Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XXV
Ceram, Goram, and the Matabello Islands
(
OCTOBER
1859
TO JUNE
1860)
I left Amboyna for my first visit to Ceram at three o'clock in the morning of October 29th,
after having been delayed several days by the boat's crew, who could not be got together.
Captain Van der Beck, who gave me a passage in his boat, had been running after them all
day, and at midnight we had to search for two of my men who had disappeared at the last mo-
ment. One we found at supper in his own house, and rather tipsy with his parting libations of
arrack, but the other was gone across the bay, and we were obliged to leave without him. We
stayed some hours at two villages near the east end of Amboyna, at one of which we had to
discharge some wood for the missionaries' house, and on the third afternoon reached Captain
Van der Beck's plantation, situated at Hatosúa, in that part of Ceram opposite to the island of
Amboyna. This was a clearing in flat and rather swampy forest, about twenty acres in extent,
and mostly planted with cacao and tobacco. Besides a small cottage occupied by the work-
men, there was a large shed for tobacco drying, a corner of which was offered me; and think-
ing from the look of the place that I should find good collecting ground here, I fitted up tem-
porary tables, benches, and beds, and made all preparations for some weeks' stay. A few
days, however, served to show that I should be disappointed. Beetles were tolerably abund-
ant, and I obtained plenty of fine long-horned Anthribidæ and pretty Longicorns, but they
were mostly the same species as I had found during my first short visit to Amboyna. There
were very few paths in the forest, which seemed poor in birds and butterflies, and day after
day my men brought me nothing worth notice. I was therefore soon obliged to think about
changing my locality, as I could evidently obtain no proper notion of the productions of the
almost entirely unexplored island of Ceram by staying in this place.
