Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
be bought so cheaply. The fishes in the collection were all well preserved in clear spirit in
hundreds of glass jars, and the shells were arranged in large shallow pith boxes lined with
paper, every specimen being fastened down with thread. I roughly estimated that there were
nearly a thousand different kinds of shells, and perhaps ten thousand specimens, while the
collection of Amboyna fishes was nearly perfect.
On the 4th of January I left Amboyna for Ternate; but two years later, in October 1859, I
again visited it after my residence in Menado, and stayed a month in the town in a small
house which I hired for the sake of assorting and packing up a large and varied collection
which I had brought with me from North Celebes, Ternate, and Gilolo. I was obliged to do
this because the mail-steamer would have come the following month by way of Amboyna to
Ternate, and I should have been delayed two months before I could have reached the former
place. I then paid my first visit to Ceram, and on returning to prepare for my second more
complete exploration of that island, I stayed (much against my will) two months at Paso, on
the isthmus which connects the two portions of the island of Amboyna. This village is situ-
ated on the eastern side of the isthmus, on sandy ground, with a very pleasant view over the
sea to the island of Harúka. On the Amboyna side of the isthmus there is a small river which
has been continued by a shallow canal to within thirty yards of high-water mark on the other
side. Across this small space, which is sandy and but slightly elevated, all small boats and
praus can be easily dragged, and all the smaller traffic from Ceram and the islands of Sa-
parúa and Harúka, passes through Paso. The canal is not continued quite through, merely
because every spring-tide would throw up just such a sand-bank as now exists.
I had been informed that the fine butterfly Ornithoptera priamus was plentiful here, as
well as the racquet-tailed kingfisher and the ring-necked lory. I found, however, that I had
missed the time for the former; and birds of all kinds were very scarce, although I obtained a
few good ones, including one or two of the above-mentioned rarities. I was much pleased to
get here the fine long-armed chafer, Euchirus longimanus. This extraordinary insect is rarely
or never captured except when it comes to drink the sap of the sugar palms, where it is
found by the natives when they go early in the morning to take away the bamboos which
have been filled during the night. For some time one or two were brought me every day,
generally alive. They are sluggish insects, and pull themselves lazily along by means of
their immense fore-legs. A figure of this and other Moluccan beetles is given in the 27th
chapter of this work.
I was kept at Paso by an inflammatory eruption, brought on by the constant attacks of
small acari like harvest-bugs, for which the forests of Ceram are famous, and also by the
want of nourishing food while in that island. At one time I was covered with severe boils. I
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