Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
streams were all dried up, although the weather was gloomy; while in January, February,
and March, when we had the hottest sunshine and the finest days, they were always flowing.
The driest time of all the year in Aru occurs in September and October, just as it does in
Java and Celebes. The rainy seasons agree, therefore, with those of the western islands, al-
though the weather is very different. The Molucca sea is of a very deep blue colour, quite
distinct from the clear light blue of the Atlantic. In cloudy and dull weather it looks abso-
lutely black, and when crested with foam has a stern and angry aspect. The wind continued
fair and strong during our whole voyage, and we reached Macassar in perfect safety on the
evening of the 11th of July, having made the passage from Aru (more than a thousand miles)
in nine and a half days.
My expedition to the Aru Islands had been eminently successful. Although I had been for
months confined to the house by illness, and had lost much time by the want of the means of
locomotion, and by missing the right season at the right place, I brought away with me more
than nine thousand specimens of natural objects, of about sixteen hundred distinct species. I
had made the acquaintance of a strange and little-known race of men; I had become familiar
with the traders of the far East; I had revelled in the delights of exploring a new fauna and
flora, one of the most remarkable and most beautiful and least-known in the world; and I
had succeeded in the main object for which I had undertaken the journey—namely, to obtain
fine specimens of the magnificent Birds of Paradise, and to be enabled to observe them in
their native forests. By this success I was stimulated to continue my researches in the
Moluccas and New Guinea for nearly five years longer, and it is still the portion of my
travels to which I look back with the most complete satisfaction.
