Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them picking up little scraps which had
been swept out of the house, and carefully putting them away in their betel-pouch. Then
when I took my morning coffee and evening tea, how many were the strange things dis-
played to them! Teapot, teacups, teaspoons, were all more or less curious in their eyes; tea,
sugar, biscuit, and butter, were articles of human consumption seen by many of them for the
first time. One asks if that whitish powder is 'gula passir' (sand-sugar), so called to distin-
guish it from the coarse lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the biscuit
is considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the inhabitants of those remote regions
are obliged to use in the absence of the genuine article. My pursuits were of course utterly
beyond their comprehension. They continually asked me what white people did with the
birds and insects I took so much care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they
might perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and flies and small ugly insects put away so
carefully was a great puzzle to them, and they were convinced that there must be some med-
ical or magical use for them which I kept a profound secret. These people were in fact as
completely unacquainted with civilized life as the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, or the
savages of Central Africa—yet a steamship, that highest triumph of human ingenuity, with
its little floating epitome of European civilization, touches monthly at Cajeli, twenty miles
off; while at Amboyna, only sixty miles distant, a European population and government
have been established for more than three hundred years.
Having seen a good many of the natives of Bouru from different villages, and from dis-
tant parts of the island, I feel convinced that they consist of two distinct races now partially
amalgamated. The larger portion are Malays of the Celebes type, often exactly similar to the
Tomóre people of East Celebes, whom I found settled in Batchian; while others altogether
resemble the Alfuros of Ceram. The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The
Sula Islands, which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach to within forty miles
of the north coast of Bouru, while the island of Manipa offers an easy point of departure for
the people of Ceram. I was confirmed in this view by finding that the languages of Bouru
possessed distinct resemblances to that of Sula, as well as to those of Ceram.
Soon after we had arrived at Waypoti, Ali had seen a beautiful little bird of the genus
Pitta, which I was very anxious to obtain, as in almost every island the species are different,
and none were yet known from Bouru. He and my other hunter continued to see it two or
three times a week, and to hear its peculiar note much oftener, but could never get a speci-
men, owing to its always frequenting the most dense thorny thickets, where only hasty
glimpses of it could be obtained, and at so short a distance that it would be difficult to avoid
blowing the bird to pieces. Ali was very much annoyed that he could not get a specimen of
