Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XXVI
Bouru
( MAY AND JUNE 1861. Map , p. 378 )
I had long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due west of Ceram, and of
which scarcely anything appeared to be known to naturalists, except that it contained a babi-
rusa very like that of Celebes. I therefore made arrangements for staying there two months
after leaving Timor Delli in 1861. This I could conveniently do by means of the Dutch mail-
steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas.
We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired, the Commandant of
the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive the post-packet, and took me and my bag-
gage on shore, the steamer going off again without coming to an anchor. We went to the
house of the Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna—Bouru being too poor a place to
deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to
that of Delli, which possesses 'His Excellency the Governor,' and the little fort, in perfect or-
der, surrounded by neat grass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen
Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in comparison
with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain,
and Major. Yet this, as well as most of the forts in the Moluccas, was originally built by the
Portuguese themselves. Oh! Lusitania, how art thou fallen!
While the Opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk round the village with a guide in
search of a house. The whole place was dreadfully damp and muddy, being built in a swamp
with not a spot of ground raised a foot above it, and surrounded by swamps on every side.
The houses were mostly well built, of wooden framework filled in with gaba-gaba (leaf-
stems of the sago-palm), but as they had no whitewash, and the floors were of bare black
earth like the roads, and generally on the same level, they were extremely damp and gloomy.
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