Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
people are dangerous savages, in the very lowest stage of barbarism. In such a country, and
among such a people, are found these wonderful productions of Nature, the Birds of
Paradise, whose exquisite beauty of form and colour and strange developments of plumage
are calculated to excite the wonder and admiration of the most civilized and the most intel-
lectual of mankind, and to furnish inexhaustible materials for study to the naturalist, and for
speculation to the philosopher.
Thus ended my search after these beautiful birds. Five voyages to different parts of the
district they inhabit, each occupying in its preparation and execution the larger part of a
year, produced me only five species out of the fourteen known to exist in the New Guinea
district. The kinds obtained are those that inhabit the coasts of New Guinea and its islands,
the remainder seeming to be strictly confined to the central mountain-ranges of the northern
peninsula; and our researches at Dorey and Amberbaki, near one end of this peninsula, and
at Salwatty and Sorong, near the other, enable me to decide with some certainty on the nat-
ive country of these rare and lovely birds, good specimens of which have never yet been
seen in Europe.
It must be considered as somewhat extraordinary that, during five years' residence and
travel in Celebes, the Moluccas, and New Guinea, I should never have been able to purchase
skins of half the species which Lesson, forty years ago, obtained during a few weeks in the
same countries. I believe that all, except the common species of commerce, are now much
more difficult to obtain than they were even twenty years ago; and I impute it principally to
their having been sought after by the Dutch officials through the Sultan of Tidore. The
chiefs of the annual expeditions to collect tribute have had orders to get all the rare sorts of
Paradise Birds; and as they pay little or nothing for them (it being sufficient to say they are
for the Sultan), the head men of the coast villages would for the future refuse to purchase
them from the mountaineers, and confine themselves instead to the commoner species,
which are less sought after by amateurs, but are a more profitable merchandise. The same
causes frequently lead the inhabitants of uncivilized countries to conceal minerals or other
natural products with which they may become acquainted, from the fear of being obliged to
pay increased tribute, or of bringing upon themselves a new and oppressive labour.
