostrils large. It is an obtrusive
and remarkable feature in the countenance, the very reverse of what
obtains in the Malay face. The twisted beard and frizzly hair complete
this remarkable contrast. Hero then I had reached a new world, inhabited
by a strange people. Between the Malayan tribes, among whom I had for
some years been living, and the Papuan races, whose country I had now
entered, we may fairly say that there is as much difference, both
moral and physical, as between the red Indians of South America and the
negroes of Guinea on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
Jan. 1st, 1857.-This has been a day of thorough enjoyment. I have
wandered in the forests of an island rarely seen by Europeans. Before
daybreak we left our anchorage, and in an hour reached the village of
Har, where we were to stay three or four days. The range of hills here
receded so as to form a small bay, and they were broken up into peaks
and hummocks with intervening flats and hollows. A broad beach of
the whitest sand lined the inner part of the bay, backed by a mass of
cocoa-nut palms, among which the huts were concealed, and surmounted by
a dense and varied growth of timber. Canoes and boats of various sizes
were drawn up on the beach and one or two idlers, with a few children
and a dog, gazed at our prau as we came to an anchor.
When we went on shore the first thing that attracted us was a large and
well-constructed shed, under which a long boat was being built, while
others in various stages of completion were placed at intervals along
the beach. Our captain, who wanted two of moderate size for the trade
among the islands at Aru, immediately began bargaining for them, and in
a short tine had arranged the nuns number of brass guns, gongs, sarongs,
handkerchiefs, axes, white plates, tobacco, and arrack, which he was to
give for a hair which could be got ready in four days. We then went
to the village, which consisted only of three or four huts, situated
immediately above the beach on an irregular rocky piece of ground
overshadowed with cocoa-nuts, palms, bananas, and other fruit trees.
The houses were very rude, black, and half rotten, raised a few feet on
posts with low sides of bamboo or planks, and high thatched roofs. They
had small doors and no windows, an opening under the projecting gables
letting the smoke out and a little light in. The floors were of strips
of bamboo, thin, slippery, and elastic, and so weak that my feet were
in danger of plunging through at every step. Native boxes of
pandanus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very neatly constructed, mats
of the same, jars and cooking pots of native pottery, and a few European
plates and basins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was
throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the extreme.
Accompanied by Ali and Baderoon, I now attempted to make some
explorations, and we were followed by a train of boys eager to see what
we were going to do. The most trodden path from the beach led us into a
shady hollow, where the trees were of immense height and the undergrowth
scanty. From the summits of these trees came at intervals a deep booming
sound, which at first puzzled us, but which we soon found to proceed
from some large pigeons. My boys shot at them, and after one or two
misses, brought one down. It was a magnificent bird twenty inches long,
of a bluish white colour, with the back wings and tail intense metallic
green, with golden, blue, and violet reflexions, the feet coral red,
and the eyes golden yellow. It is a rare species, which I have named
Carpophaga concinna, and is found only in a few small islands, where,
however, it abounds. It is the same species which in the island of Banda
is called the nutmeg-pigeon, from its habit of devouring the fruits,
the seed or nutmeg being thrown up entire and uninjured. Though these
pigeons have a narrow beak, yet their jaws and throat are so extensible
that they can swallow fruits of very large size. I had before shot a
species much smaller than this one, which had a number of hard globular
palm-fruits in its crop, each more than an inch in diameter.
A little further the path divided into two, one leading along the beach,
and across mangrove and sago swamps the other rising to cultivated
grounds. We therefore returned, and taking a fresh departure from
the village, endeavoured to ascend the hills and penetrate into the
interior. The path, however, was a most trying one. Where there was
earth, it was a deposit of reddish clay overlying the rock, and was worn
so smooth by the attrition of naked feet that my shoes could obtain no
hold on the sloping surface. A little farther we came to the bare rock,
and this was worse, for it was so rugged and broken, and so honeycombed
and weatherworn into sharp points and angles, that my boys, who had
gone barefooted all their lives, could not stand it. Their feet began to
bleed, and I saw that if I did not want them completely lamed it would
be wise to turn lack. My own shoes, which were rather thin, were but a
poor protection, and would soon have been cut to pieces; yet our little
naked guides tripped along with the greatest ease and unconcern, and
seemed much astonished at our effeminacy in not being able to take a
walk which to them was a perfectly agreeable one. During the rest of our
stay in the island we were obliged to confine ourselves to the vicinity
of the shore and the cultivated grounds, and those more level portions
of the forest where a little soil had accumulated and the rock had been
less exposed to atmospheric action.
The island of Ke (pronounced exactly as the letter K, but erroneously
spelt in our maps Key or Ki) is long and narrow, running in a north and
south direction, and consists almost entirely of rock and mountain. It
is everywhere covered with luxuriant forests, and in its bays and inlets
the sand is of dazzling whiteness, resulting from the decomposition of
the coralline limestone of which it is entirely composed. In all the
little swampy inlets and valleys sago trees abound, and these supply the
main subsistence of the natives, who grow no rice, and have scarcely any
other cultivated products but cocoa-nuts, plantains, and yams. From the
cocoa-nuts, which surround every hut, and which thrive exceedingly on
the porous limestone soil and under the influence of salt breezes, oil
is made which is sold at a good price to the Aru traders, who all touch
here to lay in their stuck of this article, as well as to purchase boats
and native crockery. Wooden bowls, pans, and trays are also largely made
here, hewn out of solid blocks of wood with knife and adze; and these
are carried to all parts of the Moluccas. But the art in which the
natives of Ke pre-eminently excel is that of boat building. Their
forests supply abundance of fine timber, though, probably not more
so than many other islands, and from some unknown causes these remote
savages have come to excel in what seems a very difficult art. Their
small canoes are beautifully formed, broad and low in the centre, but
rising at each end, where they terminate in high-pointed beaks more
or less carved, and ornamented with a plume of feathers. They are not
hollowed out of a tree, but are regularly built of planks running from
ego to end, and so accurately fitted that it is often difficult to find
a place where a knife-blade can be inserted between the joints. The
larger ones are from 20 to 30 tons burthen, and are finished ready for
sea without a nail or particle of iron being used, and with no other
tools than axe, adze, and auger. These vessels are handsome to look at,
good sailers, and admirable sea-boats, and will make long voyages with
perfect safety, traversing the whole Archipelago from New Guinea to
Singapore in seas which, as every one who has sailed much in them can
testify, are not so smooth and tempest-free as word-painting travellers
love to represent them.
The forests of Ke produce magnificent timber, tall, straight, and
durable, of various qualities, some of which are said to be superior
to the best Indian teak. To make each pair of planks used in the
construction of the larger boats an entire tree is consumed. It is
felled, often miles away from the shore, cut across to the proper
length, and then hewn longitudinally into two equal portions. Each of
these forms a plank by cutting down with the axe to a uniform thickness
of three or four inches, leaving at first a solid block at each end to
prevent splitting. Along the centre of each plank a series of projecting
pieces are left, standing up three or four inches, about the same width,
and a foot long; these are of great importance in the construction of
the vessel. When a sufficient number of planks have been made, they are
laboriously dragged through the forest by three or four men each to the
beach, where the boat is to be built. A foundation piece, broad in the
middle and rising considerably at each end, is first laid on blocks and
properly shored up. The edges of this are worked true and smooth with
the adze, and a plank, properly curved and tapering at each end, is held
firmly up against it, while a line is struck along it which allows it to
be cut so as to fit exactly. A series of auger holes, about as large as
one's finger, are then bored along the opposite edges, and pins of very
hard wood are fitted to these, so that the two planks are held firmly,
and can be driven into the closest contact; and difficult as this seems
to do without any other aid than rude practical skill in forming each
edge to the true corresponding curves, and in poring the holes so as
exactly to match both in position and direction, yet so well is it
done that the best European shipwright cannot produce sounder or
closer-fitting joints. The boat is built up in this way by fitting plank
to plank till the proper height and width are obtained. We have now a
skin held together entirely by the hardwood pins connecting the edges of
the planks, very strong and elastic, but having nothing but the adhesion
of these pins to prevent the planks gaping. In the smaller boats seats,
in the larger ones cross-beams, are now fixed. They are sprung into
slight notches cut to receive them, and are further secured to the
projecting pieces of the plank below by a strong lashing of rattan. Ribs
are now formed of single pieces of tough wood chosen and trimmed so as
exactly to fit on to the projections from each plank, being slightly
notched to receive them, and securely bound to them by rattans passed
through a hole in each projecting piece close to the surface of the
plank. The ends are closed against the vertical prow and stern posts,
and further secured with pegs and rattans, and then the boat is
complete; and when fitted with rudders, masts, and thatched covering,
is ready to do battle with, the waves. A careful consideration of the
principle of this mode of construction, and allowing for the strength
and binding qualities of rattan (which resembles in these respects wire
rather than cordage), makes me believe that a vessel carefully built
in this manner is actually stronger and safer than one fastened in the
ordinary way with nails.
During our stay here we were all very busy. Our captain was daily
superintending the completion of his two small praus. All day long
native boats were coming with fish, cocoa-nuts, parrots and lories,
earthen pans, sirip leaf, wooden bowls, and trays, &c. &e., which every
one of the fifty inhabitants of our prau seemed to be buying on his own
account, till all available and most unavailable space of our vessel
was occupied with these miscellaneous articles: for every man on board
a prau considers himself at liberty to trade, and to carry with him
whatever he can afford to buy.
Money is unknown and valueless here--knives, cloth, and arrack forming
the only medium of exchange, with tobacco for small coin. Every
transaction is the subject of a special bargain, and the cause of much
talking. It is absolutely necessary to offer very little, as the natives
are never satisfied till you add a little more. They are then far better
pleased than if you had given them twice the amount at first and refused
to increase it.
I, too, was doing a little business, having persuaded some of the
natives to collect insects for me; and when they really found that I
gave them most fragrant tobacco for worthless black and green beetles, I
soon had scores of visitors, men, women, and children, bringing bamboos
full of creeping things, which, alas! too frequently had eaten each
other into fragments during the tedium of a day's confinement. Of one
grand new beetle, glittering with ruby and emerald tints, I got a large
quantity, having first detected one of its wing-cases ornamenting the
outside of a native's tobacco pouch. It was quite a new species, and had
not been found elsewhere than on this little island. It is one of the
Buprestidae, and has been named Cyphogastra calepyga.
Each morning after an early breakfast I wandered by myself into the
forest, where I found delightful occupation in capturing the large and
handsome butterflies, which were tolerably abundant, and most of them
new to me; for I was now upon the confines of the Moluccas and New
Guinea,--a region the productions of which were then among the most
precious and rare in the cabinets of Europe. Here my eyes were feasted
for the first time with splendid scarlet lories on the wing, as well
as by the sight of that most imperial butterfly, the "Priamus" of
collectors, or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I did
not succeed in capturing a specimen. One of them was brought me in a
bamboo, bored up with a lot of beetles, and of course torn to pieces.
The principal drawback of the place for a collector is the want of good
paths, and the dreadfully rugged character of the surface, requiring
the attention to be so continually directed to securing a footing, as to
make it very difficult to capture active winged things, who pass out of
reach while one is glancing to see that the next step may not plunge one
into a chasm or over a precipice. Another inconvenience is that there
are no running streams, the rock being of so porous a nature that the
surface-water everywhere penetrates its fissures; at least such is the
character of the neighbourhood we visited, the only water being small
springs trickling out close to the sea-beach.
In the forests of Ke, arboreal Liliaceae and Pandanaceae abound, and
give a character to the vegetation in the more exposed rocky places.
Flowers were scarce, and there were not many orchids, but I noticed
the fine white butterfly-orchis, Phalaenopsis grandiflora, or a species
closely allied to it. The freshness and vigour of the vegetation was
very pleasing, and on such an arid rocky surface was a sure indication
of a perpetually humid climate. Tall clean trunks, many of them
buttressed, and immense trees of the fig family, with aerial roots
stretching out and interlacing and matted together for fifty or a
hundred feet above the ground, were the characteristic features; and
there was an absence of thorny shrubs and prickly rattans, which would
have made these wilds very pleasant to roam in, had it not been for
the sharp honeycombed rocks already alluded to. In damp places a fine
undergrowth of broadleaved herbaceous plants was found, about which
swarmed little green lizards, with tails of the most "heavenly blue,"
twisting in and out among the stalks and foliage so actively that I
often caught glimpses of their tails only, when they startled me by
their resemblance to small snakes. Almost the only sounds in these
primeval woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter
shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green
nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two
notes struck upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like
croak, altogether peculiar and remarkable. Only two quadrupeds are
said by the natives to inhabit the island--a wild pig and a Cuscus, or
Eastern opossum, of neither of which could I obtain specimens.
The insects were more abundant, and very interesting. Of butterflies
I caught thirty-five species, most of them new to me, and many quite
unknown in European collections. Among them was the fine yellow and
black Papilio euchenor, of which but few specimens had been previously
captured, and several other handsome butterflies of large size, as well
as some beautiful little "blues," and some brilliant dayflying moths.
The beetle tribe were less abundant, yet I obtained some very fine and
rare species. On the leaves of a slender shrub in an old clearing I
found several fine blue and black beetles of the genus Eupholus, which
almost rival in beauty the diamond beetles of South America. Some
cocoa-nut palms in blossom on the beach were frequented by a fine green
floral beetle (Lomaptera) which, when the flowers were shaken, flew off
like a small swarm of bees. I got one of our crew to climb up the
tree, and he brought me a good number in his hand; and seeing they were
valuable, I sent him up again with my net to shake the flowers into, and
thus secured a large quantity. My best capture, however, was the
superb insect of the Buprestis family, already mentioned as having been
obtained from the natives, who told me they found it in rotten trees in
the mountains.
In the forest itself the only common and conspicuous coleoptera were
two tiger beetles. One, Therates labiata, was much larger than our green
tiger beetle, of a purple black colour, with green metallic glosses,
and the broad upper lip of a bright yellow. It was always found upon
foliage, generally of broad-leaned herbaceous plants, and in damp and
gloomy situations, taking frequent short flights from leaf to leaf, and
preserving an alert attitude, as if always looking out for its prey. Its
vicinity could be immediately ascertained, often before it was seen,
by a very pleasant odour, like otto of roses, which it seems to emit
continually, and which may probably be attractive to the small insects
on which it feeds. The other, Tricondyla aptera, is one of the
most curious forms in the family of the Cicindelidae, and is almost
exclusively confined to the Malay islands. In shape it resembles a very
large ant, more than an inch long, and of a purple black colour. Like an
ant also it is wingless, and is generally found ascending trees, passing
around the trunks in a spiral direction when approached, to avoid
capture, so that it requires a sudden run and active fingers to secure
a specimen. This species emits the usual fetid odour of the ground
beetles. My collections during our four days' stay at Ke were as
follow:--Birds, 13 species; insects, 194 species; and 3 kinds of
land-shells.
There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands--the indigenes,
who have the Papuan characters strongly marked, and who are pagans; and
a mixed race, who are nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing,
while the former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These
Mahometans are said to have been driven out of Banda by the early
European settlers. They were probably a brown race, more allied to the
Malays, and their mixed descendants here exhibit great variations of
colour, hair, and features, graduating between the Malay and Papuan
types. It is interesting to observe the influence of the early
Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of their language,
which still remain in use even among these remote and savage islanders.
"Lenco" for handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the
exclusion of the proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were
truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected more rapid
changes in the countries they conquered than any other nations of modern
times, resembling the Romans in their power of impressing their own
language, religion, and manners on rode and barbarous tribes.
The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays
is exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the
forest, an old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood
very quiet till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when
he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed
a hearty roar of laughter. Every one will recognise this as a true negro
trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment
what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh, never
heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom,
however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable
than the most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here
were not so much frightened at strangers, or made to keep themselves so
much secluded as among the Malay races; the children were more merry and
had the "nigger grin," while the noisy confusion of tongues among the
men, and their excitement on very ordinary occasions, are altogether
removed from the general taciturnity and reserve of the Malay.
The language of the Ke people consists of words of one, two, or three
syllables in about equal proportions, and has many aspirated and a
few guttural sounds. The different villages have slight differences of
dialect, but they are mutually intelligible, and, except in words
that have evidently been introduced during a long-continued commercial
intercourse, seem to have no affinity whatever with the Malay languages.
Jan. 6th.-The small boats being finished, we sailed for Aru at 4 P.M.,
and as we left the shores of Ke had a line view of its rugged and
mountainous character; ranges of hills, three or four thousand feet
high, stretching southwards as far as the eye could reach, everywhere
covered with a lofty, dense, and unbroken forest. We had very light
winds, and it therefore took us thirty hours to make the passage of
sixty miles to the low, or flat, but equally forest-covered Aru Islands,
where we anchored in the harbour of Dobbo at nine in the evening of the
next day.
My first voyage in a prau being thus satisfactorily terminated, I must,
before taking leave of it for some months, bear testimony to the merits
of the queer old-world vessel. Setting aside all ideas of danger, which
is probably, after all, not more than in any other craft, I must declare
that I have never, either before or since, made a twenty days' voyage
so pleasantly, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, with so little
discomfort. This I attribute chiefly to having my small cabin on deck,
and entirely to myself, to having my own servants to wait upon me, and
to the absence of all those marine-store smells of paint, pitch, tallow,
and new cordage, which are to me insupportable. Something is also to be
put down to freedom from all restraint of dress, hours of meals, &c.,
and to the civility and obliging disposition of the captain. I had
agreed to have my meals with him, but whenever I wished it I had them in
my own berth, and at what hours I felt inclined. The crew were all civil
and good-tempered, and with very little discipline everything went on
smoothly, and the vessel was kept very clean and in pretty good order,
so that on the whole I was much delighted with the trip, and was
inclined to rate the luxuries of the semi-barbarous prau as surpassing
those of the most magnificent screw-steamer, that highest result of our
civilisation.