The Malay Archipelago

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

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This is situated in a large open space, at a spot where two
tributaries fall into the main stream. Several forest-paths and
new clearings offered fine collecting grounds, and I captured
some new and interesting insects; but as it was getting late I
had to reserve a more thorough exploration for future occasions.
Coal had been discovered here some years before, and the road was
made in order to bring down a sufficient quantity for a fair
trial on the Dutch steamers. The quality, however, was not
thought sufficiently good, and the mines were abandoned. Quite
recently, works had been commenced in another spot, in Hopes of
finding a better vein. There ware about eighty men employed,
chiefly convicts; but this was far too small a number for mining
operations in such a country, where the mere keeping a few miles
of road in repair requires the constant work of several men. If
coal of sufficiently good quality should be found, a tramroad
would be made, and would be very easily worked, owing to the
regular descent of the valley.

Just as I got home I overtook Ali returning from shooting with
some birch hanging from his belt. He seemed much pleased, and
said, "Look here, sir, what a curious bird," holding out what at
first completely puzzled me. I saw a bird with a mass of splendid
green feathers on its breast, elongated into two glittering
tufts; but, what I could not understand was a pair of long white
feathers, which stuck straight out from each shoulder. Ali
assured me that the bird stuck them out this way itself, when
fluttering its wings, and that they had remained so without his
touching them. I now saw that I had got a great prize, no less
than a completely new form of the Bird of Paradise, differing
most remarkably from every other known bird. The general plumage
is very sober, being a pure ashy olive, with a purplish tinge on
the back; the crown of the head is beautifully glossed with pale
metallic violet, and the feathers of the front extend as much
over the beak as inmost of the family. The neck and breast are
scaled with fine metallic green, and the feathers on the lower
part are elongated on each side, so as to form a two-pointed
gorget, which can be folded beneath the wings, or partially
erected and spread out in the same way as the side plumes of most
of the birds of paradise. The four long white plumes which give
the bird its altogether unique character, spring from little
tubercles close to the upper edge of the shoulder or bend of the
wing; they are narrow, gentle curved, and equally webbed on both
sides, of a pure creamy white colour. They arc about six inches
long, equalling the wing, and can be raised at right angles to
it, or laid along the body at the pleasure of the bird. The bill
is horn colour, the legs yellow, and the iris pale olive. This
striking novelty has been named by Mr. G. R. Gray of the British
Museum, Semioptera Wallacei, or "Wallace's Standard wing."

A few days later I obtained an exceedingly beautiful new
butterfly, allied to the fine blue Papilio Ulysses, but differing
from it in the colour being of a more intense tint, and in having
a row of blue stripes around the margin of the lower wings. This
good beginning was, however, rather deceptive, and I soon found
that insects, and especially butterflies, were somewhat scarce,
and birds in tar less variety than I had anticipated. Several of
the fine Moluccan species were however obtained. The handsome red
lory with green wings and a yellow spot in the back (Lorius
garrulus), was not uncommon. When the Jambu, or rose apple
(Eugenic sp.), was in flower in the village, flocks of the little
lorikeet (Charmosyna placentis), already met with in Gilolo, came
to feed upon the nectar, and I obtained as many specimens as I
desired. Another beautiful bird of the parrot tribe was the
Geoffroyus cyanicollis, a green parrot with a red bill and head,
which colour shaded on the crown into azure blue, and thence into
verditer blue and the green of the back. Two large and handsome
fruit pigeons, with metallic green, ashy, and rufous plumage,
were not uncommon; and I was rewarded by finding a splendid deep
blue roller (Eurystomus azureus); a lovely golden-capped sunbird
(Nectarinea auriceps), and a fine racquet-tailed kingfisher
(Tanysiptera isis), all of which were entirely new to
ornithologists. Of insects I obtained a considerable number of
interesting beetles, including many fine longicorns, among which
was the largest and handsomest species of the genus Glenea yet
discovered. Among butterflies the beautiful little Danis sebae
was abundant, making the forests gay with its delicate wings of
white and the richest metallic blue; while showy Papilios, and
pretty Pieridae, and dark, rich Euphaeas, many of them new,
furnished a constant source of interest and pleasing occupation.

The island of Batchian possesses no really indigenous
inhabitants, the interior being altogether uninhabited; and there
are only a few small villages on various parts of the coast; yet
I found here four distinct races, which would wofully mislead an
ethnological traveller unable to obtain information as to their
origin, first there are the Batchian Malays, probably the
earliest colonists, differing very little from those of Ternate.
Their language, however, seems to have more of the Papuan
element, with a mixture of pure Malay, showing that the
settlement is one of stragglers of various races, although now
sufficiently homogeneous. Then there are the "Orang Sirani," as
at Ternate and Amboyna. Many of these have the Portuguese
physiognomy strikingly preserved, but combined with a skin
generally darker than the Malays. Some national customs are
retained, and the Malay, which is their only language, contains a
large number of Portuguese words and idioms. The third race
consists of the Galela men from the north of Gilolo, a singular
people, whom I have already described; and the fourth is a colony
from Tomóre, in the eastern peninsula of Celebes. These people
were brought here at their own request a few years ago, to avoid
extermination by another tribe. They have a very light
complexion, open Tartar physiognomy, low stature, and a language
of the Bugis type. They are an industrious agricultural people,
and supply the town with vegetables. They make a good deal of
bark cloth, similar to the tapa of the Polynesians, by cutting
down the proper trees and taping off large cylinders of bark,
which is beaten with mallets till it separates from the wood. It
is then soaked, and so continuously and regularly beaten out that
it becomes as thin and as tough as parchment. In this foam it is
much used for wrappers for clothes; and they also make jackets of
it, sewn neatly together and stained with the juice of another
kind of bark, which gives it a dark red colour and renders it
nearly waterproof.

Here are four very distinct kinds of people who may all be seen
any day in and about the town of Batchian. Now if we suppose a
traveller ignorant of Malay, picking up a word or two here and
there of the "Batchian language," and noting down the "physical
and moral peculiarities, manners, and customs of the Batchian
people"--(for there are travellers who do all this in four-and-
twenty hours)--what an accurate and instructive chapter we should
have' what transitions would be pointed out, what theories of the
origin of races would be developed while the next traveller might
flatly contradict every statement and arrive at exactly opposite
conclusions.

Soon after I arrived here the Dutch Government introduced a new
copper coinage of cents instead of doits (the 100th instead of
the 120th part of a guilder), and all the old coins were ordered
to be sent to Ternate to be changed. I sent a bag containing
6,000 doits, and duly received the new money by return of the
boat. Then Ali went to bring it, however, the captain required a
written order; so I waited to send again the next day, and it was
lucky I did so, for that night my house was entered, all my boxes
carried out and ransacked, and the various articles left on the
road about twenty yards off, where we found them at five in the
morning, when, on getting up and finding the house empty, we
rushed out to discover tracks of the thieves. Not being able to
find the copper money which they thought I had just received,
they decamped, taking nothing but a few yards of cotton cloth and
a black coat and trousers, which latter were picked up a few days
afterwards hidden in the grass. There was no doubt whatever who
were the thieves. Convicts are employed to guard the Government
stores when the boat arrives from Ternate. Two of them watch all
night, and often take the opportunity to roam about and commit
robberies.

The next day I received my money, and secured it well in a strong
box fastened under my bed. I took out five or six hundred cents
for daily expenses, and put them in a small japanned box, which
always stood upon my table. In the afternoon I went for a short
walk, and on my return this box and my keys, which I had
carelessly left on the table, were gone. Two of my boys were in
the house, but had heard nothing. I immediately gave information
of the two robberies to the Director at the mines and to the
Commandant at the fort, and got for answer, that if I caught the
thief in the act I might shoot him. By inquiry in the village, we
afterwards found that one of the convicts who was on duty at the
Government rice-store in the village had quitted his guard, was
seen to pass over the bridge towards my house, was seen again
within two hundred yards of my house, and on returning over the
bridge into the village carried something under his arm,
carefully covered with his sarong. My box was stolen between the
hours he was seen going and returning, and it was so small as to
be easily carried in the way described. This seemed pretty clear
circumstantial evidence. I accused the man and brought the
witnesses to the Commandant. The man was examined, and confessed
having gone to the river close to my house to bathe; but said he
had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut tree and
brought home two nuts, which he had covered over, _because he was
ashamed to be seen carrying them!_ This explanation was thought
satisfactory, and he was acquitted. I lost my cash and my box, a
seal I much valued, with other small articles, and all my keys-
the severest loss by far. Luckily my large cash-box was left
locked, but so were others which I required to open immediately.
There was, however, a very clever blacksmith employed to do
ironwork for the mines, and he picked my locks for me when I
required them, and in a few days made me new keys, which I used
all the time I was abroad.

Towards the end of November the wet season set in, and we had
daily and almost incessant rains, with only about one or two
hours' sunshine in the morning. The flat parts of the forest
became flooded, the roads filled with mud, and insects and birds
were scarcer than ever. On December Lath, in the afternoon, we
had a sharp earthquake shock, which made the house and furniture
shale and rattle for five minutes, and the trees and shrubs wave
as if a gust of wind had passed over them. About the middle of
December I removed to the village, in order more easily to
explore the district to the west of it, and to be near the sea
when I wished to return to Ternate. I obtained the use of a good-
sized house in the Campong Sirani (or Christian village), and at
Christmas and the New Year had to endure the incessant gun-
firing, drum-beating, and fiddling of the inhabitants.

These people are very fond of music and dancing, and it would
astonish a European to visit one of their assemblies. We enter a
gloomy palm-leaf hut, in which two or three very dim lamps barely
render darkness visible. The floor is of black sandy earth, the
roof hid in a smoky impenetrable blackness; two or three benches
stand against the walls, and the orchestra consists of a fiddle,
a fife, a drum, and a triangle. There is plenty of company,
consisting of young men and women, all very neatly dressed in
white and black--a true Portuguese habit. Quadrilles, waltzes,
polkas, and mazurkas are danced with great vigour and much skill.
The refreshments are muddy coffee and a few sweetmeats. Dancing
is kept up for hours, and all is conducted with much decorum and
propriety. A party of this kind meets about once a week, the
principal inhabitants taking it by turns, and all who please come
in without much ceremony.

It is astonishing how little these people have altered in three
hundred years, although in that time they have changed their
language and lost all knowledge of their own nationality. They
are still in manners and appearance almost pure Portuguese, very
similar to those with whom I had become acquainted on the banks
of the Amazon. They live very poorly as regards their house and
furniture, but preserve a semi-European dress, and have almost
all full suits of black for Sundays. They are nominally
Protestants, but Sunday evening is their grand day for music and
dancing. The men are often good hunters; and two or three times a
week, deer or wild pigs are brought to the village, which, with
fish and fowls, enables them to live well. They are almost the
only people in the Archipelago who eat the great fruit-eating
bats called by us "flying foxes." These ugly creatures are
considered a great delicacy, and are much sought after. At about
the beginning of the year they come in large flocks to eat fruit,
and congregate during the day on some small islands in the bay,
hanging by thousands on the trees, especially on dead ones. They
can then be easily caught or knocked down with sticks, and are
brought home by basketsfull. They require to be carefully
prepared, as the skin and fur has a rank end powerful foxy odour;
but they are generally cooked with abundance of spices and
condiments, and are really very good eating, something like hare.
The Orang Sirani are good cooks, having a much greater variety of
savoury dishes than the Malays. Here, they live chiefly on sago
as bread, with a little rice occasionally, and abundance of
vegetables and fruit.

It is a curious fact that everywhere in the Past where the
Portuguese have mixed with the native races they leave become
darker in colour than either of the parent stocks. This is the
case almost always with these "Orang Sirani" in the Moluccas, and
with the Portuguese of Malacca. The reverse is the case in South
America, where the mixture of the Portuguese or Brazilian with
the Indian produces the "Mameluco," who is not unfrequently
lighter than either parent, and always lighter than the Indian.
The women at Batchian, although generally fairer than the men,
are coarse in features, and very far inferior in beauty to the
mixed Dutch-Malay girls, or even to many pure Malays.

The part of the village in which I resided was a grove of cocoa-
nut trees, and at night, when the dead leaves were sometimes
collected together and burnt, the effect was most magnificent--
the tall stems, the fine crowns of foliage, and the immense
fruit-clusters, being brilliantly illuminated against a dark sky,
and appearing like a fairy palace supported on a hundred columns,
and groined over with leafy arches. The cocoa-nut tree, when well
grown, is certainly the prince of palms both for beauty and
utility.

During my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I had seen
sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly of a dark
colour marked with white and yellow spots. I could not capture it
as it flew away high up into the forest, but I at once saw that
it was a female of a new species of Ornithoptera or "bird-winged
butterfly," the pride of the Eastern tropics. I was very anxious
to get it and to find the male, which in this genus is always of
extreme beauty. During the two succeeding months I only saw it
once again, and shortly afterwards I saw the male flying high in
the air at the mining village. I had begun to despair of ever
getting a specimen, as it seemed so rare and wild; till one day,
about the beginning of January, I found a beautiful shrub with
large white leafy bracts and yellow flowers, a species of
Mussaenda, and saw one of these noble insects hovering over it,
but it was too quick for me, and flew away. The next clay I went
again to the same shrub and succeeded in catching a female, and
the day after a fine male. I found it to be as I had expected, a
perfectly new and most magnificent species, and one of the most
gorgeously coloured butterflies in the world. Fine specimens of
the male are more than seven inches across the wings, which are
velvety black and fiery orange, the latter colour replacing the
green of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of this
insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can
understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length
captured it. On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious
wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my
head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in
apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest of the
day, so great was the excitement produced by what will appear to
most people a very inadequate cause.

I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but
this grand capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a
good series of the new butterfly, which I have since named
Ornithoptera croesus. The Mussaenda bush was an admirable place,
which I could visit every day on my way to the forest; and as it
was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and creepers, I set my
man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so that I could easily
get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards, finding that
it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a little
seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every
day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about
noon, besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way
I obtained on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but
more than half of these were females, and more than half the
remainder worn or broken specimens, so that I should not have
obtained many perfect males had I not found another station for
them.

As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi
with a net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been
seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him
half a day's wages extra for every good specimen he could catch.
After a day or two he brought me two very fair specimens, and
told me he had caught them in the bed of a large rocky stream
that descends from the mountains to the sea abort a mile below
the village. They flew down this river, settling occasionally on
stones and rocks in the water, and he was obliged to wade up it
or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him one
day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones
too slippery for me to do anything, so I left it entirely to him,
and all the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to be
out all day, generally bringing me one, and on good days two or
three specimens. I was thus able to bring away with me more than
a hundred of both sexes, including perhaps twenty very fine
males, though not more than five or six that were absolutely
perfect.

My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy
beach, then through a sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky
poles to the village of the Tomore people. Beyond this was the
forest with patches of new clearing, shady paths, and a
considerable quantity of felled timber. I found this a very fair
collecting ground, especially for beetles. The fallen trunks in
the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidae and curious
Brenthidae, and longicorns, while in the forest I found abundance
of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and some fine
green Carabidae.

Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more of the
fine blue Papilio, and a number of beautiful little Lycaenidae,
as well as a single specimen of the very rare Papilio Wallacei,
of which I had taken the hitherto unique specimen in the Aru
Islands.

The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beautiful
blue kingfisher, Todiramphus diops; the fine green and purple
doves, Ptilonopus superbus and P. iogaster, and several new birds
of small size. My shooters still brought me in specimens of the
Semioptera Wallacei, and I was greatly excited by the positive
statements of several of the native hunters that another species
of this bird existed, much handsomer and more remarkable. They
declared that the plumage was glossy black, with metallic green
breast as in my species, but that the white shoulder plumes were
twice as long, and hung down far below the body of the bird. They
declared that when hunting pigs or deer far in the forest they
occasionally saw this bird, but that it was rare. I immediately
offered twelve guilders (a pound) for a specimen; but all in
vain, and I am to this day uncertain whether such a bird exists.
Since I left, the German naturalist, Dr. Bernstein, stayed many
months in the island with a large staff of hunters collecting for
the Leyden Museum; and as he was not more successful than myself,
we must consider either that the bird is very rare, or is
altogether a myth.

Batchian is remarkable as being the most eastern point on the
globe inhabited by any of the Quadrumana. A large black baboon-
monkey (Cynopithecus nigrescens) is abundant in some parts of the
forest. This animal has bare red callosities, and a rudimentary
tail about an inch long--a mere fleshy tubercle, which may be
very easily overlooked. It is the same species that is found all
over the forests of Celebes, and as none of the other Mammalia of
that island extend into Batchian I am inclined to suppose that
this species has been accidentally introduced by the roaming
Malays, who often carry about with them tame monkeys and other
animals. This is rendered more probable by the fact that the
animal is not found in Gilolo, which is only separated from
Batchian by a very narrow strait. The introduction may have been
very recent, as in a fertile and unoccupied island such an animal
would multiply rapidly. The only other mammals obtained were an
Eastern opossum, which Dr. Gray has described as Cuscus ornatus;
the little flying opossum, Belideus ariel; a Civet cat, Viverra
zebetha; and nice species of bats, most of the smaller ones being
caught in the dusk with my butterfly net as they flew about
before the house.

After much delay, owing to bad weather and the illness of one of
my men, I determined to visit Kasserota (formerly the chief
village), situated up a small stream, on an island close to the
north coast of Batchian; where I was told that many rare birds
were found. After my boat was loaded and everything ready, three
days of heavy squalls prevented our starting, and it was not till
the 21st of March that we got away. Early next morning we entered
the little river, and in about an hour we reached the Sultan's
house, which I had obtained permission to use. It was situated on
the bank of the river, and surrounded by a forest of fruit trees,
among which were some of the very loftiest and most graceful
cocoa-nut palms I have ever seen. It rained nearly all that day,
and I could do little but unload and unpack. Towards the
afternoon it cleared up, and I attempted to explore in various
directions, but found to my disgust that the only path was a
perfect mud swamp, along which it was almost impossible to walk,
and the surrounding forest so damp and dark as to promise little
in the way of insects. I found too on inquiry that the people
here made no clearings, living entirely on sago, fruit, fish, and
game; and the path only led to- a steep rocky mountain equally
impracticable and unproductive. The next day I sent my men to
this hill, hoping it might produce some good birds; but they
returned with only two common species, and I myself had been able
to get nothing; every little track I had attempted to follow
leading to a dense sago swamp. I saw that I should waste time by
staying here, and determined to leave the following day.

This is one of those spots so hard for the European naturalist to
conceive, where with all the riches of a tropical vegetation, and
partly perhaps from the very luxuriance of that vegetation,
insects are as scarce as in the most barren parts of Europe, and
hardly more conspicuous. In temperate climates there is a
tolerable uniformity in the distribution of insects over those
parts of a country in which there is a similarity in the
vegetation, any deficiency being easily accounted for by the
absence of wood or uniformity of surface. The traveller hastily
passing through such a country can at once pick out a collecting
ground which will afford him a fair notion of its entomology.
Here the case is different. There are certain requisites of a
good collecting ground which can only be ascertained to exist by
some days' search in the vicinity of each village. In some places
there is no virgin forest, as at Djilolo and Sahoe; in others
there are no open pathways or clearings, as here. At Batchian
there are only two tolerable collecting places,--the road to the
coal mines, and the new clearings made by the Tomóre people, the
latter being by far the most productive. I believe the fact to be
that insects are pretty uniformly distributed over these
countries (where the forests have not been cleared away), and are
so scarce in any one spot that searching for them is almost
useless. If the forest is all cleared away, almost all the
insects disappear with it; but when small clearings and paths are
made, the fallen trees in various stages of drying and decay, the
rotting leaves, the loosening bark and the fungoid growths upon
it, together with the flowers that appear in much greater
abundance where the light is admitted, are so many attractions to
the insects for miles around, and cause a wonderful accumulation
of species and individuals. When the entomologist can discover
such a spot, he does more in a mouth than he could possibly do by
a year's search in the depths of the undisturbed forest.

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