Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rough red fruits, and all have more or less spiny-edged leaves and ringed stems. The young
plants of the larger species have smooth glossy thick leaves, sometimes ten feet long and
eight inches wide, which are used all over the Moluccas and New Guinea, to make 'cocoy-
as' or sleeping mats, which are often very prettily ornamented with coloured patterns. High-
er up on the hill is a forest of immense trees, among which those producing the resin called
dammar (Dammara sp.) are abundant. The inhabitants of several small villages in Batchian
are entirely engaged in searching for this product, and making it into torches by pounding it
and filling it into tubes of palm leaves about a yard long, which are the only lights used by
many of the natives. Sometimes the dammar accumulates in large masses of ten or twenty
pounds weight, either attached to the trunk, or found buried in the ground at the foot of the
trees. The most extraordinary trees of the forest are, however, a kind of fig, the aërial roots
of which form a pyramid near a hundred feet high, terminating just where the tree branches
out above, so that there is no real trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of roots of every
size, mostly descending in straight lines, but more or less obliquely—and so crossing each
other, and connected by cross branches, which grow from one to another; as to form a dense
and complicated network, to which nothing but a photograph could do justice (see illustra-
able flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy outer covering of the nut is the fa-
vourite food of the great green pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga perspicillata), and their
hoarse cooings and heavy flutterings among the branches can be almost continually heard.
After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get the bird I was particularly in
search of (the Nicobar pigeon, or a new species allied to it), and finding no new birds, and
very few insects, I left early on the morning of April 1st, and in the evening entered a river
on the main island of Batchian (Langundi, like Kasserota, being on a distinct island), where
some Malays and Galela men have a small village, and have made extensive rice-fields and
plantain grounds. Here we found a good house near the river bank, where the water was
fresh and clear, and the owner, a respectable Batchian Malay, offered me sleeping room and
the use of the verandah if I liked to stay. Seeing forest all round within a short distance, I ac-
cepted his offer, and the next morning before breakfast walked out to explore, and on the
skirts of the forest captured a few interesting insects.
Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a very fine forest, richer
in palms than any I had seen in the Moluccas. One of these especially attracted my attention
from its elegance. The stem was not thicker than my wrist, yet it was very lofty, and bore
clusters of bright red fruit. It was apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense height
closely resembled in appearance the Euterpes of South America. Here also grew the fan-
