The Malay Archipelago

b >> by Alfred Russell Wallace >> The Malay Archipelago

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The whole of Aru is low, but by no means so flat as it has been
represented, or as it appears from the sea. Most of it is dry
rocky ground, with a somewhat undulating surface, rising here and
there into abrupt hillocks, or cut into steep and narrow ravines.
Except the patches of swamp which are found at the mouths of most
of the small rivers, there is no absolutely level ground,
although the greatest elevation is probably not more than two
hundred feet. The rock which everywhere appears in the ravines
and brooks is a coralline limestone, in some places soft and
pliable, in others so hard and crystalline as to resemble our
mountain limestone.

The small islands which surround the central mass are very
numerous; but most of them are on the east side, where they form
a fringe, often extending ten or fifteen miles from the main
islands. On the west there are very few, Wamma and Palo Pabi
being the chief, with Ougia, and Wassia at the north-west
extremity. On the east side the sea is everywhere shallow, and
full of coral; and it is here that the pearl-shells are found
which form one of the chief staples of Aru trade. All the islands
are covered with a dense and very lofty forest.

The physical features here described are of peculiar interest,
and, as far as I am aware, are to some extent unique; for I have
been unable to find any other record of an island of the size of
Aru crossed by channels which exactly resemble true rivers. How
these channels originated were a complete puzzle to me, till,
after a long consideration of the whole of the natural phenomena
presented by these islands, I arrived at a conclusion which I
will now endeavour to explain. There are three ways in which we
may conceive islands which are not volcanic to have been formed,
or to have been reduced to their present condition, by elevation,
by subsidence, or by separation from a continent or larger
island. The existence of coral rock, or of raised beaches far
inland, indicates recent elevation; lagoon coral-islands, and
such as have barrier or encircling reefs, have suffered
subsidence; while our own islands, whose productions are entirely
those of the adjacent continent, have been separated from it. Now
the Aru Islands are all coral rock, and the adjacent sea is
shallow and full of coral, it is therefore evident that they have
been elevated from beneath the ocean at a not very distant epoch.
But if we suppose that elevation to be the first and only cause
of their present condition, we shall find ourselves quite unable
to explain the curious river-channels which divide them. Fissures
during upheaval would not produce the regular width, the regular
depth, or the winding curves which characterise them; and the
action of tides and currents during their elevation might form
straits of irregular width and depth, but not the river-like
channels which actually exist. If, again, we suppose the last
movement to have been one of subsidence, reducing the size of the
islands, these channels are quite as inexplicable; for subsidence
would necessarily lead to the flooding of all low tracts on the
banks of the old rivers, and thus obliterate their courses;
whereas these remain perfect, and of nearly uniform width from
end to end.

Now if these channels have ever been rivers they must have flowed
from some higher regions, and this must have been to the east,
because on the north and west the sea-bottom sinks down at a
short distance from the shore to an unfathomable depth; whereas
on the east. a shallow sea, nowhere exceeding fifty fathoms,
extends quite across to New Guinea, a distance of about a hundred
and fifty miles. An elevation of only three hundred feet would
convert the whole of this sea into moderately high land, and make
the Aru Islands a portion of New Guinea; and the rivers which
have their mouths at Utanata and Wamuka, might then have flowed
on across Aru, in the channels which are now occupied by salt
water. Then the intervening land sunk down, we must suppose the
land that now constitutes Aru to have remained nearly stationary,
a not very improbable supposition, when we consider the great
extent of the shallow sea, and the very small amount of
depression the land need have undergone to produce it.

But the fact of the Aru Islands having once been connected with
New Guinea does not rest on this evidence alone. There is such a
striking resemblance between the productions of the two countries
as only- exists between portions of a common territory. I
collected one hundred species of land-birds in the Aru Islands,
and about eighty of them, have been found on the mainland of New
Guinea. Among these are the great wingless cassowary, two species
of heavy brush turkeys, and two of short winged thrushes; which
could certainly not have passed over the 150 miles of open sea to
the coast of New Guinea. This barrier is equally effectual in the
case of many other birds which live only in the depths of the
forest, as the kinghunters (Dacelo gaudichaudi), the fly-catching
wrens (Todopsis), the great crown pigeon (Goura coronata), and
the small wood doves (Ptilonopus perlatus, P. aurantiifrons, and
P. coronulatus). Now, to show the real effect of such barrier,
let us take the island of Ceram, which is exactly the same
distance from New Guinea, but separated from it by a deep sea.
Cut of about seventy land-birds inhabiting Ceram, only fifteen
are found in New Guinea, and none of these are terrestrial or
forest-haunting species. The cassowary is distinct; the
kingfishers, parrots, pigeons, flycatchers, honeysuckers,
thrushes, and cuckoos, are almost always quite distinct species.
More than this, at least twenty genera, which are common to New
Guinea and Aru, do not extend into Ceram, indicating with a force
which every naturalist will appreciate, that the two latter
countries have received their faunas in a radically different
manner. Again, a true kangaroo is found in Aru, and the same
species occurs in Mysol, which is equally Papuan in its
productions, while either the same, or one closely allied to it,
inhabits New Guinea; but no such animal is found in Ceram, which
is only sixty miles from Mysol. Another small marsupial animal
(Perameles doreyanus) is common to Aru and New Guinea. The
insects show exactly the same results. The butterflies of Aru are
all either New Guinea species, or very slightly modified forms;
whereas those of Ceram are more distinct than are the birds of
the two countries.

It is now generally admitted that we may safely reason on such
facts as those, which supply a link in the defective geological
record. The upward and downward movements which any country has
undergone, and the succession of such movements, can be
determined with much accuracy; but geology alone can tell us
nothing of lands which have entirely disappeared beneath the
ocean. Here physical geography and the distribution of animals
and plants are of the greatest service. By ascertaining the depth
of the seas separating one country from another, we can form some
judgment of the changes which are taking place. If there are
other evidences of subsidence, a shallow sea implies a former
connexion of the adjacent lands; but i£ this evidence is wanting,
or if there is reason to suspect a rising of the land, then the
shallow sea may be the result of that rising, and may indicate
that the two countries will be joined at some future time, but
not that they have previously been so. The nature of the animals
and plants inhabiting these countries will, however, almost
always enable us to determine this question. Mr. Darwin has shown
us how we may determine in almost every case, whether an island
has ever been connected with a continent or larger land, by the
presence or absence of terrestrial Mammalia and reptiles. What he
terms "oceanic islands "possess neither of these groups of
animals, though they may have a luxuriant vegetation, and a fair
number of birds, insects, and landshells; and we therefore
conclude that they have originated in mid-ocean, and have never
been connected with the nearest masses of land. St. Helena,
Madeira, and New Zealand are examples of oceanic islands. They
possess all other classes of life, because these have means of
dispersion over wide spaces of sea, which terrestrial mammals and
birds have not, as is fully explained in Sir Charles Lyell's
"Principles of Geology," and Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species." On
the other hand, an island may never have been actually connected
with the adjacent continents or islands, and yet may possess
representatives of all classes of animals, because many
terrestrial mammals and some reptiles have the means of passing
over short distances of sea. But in these cases the number of
species that have thus migrated will be very small, and there
will be great deficiencies even in birds and flying insects,
which we should imagine could easily cross over. The island of
Timor (as I have already shown in Chapter XIII) bears this
relation to Australia; for while it contains several birds and
insects of Australian forms, no Australian mammal or reptile is
found in it, and a great number of the most abundant and
characteristic forms of Australian birds and insects are entirely
absent. Contrast this with the British Islands, in, which a large
proportion of the plants, insects, reptiles, and Mammalia of the
adjacent parts of the continent are fully represented, while
there are no remarkable deficiencies of extensive groups, such as
always occur when there is reason to believe there has been no
such connexion. The case of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, and the
Asiatic continent is equally clear; many large Mammalia,
terrestrial birds, and reptiles being common to all, while a
large number more are of closely allied forms. Now, geology has
taught us that this representation by allied forms in the same
locality implies lapse of time, and we therefore infer that in
Great Britain, where almost every species is absolutely identical
with those on the Continent, the separation has been very recent;
while in Sumatra and Java, where a considerable number of the
continental species are represented by allied forms, the
separation was more remote.

From these examples we may see how important a supplement to
geological evidence is the study of the geographical distribution
of animals and plants, in determining the former condition of the
earth's surface; and how impossible it is to understand the
former without taking the latter into account. The productions of
the Aru Islands offer the strangest evidence, that at no very
distant epoch they formed a part of New Guinea; and the peculiar
physical features which I have described, indicate that they must
have stood at very nearly the same level then as they do now,
having been separated by the subsidence of the great plain which
formerly connected them with it.

Persons who have formed the usual ideas of the vegetation of the
tropics who picture to themselves the abundance and brilliancy of
the flowers, and the magnificent appearance of hundreds of forest
trees covered with masses of coloured blossoms, will be surprised
to hear, that though vegetation in Aru is highly luxuriant and
varied, and would afford abundance of fine and curious plants to
adorn our hothouses, yet bright and showy flowers are, as a
general rule, altogether absent, or so very scarce as to produce
no effect whatever on the general scenery. To give particulars: I
have visited five distinct localities in the islands, I have
wandered daily in the forests, and have passed along upwards of a
hundred miles of coast and river during a period of six months,
much of it very fine weather, and till just as I was about to
leave, I never saw a single plant of striking brilliancy or
beauty, hardly a shrub equal to a hawthorn, or a climber equal to
a honeysuckle! It cannot be said that the flowering season had
not arrived, for I saw many herbs, shrubs, and forest trees in
flower, but all had blossoms of a green or greenish-white tint,
not superior to our lime-trees. Here and there on the river banks
and coasts are a few Convolvulaceae, not equal to our garden
Ipomaeas, and in the deepest shades of the forest some fine
scarlet and purple Zingiberaceae, but so few and scattered as to
be nothing amid the mass of green and flowerless vegetation. Yet
the noble Cycadaceae and screw-pines, thirty or forty feet high,
the elegant tree ferns, the lofty palms, and the variety of
beautiful and curious plants which everywhere meet the eye,
attest the warmth and moisture of the tropics, and the fertility
of the soil.

It is true that Aru seemed to me exceptionally poor in flowers,
but this is only an exaggeration of a general tropical feature;
for my whole experience in the equatorial regions of the west and
the east has convinced me, that in the most luxuriant parts of
the tropics, flowers are less abundant, on the average less
showy, and are far less effective in adding colour to the
landscape than in temperate climates. I have never seen in the
tropics such brilliant masses of colour as even England can show
in her furze-clad commons, her heathery mountain-sides, her
glades of wild hyacinths, her fields of poppies, her meadows of
buttercups and orchises--carpets of yellow, purple, azure-blue,
and fiery crimson, which the tropics can rarely exhibit. We, have
smaller masses of colour in our hawthorn and crab trees, our
holly and mountain-ash, our boom; foxgloves, primroses, and
purple vetches, which clothe with gay colours the whole length
and breadth of our land, These beauties are all common. They are
characteristic of the country and the climate; they have not to
be sought for, but they gladden the eye at every step. In the
regions of the equator, on the other hand, whether it be forest
or savannah, a sombre green clothes universal nature. You may
journey for hours, and even for days, and meet with nothing to
break the monotony. Flowers are everywhere rare, and anything at
all striking is only to be met with at very distant intervals.

The idea that nature exhibits gay colours in the tropics, and
that the general aspect of nature is there more bright and varied
in hue than with us, has even been made the foundation of
theories of art, and we have been forbidden to use bright colours
in our garments, and in the decorations of our dwellings, because
it was supposed that we should be thereby acting in opposition to
the teachings of nature. The argument itself is a very poor one,
since it might with equal justice be maintained, that as we
possess faculties for the appreciation of colours, we should make
up for the deficiencies of nature and use the gayest tints in
those regions where the landscape is most monotonous. But the
assumption on which the argument is founded is totally false, so
that even if the reasoning were valid, we need not be afraid of
outraging nature, by decorating our houses and our persons with
all those gay hues which are so lavishly spread over our fields
and mountains, our hedges, woods, and meadows.

It is very easy to see what has led to this erroneous view of the
nature of tropical vegetation. In our hothouses and at our
flower-shows we gather together the finest flowering plants from
the most distant regions of the earth, and exhibit them in a
proximity to each other which never occurs in nature. A hundred
distinct plants, all with bright, or strange, or gorgeous
flowers, make a wonderful show when brought together; but perhaps
no two of these plants could ever be seen together in a state of
nature, each inhabiting a distant region or a different station.
Again, all moderately warm extra-European countries are mixed up
with the tropics in general estimation, and a vague idea is
formed that whatever is preeminently beautiful must come from the
hottest parts of the earth. But the fact is quite the contrary.
Rhododendrons and azaleas are plants of temperate regions, the
grandest lilies are from temperate Japan, and a large proportion
of our most showy flowering plants are natives of the Himalayas,
of the Cape, of the United States, of Chili, or of China and
Japan, all temperate regions. True, there are a great number of
grand and gorgeous flowers in the tropics, but the proportion
they bear to the mass of the vegetation is exceedingly small; so
that what appears an anomaly is nevertheless a fact, and the
effect of flowers on the general aspect of nature is far less in
the equatorial than in the temperate regions of the earth.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

NEW GUINEA.--DOREY,

(MARCH TO JULY 1858.)

AFTER my return from Gilolo to Ternate, in March 1858, I made
arrangements for my long-wished-for voyage to the mainland of New
Guinea, where I anticipated that my collections would surpass
those which I had formed at the Aru Islands. The poverty of
Ternate in articles used by Europeans was shown, by my searching
in vain through all the stores for such common things as flour,
metal spoons, wide-mouthed phials, beeswax, a penknife, and a
stone or metal pestle and mortar. I took with me four servants:
my head man Ali, and a Ternate lad named Jumaat (Friday), to
shoot; Lahagi, a steady middle-aged man, to cut timber and assist
me in insect-collecting; and Loisa, a Javanese cook. As I knew I
should have to build a house at Dorey, where I was going, I took
with me eighty cadjans, or waterproof mats, made of pandanus
leaves, to cover over my baggage on first landing, and to help to
roof my house afterwards.

We started on the 25th of March in the schooner Hester Helena,
belonging to my friend Mr. Duivenboden, and bound on a trading
voyage along the north coast of New Guinea. Having calms and
light airs, we were three days reaching Gane, near the south end
of Gilolo, where we stayed to fill. up our water-casks and buy a
few provisions. We obtained fowls, eggs, sago, plantains, sweet
potatoes, yellow pumpkins, chilies, fish, and dried deer's meat;
and on the afternoon of the 29th proceeded on our voyage to Dorey
harbour. We found it, however, by no means easy to get along; for
so near to the equator the monsoons entirely fail of their
regularity, and after passing the southern point of Gilolo we had
calms, light puffs of wind, and contrary currents, which kept us
for five days in sight of the same islands between it and Poppa.
A squall them brought us on to the entrance of Dampier's Straits,
where we were again becalmed, and were three more days creeping
through them. Several native canoes now came off to us from
Waigiou on one side, and Batanta on the other, bringing a few
common shells, palm-leaf mats, cocoa-nuts, and pumpkins. They
were very extravagant in their demands, being accustomed to sell
their trifles to whalers and China ships, whose crews will
purchase anything at ten times its value. My only purchases were
a float belonging to a turtle-spear, carved to resemble a bird,
and a very well made palm-leaf box, for which articles I gave a
copper ring and a yard of calico. The canoes were very narrow and
furnished with an outrigger, and in some of them there was only
one man, who seemed to think nothing of coming out alone eight or
ten miles from shore. The people were Papuans, much resembling
the natives of Aru.

When we had got out of the Straits, and were fairly in the great
Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time since
leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and we had
to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New Guinea. I
looked with intense interest on those rugged mountains,
retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot
of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the
cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark forests produced
the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered
inhabitants of the earth--the varied species of Birds of
Paradise. A few days more and I hoped to be in pursuit of these,
and of the scarcely less beautiful insects which accompany them.
We had still, however, for several days only calms and light
head-winds, and it was not till the l0th of April that a fine
westerly breeze set in, followed by a squally night, which kept
us off the entrance of Dorey harbour. The next morning we
entered, and came to anchor off the small island of Mansinam, on
which dwelt two German missionaries, Messrs. Otto and Geisler.
The former immediately came on board to give us welcome, and
invited us to go on shore and breakfast with him. We were then
introduced to his companion who was suffering dreadfully from an
abscess on the heel, which had confined him to the house for six
months--and to his wife, a young German woman, who had been out
only three months. Unfortunately she could speak no Malay or
English, and had to guess at our compliments on her excellent
breakfast by the justice we did to it.

These missionaries were working men, and had been sent out, as
being more useful among savages than persons of a higher class.
They had been here about two years, and Mr. Otto had already
learnt to speak the Papuan language with fluency, and had begun
translating some portions of the Bible. The language, however, is
so poor that a considerable number of Malay words have to be
used; and it is very questionable whether it is possible to
convey any idea of such a book, to a people in so low a state of
civilization. The only nominal converts yet made are a few of the
women; and some few of the children attend school, and are being
taught to read, but they make little progress. There is one
feature of this mission which I believe will materially interfere
with its moral effect. The missionaries are allowed to trade to
eke out the very small salaries granted them from Europe, and of
course are obliged to carry out the trade principle of buying
cheap and selling dear, in order to make a profit. Like all
savages the natives are quite careless of the future, and when
their small rice crops are gathered they bring a large portion of
it to the missionaries, and sell it for knives, beads, axes,
tobacco, or any other articles they may require. A few months
later, in the wet season, when food is scarce, they come to buy
it back again, and give in exchange tortoiseshell, tripang, wild
nutmegs, or other produce. Of course the rice is sold at a much
higher rate than it was bought, as is perfectly fair and just--
and the operation is on the whole thoroughly beneficial to the
natives, who would otherwise consume and waste their food when it
was abundant, and then starve--yet I cannot imagine that the
natives see it in this light. They must look upon the trading
missionaries with some suspicion, and cannot feel so sure of
their teachings being disinterested, as would be the case if they
acted like the Jesuits in Singapore. The first thing to be done
by the missionary in attempting to improve savages, is to
convince them by his actions that lie comes among them for their
benefit only, and not for any private ends of his own. To do this
he must act in a different way from other men, not trading and
taking advantage of the necessities of those who want to sell,
but rather giving to those who are in distress. It would he well
if he conformed himself in some degree to native customs, and
then endeavoured to show how these customs might be gradually
modified, so as to be more healthful and more agreeable. A few
energetic and devoted men acting in this way might probably
effect a decided moral improvement on the lowest savage tribes,
whereas trading missionaries, teaching what Jesus said, but not
doing as He did, can scarcely be expected to do more than give
them a very little of the superficial varnish of religion.

Dorey harbour is in a fine bay, at one extremity of which an
elevated point juts out, and, with two or three small islands,
forms a sheltered anchorage. The only vessel it contained when we
arrived was a Dutch brig, laden with coals for the use of a war-
steamer, which was expected daily, on an exploring expedition
along the coasts of New Guinea, for the purpose of fixing on a
locality for a colony. In the evening we paid it a visit, and
landed at the village of Dorey, to look out for a place where I
could build my house. Mr. Otto also made arrangements for me with
some of the native chiefs, to send men to cut wood, rattans, and
bamboo the next day.

The villages of Mansinam and Dorey presented some features quite
new to me. The houses all stand completely in the water, and are
reached by long rude bridges. They are very low, with the roof
shaped like a large boat, bottom upwards. The posts which support
the houses, bridges, and platforms are small crooked sticks,
placed without any regularity, and looking as if they were
tumbling down. The floors are also formed of sticks, equally
irregular, and so loose and far apart that I found it almost
impossible to walls on them. The walls consist of bits of boards,
old boats, rotten mats, attaps, and palm-leaves, stuck in anyhow
here and there, and having altogether the most wretched and
dilapidated appearance it is possible to conceive. Under the
eaves of many of the houses hang human skulls, the trophies of
their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who often
come to attack them. A large boat-shaped council-house is
supported on larger posts, each of which is grossly carved to
represent a naked male or female human figure, and other carvings
still more revolting are placed upon the platform before the
entrance. The view of an ancient lake-dweller's village, given as
the frontispiece of Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," is
chiefly founded on a sketch of this very village of Dorey; but
the extreme regularity of the structures there depicted has no
place in the original, any more than it probably had in the
actual lake-villages.

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