Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
siderably, and some of the slenderer pillars appear to stand upon a point. When the rock is
less solid it becomes curiously honeycombed by the rains of successive winters, and I no-
ticed some masses reduced to a complete network of stone, through which light could be
seen in every direction. From these mountains to the sea extends a perfectly flat alluvial
plain, with no indication that water would accumulate at a great depth beneath it, yet the au-
thorities at Macassar have spent much money in boring a well a thousand feet deep in hope
of getting a supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells in the London and Paris
basins. It is not to be wondered at that the attempt was unsuccessful.
Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after birds and insects. The
weather however became dreadfully hot and dry, every drop of water disappearing from the
pools and rock-holes, and with it the insects which frequented them. Only one group re-
mained unaffected by the intense drought; the Diptera, or two-winged flies, continued as
plentiful as ever, and on these I was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a
week or two, by which means I increased my collection of that Order to about two hundred
species. I also continued to obtain a few new birds, among which were two or three kinds of
small hawks and falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus ornatus, and a
rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.
At length about the middle of October, after several gloomy days, down came a deluge of
rain, which continued to fall almost every afternoon, showing that the early part of the wet
season had commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest of insects, and in some respects I
was not disappointed. Beetles became much more numerous, and under a thick bed of
leaves that had accumulated on some rocks by the side of a forest stream, I found abundance
of Carabidæ, a family generally scarce in the tropics. The butterflies however disappeared.
Two of my servants were attacked with fever, dysentery, and swelled feet, just at the time
that the third had left me, and for some days they both lay groaning in the house. When they
got a little better I was attacked myself, and as my stores were nearly finished and
everything was getting very damp, I was obliged to prepare for my return to Macassar, espe-
cially as the strong westerly winds would render the passage in a small open boat disagree-
able if not dangerous.
Since the rains began, numbers of huge millipedes, as thick as one's finger and eight or
ten inches long, crawled about everywhere, in the paths, on trees, about the house,—and one
morning when I got up I even found one in my bed! They were generally of a dull lead col-
our or of a deep brick red, and were very nasty-looking things to be coming everywhere in
one's way, although quite harmless. Snakes too began to show themselves. I killed two of a
very abundant species, big-headed and of a bright green colour, which lie coiled up on
