Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
During the whole of my stay, however, insects never became plentiful. My clearing pro-
duced me a few fine longicorns and Buprestidæ, different from any I had before seen, to-
gether with several of the Amboyna species, but by no means so numerous or so beautiful as
I had found in that small island. For example, I collected only 210 different kinds of beetles
during my two months' stay at Bouru, while in three weeks at Amboyna, in 1857, I found
more than 300 species. One of the finest insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a
deep shining chestnut colour, and with very long antennæ. It varied greatly in size, the
largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only an inch, the antennæ
varying from one and a half to five inches.
One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking through
some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a small fallen tree, but it felt
cold and yielding to his feet, and far to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of
the herbage. He jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good
view of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being dragged along through the
grass. As he had several times already shot large snakes, which he declared were all as noth-
ing compared with this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. Such
creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man living close by showed me on his thigh the
marks where he had been seized by one close to his house. It was big enough to take the
man's thigh in its mouth, and he would probably have been killed and devoured by it had
not his cries brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their choppers. As far as I
could make out it was about twenty feet long, but Ali's was probably much larger.
It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have taken possession of it, a
native hut seems quite a comfortable home. My house at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a
large bamboo platform at one side. At one end of this platform, which was elevated about
three feet, I fixed up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with a large Scotch plaid,
making a comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a rude table on legs buried in the
earthen floor, and had my comfortable rattan-chair for a seat. A line across one corner car-
ried my daily-washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my small stock
of crockery and hardware. Boxes were ranged against the thatch walls, and hanging shelves,
to preserve my collections from ants while drying, were suspended both without and within
the house. On my table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers, and pins, with insect and bird
labels, all of which were unsolved mysteries to the native mind.
Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and the better informed took a pride in
teaching their more ignorant companions the peculiarities and uses of that strange European
production—a needle with a head, but no eye! Even paper, which we throw away hourly as
