Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
many had their legs or arms broken by the fall of the houses. The castle walls were rent
asunder in several places, and we thought that it and all the houses would have fallen down.
The ground where we were swelled like a wave in the sea, but near us we had no hurt done.'
There are also numerous records of eruptions of a volcano on the west side of the island. In
1674 an eruption destroyed a village. In 1694 there was another eruption. In 1797 much va-
pour and heat was emitted. Other eruptions occurred in 1816 and 1820, and in 1824 a new
crater is said to have been formed. Yet so capricious is the action of these subterranean fires,
that since the last-named epoch all eruptive symptoms have so completely ceased, that I was
assured by many of the most intelligent European inhabitants of Amboyna, that they had
never heard of any such thing as a volcano on the island.
During the few days that elapsed before I could make arrangements to visit the interior, I
enjoyed myself much in the society of the two doctors, both amiable and well-educated
men, and both enthusiastic entomologists, though obliged to increase their collections al-
most entirely by means of native collectors. Dr. Doleschall studied chiefly the flies and
spiders, but also collected butterflies and moths, and in his boxes I saw grand specimens of
the emerald Ornithoptera priamus and the azure Papilio ulysses, with many more of the su-
