The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

b >> by Alfred Russell Wallace >> The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

After much inquiry I determined to visit the district of Maros,
about thirty miles north of Macassar, where Mr. Jacob Mesman, a
brother of my friend, resided, who had kindly offered to find me
house-room and give me assistance should I feel inclined to visit
him. I accordingly obtained a pass from the Resident, and having
hired a boat set off one evening for Maros. My boy Ali was so ill
with fever that I was obliged to leave him in the hospital, under
the care of my friend the German doctor, and I had to make shift
with two new servants utterly ignorant of everything. We coasted
along during the night, and at daybreak entered the Maros river,
and by three in the afternoon reached the village. I immediately
visited the Assistant Resident, and applied for ten men to carry
my baggage, and a horse for myself. These were promised to be
ready that night, so that I could start as soon as I liked in the
morning. After having taken a cup of tea I took my leave, and
slept in the boat. Some of the men came at night as promised, but
others did not arrive until the next morning. It took some time to
divide my baggage fairly among them, as they all wanted to shirk
the heavy boxes, and would seize hold of some light article and
march off with it, until made to come back and wait until the whole
had been fairly apportioned. At length about eight o'clock all
was arranged, and we started for our walk to Mr. M.'s farm.

The country was at first a uniform plain of burned-up rice-
grounds, but at a few miles' distance precipitous hills appeared,
backed by the lofty central range of the peninsula. Towards these
our path lay, and after having gone six or eight miles the hills
began to advance into the plain right and left of us, and the
ground became pierced here and there with blocks and pillars of
limestone rock, while a few abrupt conical hills and peaks rose
like islands. Passing over an elevated tract forming the
shoulder of one of the hills, a picturesque scene lay before us.
We looked down into a little valley almost entirely surrounded by
mountains, rising abruptly in huge precipices, and forming a
succession of knolls and peaks aid domes of the most varied and
fantastic shapes. In the very centre of the valley was a large
bamboo house, while scattered around were a dozen cottages of
the same material.

I was kindly received by Mr. Jacob Mesman in an airy saloon
detached from the house, and entirely built of bamboo and
thatched with grass. After breakfast he took me to his foreman's
house, about a hundred yards off, half of which was given up to
me until I should decide where to have a cottage built for my own
use. I soon found that this spot was too much exposed to the wind
and dust, which rendered it very difficult to work with papers or
insects. It was also dreadfully hot in the afternoon, and after a
few days I got a sharp attack of fever, which determined me to
move. I accordingly fixed on a place about a mile off, at the
foot of a forest-covered hill, where in a few days Mr. M. built
for me a nice little house, consisting of a good-sized enclosed
verandah or open room, and a small inner sleeping-room, with a
little cookhouse outside. As soon as it was finished I moved into
it, and found the change most agreeable.

The forest which surrounded me was open and free from underwood,
consisting of large trees, widely scattered with a great quantity
of palm-trees (Arenga saccharifera), from which palm wine and
sugar are made. There were also great numbers of a wild Jack-
fruit tree (Artocarpus), which bore abundance of large
reticulated fruit, serving as an excellent vegetable. The ground
was as thickly covered with dry leaves as it is in an English
wood in November; the little rocky streams were all dry, and
scarcely a drop of water or even a damp place was anywhere to be
seen. About fifty yards below my house, at the foot of the hill,
was a deep hole in a watercourse where good water was to be had,
and where I went daily to bathe by having buckets of water taken
out and pouring it over my body.

My host Mr. M. enjoyed a thoroughly country life, depending
almost entirely on his gun and dogs to supply his table. Wild
pigs of large size were very plentiful and he generally got one
or two a week, besides deer occasionally, and abundance of
jungle-fowl, hornbills, and great fruit pigeons. His buffaloes
supplied plenty of milk from which he made his own butter; he
grew his own rice and coffee, and had ducks, fowls, and their
eggs, in profusion. His palm-trees supplied him all the year round
with "sagueir," which takes the place of beer; and the sugar made
from them is an excellent sweetmeat. All the fine tropical
vegetables and fruits were abundant in their season, and his
cigars were made from tobacco of his own raising. He kindly sent
me a bamboo of buffalo-milk every morning; it was as thick as
cream, and required diluting with water to keep it fluid during
the day. It mixes very well with tea and coffee, although it has
a slight peculiar flavour, which after a time is not
disagreeable. I also got as much sweet "sagueir "as I liked to
drink, and Mr. M. always sent me a piece of each pig he killed,
which with fowls, eggs, and the birds we shot ourselves, and
buffalo beef about once a fortnight, kept my larder sufficiently
well supplied.

Every bit of flatland was cleared and used as rice-fields, and
on the lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco and vegetables
were grown. Most of the slopes are covered with huge blocks of
rock, very fatiguing to scramble over, while a number of the
hills are so precipitous as to be quite inaccessible. These
circumstances, combined with the excessive drought, were very
unfavourable for lily pursuits. Birds were scarce, and I got but
few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but unequal.
Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting, were exceedingly
scarce, some of the families being quite absent and others only
represented by very minute species. The Flies and Bees, on the
other hand, were abundant, and of these I daily obtained new and
interesting species. The rare and beautiful Butterflies of
Celebes were the chief object of my search, and I found many
species altogether new to me, but they were generally so active
and shy as to render their capture a matter of great difficulty.
Almost the only good place for them was in the dry beds of the
streams in the forest, where, at damp places, muddy pools, or
even on the dry rocks, all sorts of insects could be found. In
these rocky forests dwell some of the finest butterflies in the
world. Three species of Ornithoptera, measuring seven or eight
inches across the wings, and beautifully marked with spots or
masses of satiny yellow on a black ground, wheel through the
thickets with a strong sailing flight. About the damp places are
swarms of the beautiful blue-banded Papilios, miletus and
telephus, the superb golden green P. macedon, and the rare little
swallow-tail Papilio rhesus, of all of which, though very active,
I succeeded in capturing fine series of specimens.

I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence here.
As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds would
often be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally
out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a prize I had been
seeking after for weeks. The great hornbills of Celebes (Buceros
cassidix) would often come with loud-flapping wings, and perch
upon a lofty tree just in front of me; and the black baboon-
monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stared down in
astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains while at
night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouring
refuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatable or
breakable from our little cooking-house. A few minutes' search on
the fallen trees around my house at sunrise and sunset, would
often produce me more beetles than I would meet with in a day's
collecting, and odd moments could be made valuable which when
living in villages or at a distance from the forest are
inevitably wasted. Where the sugar-palms were dripping with sap,
flies congregated in immense numbers, and it was by spending half
an hour at these when I had the time to spare, that I obtained
the finest and most remarkable collection of this group of
insects that I have ever made.

Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and down the dry
river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees,
and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation. I soon got to know
every hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious
step and bated breath to see what treasures it would produce. At
one place I would find a little crowd of the rare butterfly
Tachyris zarinda, which would rise up at my approach, and display
their vivid orange and cinnabar-red wings, while among them would
flutter a few of the fine blue-banded Papilios. Where leafy
branches hung over the gully, I might expect to find a grand
Ornithoptera at rest and an easy prey. At certain rotten trunks I
was sure to get the curious little tiger beetle, Therates
flavilabris. In the denser thickets I would capture the small
metal-blue butterflies (Amblypodia) sitting on the leaves, as
well as some rare and beautiful leaf-beetles of the families
Hispidae and Chrysomelidae.

I found that the rotten jack-fruits were very attractive to many
beetles, and used to split them partly open and lay them about in
the forest near my house to rot. A morning's search at these
often produced me a score of species--Staphylinidae, Nitidulidae,
Onthophagi, and minute Carabidae, being the most abundant. Now
and then the "sagueir" makers brought me a fine rosechafer
(Sternoplus schaumii) which they found licking up the sweet sap.
Almost the only new birds I met with for some time were a
handsome ground thrush (Pitta celebensis), and a beautiful
violet-crowned dove (Ptilonopus celebensis), both very similar to
birds I had recently obtained at Aru, but of distinct species.

About the latter part of September a heavy shower of rain fell,
admonishing us that we might soon expect wet weather, much to the
advantage of the baked-up country. I therefore determined to pay
a visit to the falls of the Maros river, situated at the point
where it issues from the mountains--a spot often visited by
travellers and considered very beautiful. Mr. M. lent me a horse,
and I obtained a guide from a neighbouring village; and taking
one of my men with me, we started at six in the morning, and
after a ride of two hours over the flat rice-fields skirting the
mountains which rose in grand precipices on our left, we readied
the river about half-way between Maros and the falls, and thence
had a good bridle-road to our destination, which we reached. in
another hour. The hills had closed in around us as we advanced;
and when we reached a ruinous shed which had been erected for the
accommodation of visitors, we found ourselves in a flat-bottomed
valley about a quarter of a mile wide, bounded by precipitous and
often overhanging limestone rocks. So far the ground had been
cultivated, but it now became covered with bushes and large
scattered trees.

As soon as my scanty baggage had arrived and was duly deposited
in the shed, I started off alone for the fall, which was about a
quarter of a mile further on. The river is here about twenty
yards wide, and issues from a chasm between two vertical walls of
limestone, over a rounded mass of basaltic rock about forty feet
high, forming two curves separated by a slight ledge. The water
spreads beautifully over this surface in a thin sheet of foam,
which curls and eddies in a succession of concentric cones until
it falls into a fine deep pool below. Close to the very edge of
the fall a narrow and very rugged path leads to the river above,
and thence continues close under the precipice along the water's
edge, or sometimes in the water, for a few hundred yards, after
which the rocks recede a little, and leave a wooded bank on one
side, along which the path is continued, until in about half a
mile, a second and smaller fall is reached. Here the river seems
to issue from a cavern, the rocks having fallen from above so as to
block up the channel and bar further progress. The fall itself
can only be reached by a path which ascends behind a huge slice
of rock which has partly fallen away from the mountain, leaving a
space two or three feet wide, but disclosing a dark chasm
descending into the bowels of the mountain, and which, having
visited several such, I had no great curiosity to explore.

Crossing the stream a little below the upper fall, the path
ascends a steep slope for about five hundred feet, and passing
through a gap enters a narrow valley, shut in by walls of rock
absolutely perpendicular and of great height. Half a mile further
this valley turns abruptly to the right, and becomes a mere rift
in the mountain. This extends another half mile, the walls
gradually approaching until they are only two feet apart, and the
bottom rising steeply to a pass which leads probably into another
valley, but which I had no time to explore. Returning to where
this rift had begun the main path turns up to the left in a sort
of gully, and reaches a summit over which a fine natural arch of
rock passes at a height of about fifty feet. Thence was a steep
descent through thick jungle with glimpses of precipices and
distant rocky mountains, probably leading into the main river
valley again. This was a most tempting region to explore, but
there were several reasons why I could go no further. I had no
guide, and no permission to enter the Bugis territories, and as
the rains might at any time set in, I might be prevented from
returning by the flooding of the river. I therefore devoted
myself during the short time of my visit to obtaining what
knowledge I could of the natural productions of the place.

The narrow chasms produced several fine insects quite new to me,
and one new bird, the curious Phlaegenas tristigmata, a large
ground pigeon with yellow breast and crown, and purple neck.
This rugged path is the highway from Maros to the Bugis country
beyond the mountains. During the rainy season it is quite impassable,
the river filling its bed and rushing between perpendicular
cliffs many hundred feet high. Even at the time of my visit it
was most precipitous and fatiguing, yet women and children came
over it daily, and men carrying heavy loads of palm sugar (of very
little value). It was along the path between the lower and the
upper falls, and about the margin of the upper pool, that I found
most insects. The large semi-transparent butterfly, Idea tondana,
flew lazily along by dozens, and it was here that I at length
obtained an insect which I had hoped but hardly expected to meet
with--the magnificent Papilio androcles, one of the largest and
rarest known swallow-tailed butterflies. During my four days'
stay at the falls, I was so fortunate as to obtain six good
specimens. As this beautiful creature flies, the long white tails
flicker like streamers, and when settled on the beach it carries
them raised upwards, as if to preserve them from injury. It is
scarce even here, as I did not see more than a dozen specimens in
all, and had to follow many of them up and down the river's bank
repeatedly before I succeeded in their capture. When the sun
shone hottest, about noon, the moist beach of the pool below the
upper fall presented a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups
of gay butterflies--orange, yellow, white, blue, and green--
which on being disturbed rose into the air by hundreds, forming
clouds of variegated colours.

Such gores, chasms, and precipices here abound,as I have nowhere
seen in the Archipelago. A sloping surface is scarcely anywhere
to be found, huge walls and rugged masses of rock terminating all
the mountains and enclosing the valleys. In many parts there are
vertical or even overhanging precipices five or six hundred feet
high, yet completely clothed with a tapestry of vegetation.
Ferns, Pandanaceae, shrubs, creepers, and even forest trees, are
mingled in an evergreen network, through the interstices of which
appears the white limestone rock or the dark holes and chasms
with which it abounds. These precipices are enabled to sustain
such an amount of vegetation by their peculiar structure. Their
surfaces are very irregular, broken into holes and fissures, with
ledges overhanging the mouths of gloomy caverns; but from each
projecting part have descended stalactites, often forming a wild
gothic tracery over the caves and receding hollows, and affording
an admirable support to the roots of the shrubs, trees, and
creepers, which luxuriate in the warm pure atmosphere and the
gentle moisture which constantly exudes from the rocks. In places
where the precipice offers smooth surfaces of solid rock, it
remains quite bare, or only stained with lichens, and dotted with
clumps of ferns that grow on the small ledges and in the minutest
crevices.

The reader who is familiar with tropical nature only through the
medium of books and botanical gardens will picture to himself in
such a spot many other natural beauties. He will think that I
have unaccountably forgotten to mention the brilliant flowers,
which, in gorgeous masses of crimson, gold or azure, must spangle
these verdant precipices, hang over the cascade, and adorn the
margin of the mountain stream. But what is the reality? In vain
did I gaze over these vast walls of verdure, among the pendant
creepers and bushy shrubs, all around the cascade on the river's
bank, or in the deep caverns and gloomy fissures--not one single
spot of bright colour could be seen, not one single tree or bush
or creeper bore a flower sufficiently conspicuous to form an
object in the landscape. In every direction the eye rested on
green foliage and mottled rock. There was infinite variety in the
colour and aspect of the foliage; there was grandeur in the rocky
masses and in the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation; but
there was no brilliancy of colour, none of those bright flowers
and gorgeous masses of blossom so generally considered to be
everywhere present in the tropics. I have here given an accurate
sketch of a luxuriant tropical scene as noted down on the spot,
and its general characteristics as regards colour have been so
often repeated, both in South America and over many thousand
miles in the Eastern tropics, that I am driven to conclude that
it represents the general aspect of nature at the equatorial
(that is, the most tropical) parts of the tropical regions.

How is it then, that the descriptions of travellers generally give
a very different idea? and where, it may be asked, are the
glorious flowers that we know do exist in the tropics? These
questions can be easily answered. The fine tropical flowering-
plants cultivated in our hothouses have been culled from the
most varied regions, and therefore give a most erroneous idea of
their abundance in any one region. Many of them are very rare,
others extremely local, while a considerable number inhabit the
more arid regions of Africa and India, in which tropical
vegetation does not exhibit itself in its usual luxuriance. Fine
and varied foliage, rather than gay flowers, is more
characteristic of those parts where tropical vegetation attains
its highest development, and in such districts each kind of
flower seldom lasts in perfection more than a few weeks, or
sometimes a few days. In every locality a lengthened residence
will show an abundance of magnificent and gaily-blossomed plants,
but they have to be sought for, and are rarely at any one time or
place so abundant as to form a perceptible feature in the
landscape. But it has been the custom of travellers to describe
and group together all the fine plants they have met with during
a long journey, and thus produce the effect of a gay and flower-
painted landscape. They have rarely studied and described
individual scenes where vegetation was most luxuriant and
beautiful, and fairly stated what effect was produced in them by
flowers. I have done so frequently, and the result of these
examinations has convinced me that the bright colours of flowers
have a much greater influence on the general aspect of nature in
temperate than in tropical climates. During twelve years spent
amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen nothing
comparable to the effect produced on our landscapes by gorse,
broom, heather, wild hyacinths, hawthorn, purple orchises, and
buttercups.

The geological structure of this part of Celebes is interesting.
The limestone mountains, though of great extent, seem to be
entirely superficial, resting on a basis of basalt which in some
places forms low rounded hills between the more precipitous
mountains. In the rocky beds of the streams basalt is almost
always found, and it is a step in this rock which forms the
cascade already described. From it the limestone precipices rise
abruptly; and in ascending the little stairway along the side of
the fall, you step two or three times from tpe of rock on to
the other--the limestone dry and rough, being worn by the water
and rains into sharp ridges and honeycombed holes--the basalt
moist, even, and worn smooth and slippery by the passage of bare-
footed pedestrians. The solubility of the limestone by rain-water
is well seen in the little blocks and peaks which rise thickly
through the soil of the alluvial plains as you approach the
mountains. They are all skittle-shaped, larger in the middle than
at the base, the greatest diameter occurring at the height to
which the country is flooded in the wet season, and thence
decreasing regularly to the ground. Many of them overhang
considerably, and some of the slenderer pillars appear to stand
upon a point. When the rock is less solid it becomes curiously
honeycombed by the rains of successive winters, and I noticed
some masses reduced to a complete network of stone through which
light could be seen in every direction.

From these mountains to the sea extends a perfectly flat alluvial
plain, with no indication that water would accumulate at a great
depth beneath it, yet the authorities at Macassar have spent much
money in boring a well a thousand feet deep in hope of getting a
supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells in the
London and Paris basins. It is not to be wondered at that the
attempt was unsuccessful.

Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after
birds and insects. The weather, however, became dreadfully hot and
dry, every drop of water disappearing from the pools and rock-
holes, and with it the insects which frequented them. Only one
group remained unaffected by the intense drought; the Diptera, or
two-winged flies, continued as plentifully as ever, and on these I
was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a week or
two, by which means I increased my collection of that Order to
about two hundred species. I also continued to obtain a few new
birds, among which were two or three kinds of small hawks and
falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus
ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.

At length, about the middle of October, after several gloomy days,
down came a deluge of rain which continued to fall almost every
afternoon, showing that the early part of the wet season had
commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest of insects, and in
some respects I was not disappointed. Beetles became much more
numerous, and under a thick bed of leaves that had accumulated on
some rocks by the side of a forest stream, I found an abundance
of Carbidae, a family generally scarce in the tropics. The
butterflies, however, disappeared. Two of my servants were attacked
with fever, dysentery, and swelled feet, just at the time that
the third had left me, and for some days they both lay groaning
in the house. When they got a little better I was attacked
myself, and as my stores were nearly finished and everything was
getting very damp, I was obliged to prepare for my return to
Macassar, especially as the strong westerly winds would render
the passage in a small open boat disagreeable, if not dangerous.

Since the rains began, numbers of huge millipedes, as thick as
one's finger and eight or ten inches long, crawled about
everywhere--in the paths, on trees, about the house--and one
morning when I got up I even found one in my bed! They were
generally of a dull lead colour or of a deep brick red, and were
very nasty-looking things to be coming everywhere in one's way,
although quite harmless. Snakes too began to show themselves. I
killed two of a very abundant species--big-headed, and of a bright
green colour, which lie coiled up on leaves and shrubs and can
scarcely be seen until one is close upon them. Brown snakes got
into my net while beating among dead leaves for insects, and made
me rather cautious about inserting my hand until I knew what kind
of game I had captured. The fields and meadows which had been
parched and sterile, now became suddenly covered with fine long
grass; the river-bed where I had so many times walked over
burning rocks, was now a deep and rapid stream; and numbers of
herbaceous plants and shrubs were everywhere springing up and
bursting into flower. I found plenty of new insects, and if I had
had a good, roomy, water-and-wind-proof house, I should perhaps
have stayed during the wet season, as I feel sure many things can
then be obtained which are to be found at no other time. With my
summer hut, however, this was impossible. During the heavy rains
a fine drizzly mist penetrated into every part of it, and I began
to have the greatest difficulty in keeping my specimens dry.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26