Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
voice, unmistakeably proclaim the Papuan type. Here then I had discovered the exact
boundary line between the Malay and Papuan races, and at a spot where no other writer had
expected it. I was very much pleased at this determination, as it gave me a clue to one of the
most difficult problems in Ethnology, and enabled me in many other places to separate the
two races, and to unravel their intermixtures.
On my return from Waigiou in 1860, I stayed some days on the southern extremity of
Gilolo; but, beyond seeing something more of its structure and general character, obtained
very little additional information. It is only in the northern peninsula that there are any indi-
genes, the whole of the rest of the island, with Batchian and the other islands westward, be-
ing exclusively inhabited by Malay tribes, allied to those of Ternate and Tidore. This would
seem to indicate that the Alfuros were a comparatively recent immigration, and that they
had come from the north or east, perhaps from some of the islands of the Pacific. It is other-
wise difficult to understand how so many fertile districts should possess no true indigenes.
Gilolo, or Halmaheira as it is called by the Malays and Dutch, seems to have been re-
cently modified by upheaval and subsidence. In 1673, a mountain is said to have been up-
heaved at Gamokonora on the northern peninsula. All the parts that I have seen have either
been volcanic or coralline, and along the coast there are fringing coral reefs very dangerous
to navigation. At the same time, the character of its natural history proves it to be a rather
ancient land, since it possesses a number of animals peculiar to itself or common to the
small islands around it, but almost always distinct from those of New Guinea on the east, of
Ceram on the south, and of Celebes and the Sula islands on the west.
The island of Morty, close to the north-eastern extremity of Gilolo, was visited by my as-
sistant Charles Allen, as well as by Dr. Bernstein; and the collections obtained there present
some curious differences from those of the main island. About fifty-six species of land-birds
are known to inhabit this island, and of these a kingfisher (Tanysiptera doris), a honeysucker
(Tropidorhynchus fuscicapillus), and a large crow-like starling (Lycocorax morotensis), are
quite distinct from allied species found in Gilolo. The island is coralline and sandy, and we
must therefore believe it to have been separated from Gilolo at a somewhat remote epoch;
while we learn from its natural history that an arm of the sea twenty-five miles wide serves
to limit the range even of birds of considerable powers of flight.
