The Malay Archipelago Volume 1
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by Alfred Russell Wallace >> The Malay Archipelago Volume 1
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THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO
VOLUME I
By
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.
The land of the orang-utan, and the bird or paradise.
A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature.
To CHARLES DARWIN,
AUTHOR OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,"
I dedicate this book,
Not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship
But also
To express my deep admiration
For
His genius and his works.
PREFACE.
My readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this
book for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them
full satisfaction on this point.
When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself
surrounded by a room full of packing cases containing the
collections that I had, from time to time, sent home for my
private use. These comprised nearly three thousand birdskins of
about one thousand species, at least twenty thousand beetles and
butterflies of about seven thousand species, and some quadrupeds
and land shells besides. A large proportion of these I had not
seen for years, and in my then weakened state of health, the
unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a mass of specimens
occupied a long time.
I very soon decided that until I had done something towards
naming and describing the most important groups in my collection,
and had worked out some of the more interesting problems of
variation and geographical distribution (of which I had had
glimpses while collecting them), I would not attempt to publish
my travels. Indeed, I could have printed my notes and journals at
once, leaving all reference to questions of natural history for a
future work; but, I felt that this would be as unsatisfactory to
myself as it would be disappointing to my friends, and
uninstructive to the public.
Since my return, up to this date, I have published eighteen
papers in the "Transactions" or "Proceedings of the Linnean
Zoological and Entomological Societies", describing or
cataloguing portions of my collections, along with twelve others
in various scientific periodicals on more general subjects
connected with them.
Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my
butterflies, have been already described by various eminent
naturalists, British and foreign; but a much larger number
remains undescribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted
for this laborious work, I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late
President of the Entomological Society of London, who had almost
completed the classification and description of my large
collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession),
comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine
hundred were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets.
The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than
two thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson
Saunders, who has caused the larger portion of them to be
described by good entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted
to more than nine hundred species, among which were two hundred
and eighty different kinds of ants, of which two hundred were
new.
The six years' delay in publishing my travels thus enables me to
give what I hope may be an interesting and instructive sketch of
the main results yet arrived at by the study of my collections;
and as the countries I have to describe are not much visited or
written about, and their social and physical conditions are not
liable to rapid change, I believe and hope that my readers will
gain much more than they will lose by not having read my book six
years ago, and by this time perhaps forgotten all about it.
I must now say a few words on the plan of my work.
My journeys to the various islands were regulated by the seasons
and the means of conveyance. I visited some islands two or three
times at distant intervals, and in some cases had to make the
same voyage four times over. A chronological arrangement would
have puzzled my readers. They would never have known where they
were, and my frequent references to the groups of islands,
classed in accordance with the peculiarities of their animal
productions and of their human inhabitants, would have been
hardly intelligible. I have adopted, therefore, a geographical,
zoological, and ethnological arrangement, passing from island to
island in what seems the most natural succession, while I
transgress the order in which I myself visited them, as little as
possible.
I divide the Archipelago into five groups of islands, as follows:
I. THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS: comprising the Malay Peninsula and
Singapore, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra.
II. THE TIMOR GROUP: comprising the islands of Timor, Flores,
Sumbawa, and Lombock, with several smaller ones.
III. CELEBES: comprising also the Sula Islands and Bouton.
IV. THE MOLUCCAN GROUP: comprising Bouru, Ceram, Batchian,
Gilolo, and Morty; with the smaller islands of Ternate, Tidore,
Makian, Kaiķa, Amboyna, Banda, Goram, and Matabello.
V. THE PAPUAN GROUP: comprising the great island of New Guinea,
with the Aru Islands, Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and several
others. The Ke Islands are described with this group on account
of their ethnology, though zoologically and geographically they
belong to the Moluccas.
The chapters relating to the separate islands of each of these
groups are followed by one on the Natural History of that group;
and the work may thus be divided into five parts, each treating
one of the natural divisions of the Archipelago.
The first chapter is an introductory one, on the Physical
Geography of the whole region; and the last is a general sketch
of the paces of man in the Archipelago and the surrounding
countries. With this explanation, and a reference to the maps
which illustrate the work, I trust that my readers will always
know where they are, and in what direction they are going.
I am well aware that my book is far too small for the extent of
the subjects it touches upon. It is a mere sketch; but so far as
it goes, I have endeavoured to make it an accurate one. Almost
the whole of the narrative and descriptive portions were written
on the spot, and have had little more than verbal alterations.
The chapters on Natural History, as well as many passages in
other parts of the work, have been written in the hope of
exciting an interest in the various questions connected with the
origin of species and their geographical distribution. In some
cases I have been able to explain my views in detail; while in
others, owing to the greater complexity of the subject, I have
thought it better to confine myself to a statement of the more
interesting facts of the problem, whose solution is to be found
in the principles developed by Mr. Darwin in his various works.
The numerous illustrations will, it is believed, add much to the
interest and value of the book. They have been made from my own
sketches, from photographs, or from specimens--and such, only
subjects that would really illustrate the narrative or the
descriptions, have been chosen.
I have to thank Messrs. Walter and Henry Woodbury, whose
acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in Java, for a number
of photographs of scenery and of natives, which have been of the
greatest assistance to me. Mr. William Wilson Saunders has kindly
allowed me to figure the curious horned flies; and to Mr. Pascoe
I am indebted for a loan of two of the very rare Longicorns which
appear in the plate of Bornean beetles. All the other specimens
figured are in my own collection.
As the main object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of
natural history, both for my private collection and to supply
duplicates to museums and amateurs, I will give a general
statement of the number of specimens I collected, and which
reached home in good condition. I must premise that I generally
employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants to assist
me; and for nearly half the time had the services of an English
lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from England, but
as I travelled about fourteen thousand miles within the
Archipelago, and made sixty or seventy separate journeys, each
involving some preparation and loss of time, I do not think that
more than six years were really occupied in collecting.
I find that my Eastern collections amounted to:
310 specimens of Mammalia.
100 specimens of Reptiles.
8,050 specimens of Birds.
7,500 specimens of Shells.
13,100 specimens of Lepidoptera.
83,200 specimens of Coleoptera.
13,400 specimens of other Insects.
125,660 specimens of natural history in all.
It now only remains for me to thank all those friends to whom I
am indebted for assistance or information. My thanks are more
especially due to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society,
through whose valuable recommendations I obtained important aid
from our own Government and from that of Holland; and to Mr.
William Wilson Saunders, whose kind and liberal encouragement in
the early portion of my journey was of great service to me. I am
also greatly indebted to Mr. Samuel Stevens (who acted as my
agent), both for the care he took of my collections, and for the
untiring assiduity with which he kept me supplied, both with
useful information and with whatever necessaries I required.
I trust that these, and all other friends who have been in any
way interested in my travels and collections, may derive from the
perusal of my book, some faint reflexion of the pleasures I
myself enjoyed amid the scenes and objects it describes.
THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
CHAPTER I.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we
shall perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and
small islands forming a connected group distinct from those great
masses of land, and having little connection with either of them.
Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the
great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate more
uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part of the globe,
and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown.
The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are
Indigenous here. It produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia,
the great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly
tribes), the man-like Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of
Paradise. It is inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of
mankind--the Malay, found nowhere beyond the limits of this
insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay Archipelago.
To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part
of the globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely
any of our travellers go to explore it; and in many collections
of maps it is almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the
Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that,
as a whole, it is comparable with the primary divisions of the
globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger than
France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller, however, soon
acquires different ideas. He sails for days or even weeks along
the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its
inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that
voyages among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and
months, and that their several inhabitants are often as little
known to each other as are the native races of the northern to
those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look
upon this region as one apart from the rest of the world, with
its own races of men and its own aspects of nature; with its own
ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and with a
climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to
itself.
From many points of view these islands form one compact
geographical whole, and as such they have always been treated by
travellers and men of science; but, a more careful and detailed
study of them under various aspects reveals the unexpected fact
that they are divisible into two portions nearly equal in extent
which differ widely in their natural products, and really form
two parts of the primary divisions of the earth. I have been able
to prove this in considerable detail by my observations on the
natural history of the various parts of the Archipelago; and, as
in the description of my travels and residence in the several
islands I shall have to refer continually to this view, and
adduce facts in support of it, I have thought it advisable to
commence with a general sketch of the main features of the
Malayan region as will render the facts hereafter brought forward
more interesting, and their bearing upon the general question
more easily understood. I proceed, therefore, to sketch the
limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out the more
striking features of its geology, physical geography, vegetation,
and animal life.
Definition and Boundaries.--For reasons which depend mainly on
the distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago
to include the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenasserim and the
Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and
the Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the
great islands included within these limits are connected together
by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be
distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all
enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a
luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we study their form and
distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to island,
our first impression will be that they form a connected whole,
all the parts of which are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands.--The Malay Archipelago
extends for more than 4,000 miles in length from east to west,
and is about 1,300 in breadth from north to south. It would
stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe from the
extreme west far into Central Asia, or would cover the widest
parts of South America, and extend far beyond the land into the
Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands larger
than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the
British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea
of forests. New Guinea, though less compact in shape, is probably
larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great
Britain; Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of
Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as
Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight;
while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater
than that contained by Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but,
owing to the manner in which the land is broken up and divided,
the variety of its productions is rather in proportion to the
immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the
quantity of land which they contain.
Geological Contrasts.--One of the chief volcanic belts upon the
globe passes through the Archipelago, and produces a striking
contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-volcanic islands.
A curving line, marked out by scores of active, and hundreds of
extinct, volcanoes may be traced through the whole length of
Sumatra and Java, and thence by the islands of Bali, Lombock,
Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna, Batchian,
Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island. Here there
is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles
to the westward, where the volcanic belt begins again in North
Celebes, and passes by Sian and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands
along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line,
to their northern extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of
this belt at Banda, we pass onwards for 1,000 miles over a non-
volcanic district to the volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699,
on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace
another volcanic belt through New Britain, New Ireland, and the
Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of the Archipelago.
In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and
for a considerable breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of
continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of
every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down
whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and
property, are sure to happen, in one part or another of this
district, almost every year. On many of the islands the years of
the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native
inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their children are
remembered, and the dates of many important events are
determined.
I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have
taken place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and
property, and in the magnitude of their effects, they have not
been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed
by the eruption of Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole
mountain was blown up by repeated explosions, and a large lake
left in its place. By the great eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa,
in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed, and the ashes darkened the
air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles around.
Even quite recently, since I left the country, a mountain which
had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly burst into
activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent
open in 1646 by a violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one
side, extending into the heart of the mountain. It was, when I
last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit,
and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of
December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again
suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely altering the
appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the
inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken
the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely
destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct,
than any other known district of equal extent. They are about
forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful
examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double,
with entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.
It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been
slowly built up by the accumulation of matter--mud, ashes, and
lava--ejected by themselves. The openings or craters, however,
frequently shift their position, so that a country may be covered
with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and
masses, only here and there rising into lofty cones, and yet the
whole may be produced by true volcanic action. In this manner the
greater part of Java has been formed. There has been some
elevation, especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs
of coral limestone are found; and there may be a substratum of
older stratified rocks; but still essentially Java is volcanic,
and that noble and fertile island--the very garden of the East,
and perhaps upon the whole the richest, the best cultivated, and
the best governed tropical island in the world--owes its very
existence to the same intense volcanic activity which still
occasionally devastates its surface.
The great island of Sumatra exhibits, in proportion to its
extent, a much smaller number of volcanoes, and a considerable
portion of it has probably a non-volcanic origin.
To the eastward, the long string of islands from Java, passing by
the north of Timor and away to Panda, are probably all due to
volcanic action. Timor itself consists of ancient stratified
rocks, but is said to have one volcano near its centre.
Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Bouru, and the west end of
Ceram, the north part of Gilolo, and all the small islands around
it, the northern extremity of Celebes, and the islands of Sian
and Sang-air, are wholly volcanic. The Philippine Archipelago
contains many active and extinct volcanoes, and has probably been
reduced to its present fragmentary condition by subsidences
attending on volcanic action.
All along this great line of volcanoes are to be found more or
less palpable signs of upheaval and depression of land. The range
of islands south of Sumatra, a part of the south coast of Java
and of the islands east of it, the west and east end of Timor,
portions of all the Moluccas, the Ke and Aru Islands, Waigiou,
and the whole south and east of Gilolo, consist in a great
measure of upraised coral-rock, exactly corresponding to that now
forming in the adjacent seas. In many places I have observed the
unaltered surfaces of the elevated reefs, with great masses of
coral standing up in their natural position, and hundreds of
shells so fresh-looking that it was hard to believe that they had
been more than a few years out of the water; and, in fact, it is
very probable that such changes have occurred within a few
centuries.
The united lengths of these volcanic belts is about ninety
degrees, or one-fourth of the entire circumference of the globe.
Their width is about fifty miles; but, for a space of two hundred
miles on each side of them, evidences of subterranean action are
to be found in recently elevated coral-rock, or in barrier coral-
reefs, indicating recent submergence. In the very centre or focus
of the great curve of volcanoes is placed the large island of
Borneo, in which no sign of recent volcanic action has yet been
observed, and where earthquakes, so characteristic of the
surrounding regions, are entirely unknown. The equally large
island of New Guinea occupies another quiescent area, on which no
sign of volcanic action has yet been discovered. With the
exception of the eastern end of its northern peninsula, the large
and curiously-shaped island of Celebes is also entirely free from
volcanoes; and there is some reason to believe that the volcanic
portion has once formed a separate island. The Malay Peninsula is
also non-volcanic.
The first and most obvious division of the Archipelago would
therefore be into quiescent and volcanic regions, and it might,
perhaps, be expected that such a division would correspond to
some differences in the character of the vegetation and the forms
of life. This is the case, however, to a very limited extent; and
we shall presently see that, although this development of
subterranean fires is on so vast a scale--has piled up chains of
mountains ten or twelve thousand feet high--has broken up
continents and raised up islands from the ocean--yet it has all
the character of a recent action which has not yet succeeded in
obliterating the traces of a more ancient distribution of land
and water.
Contrasts of Vegetation.--Placed immediately upon the Equator and
surrounded by extensive oceans, it is not surprising that the
various islands of the Archipelago should be almost always
clothed with a forest vegetation from the level of the sea to the
summits of the loftiest mountains. This is the general rule.
Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and the Moluccas,
and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest
countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due
perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental
fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the
island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which
there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other
islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores,
Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali.
In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species,
also characteristic of Australia, with sandalwood, acacia, and
other sorts in less abundance. These are scattered over the
country more or less thickly, but, never so as to deserve the
name of a forest. Coarse and scanty grasses grow beneath them on
the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in the moister
localities. In the islands between Timor and Java there is often
a more thickly wooded country abounding in thorny and prickly
trees. These seldom reach any great height, and during the force
of the dry season they almost completely lose their leaves,
allowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and
contrasting strongly with the damp, gloomy, ever-verdant forests
of the other islands. This peculiar character, which extends in a
less degree to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end
of Java, is most probably owing to the proximity of Australia.
The south-east monsoon, which lasts for about two-thirds of the
year (from March to November), blowing over the northern parts of
that country, produces a degree of heat and dryness which
assimilates the vegetation and physical aspect of the adjacent
islands to its own. A little further eastward in Timor and the Ke
Islands, a moister climate prevails; the southeast winds blowing
from the Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests
of New Guinea, and as a consequence, every rocky islet is clothed
with verdure to its very summit. Further west again, as the same
dry winds blow over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have
time to absorb fresh moisture, and we accordingly find the island
of Java possessing a less and less arid climate, until in the
extreme west near Batavia, rain occurs more or less all the year
round, and the mountains are everywhere clothed with forests of
unexampled luxuriance.
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