The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

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

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By far the most conspicuous of the various kinds of people in
Singapore, and those which most attract the stranger's attention,
are the Chinese, whose numbers and incessant activity give the
place very much the appearance of a town in China. The Chinese
merchant is generally a fat round-faced man with an important and
business-like look. He wears the same style of clothing (loose
white smock, and blue or black trousers) as the meanest coolie,
but of finer materials, and is always clean and neat; and his
long tail tipped with red silk hangs down to his heels. He has a
handsome warehouse or shop in town and a good house in the
country. He keeps a fine horse and gig, and every evening may be
seen taking a drive bareheaded to enjoy the cool breeze. He is
rich--he owns several retail shops and trading schooners, he
lends money at high interest and on good security, he makes hard
bargains, and gets fatter and richer every year.

In the Chinese bazaar are hundreds of small shops in which a
miscellaneous collection of hardware and dry goods are to be
found, and where many things are sold wonderfully cheap. You may
buy gimlets at a penny each, white cotton thread at four balls
for a halfpenny, and penknives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-
paper, and many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can
purchase them in England. The shopkeeper is very good-natured; he
will show you everything he has, and does not seem to mind if you
buy nothing. He bates a little, but not so much as the Klings,
who almost always ask twice what they are willing to take. If you
buy a few things from him, he will speak to you afterwards every
time you pass his shop, asking you to walk in and sit down, or
take a cup of tea; and you wonder how he can get a living where
so many sell the same trifling articles.

The tailors sit at a table, not on one; and both they and the
shoemakers work well and cheaply. The barbers have plenty to do,
shaving heads and cleaning ears; for which latter operation they
have a great array of little tweezers, picks, and brushes. In the
outskirts of the town are scores of carpenters and blacksmiths.
The former seem chiefly to make coffins and highly painted and
decorated clothes-boxes. The latter are mostly gun-makers, and
bore the barrels of guns by hand out of solid bars of iron. At
this tedious operation they may be seen every day, and they
manage to finish off a gun with a flintlock very handsomely. All
about the streets are sellers of water, vegetables, fruit, soup,
and agar-agar (a jelly made of seaweed), who have many cries as
unintelligible as those of London. Others carry a portable
cooking-apparatus on a pole balanced by a table at the other end,
and serve up a meal of shellfish, rice, and vegetables for two or
three halfpence--while coolies and boatmen waiting to be hired
are everywhere to be met with.

In the interior of the island the Chinese cut down forest trees
in the jungle, and saw them up into planks; they cultivate
vegetables, which they bring to market; and they grow pepper and
gambir, which form important articles of export. The French
Jesuits have established missions among these inland Chinese,
which seem very successful. I lived for several weeks at a time
with the missionary at Bukit-tima, about the centre of the
island, where a pretty church has been built and there are about
300 converts. While there, I met a missionary who had just
arrived from Tonquin, where he had been living for many years.
The Jesuits still do their work thoroughly as of old. In Cochin
China, Tonquin, and China, where all Christian teachers are
obliged to live in secret, and are liable to persecution,
expulsion, and sometimes death, every province--even those
farthest in the interior--has a permanent Jesuit mission
establishment constantly kept up by fresh aspirants, who are
taught the languages of the countries they are going to at Penang
or Singapore. In China there are said to be near a million
converts; in Tonquin and Cochin China, more than half a million.
One secret of the success of these missions is the rigid economy
practised in the expenditure of the funds. A missionary is
allowed about £30. a year, on which he lives in whatever country
he may be. This renders it possible to support a large number of
missionaries with very limited means; and the natives, seeing
their teachers living in poverty and with none of the luxuries of
life, are convinced that they are sincere in what they teach, and
have really given up home and friends and ease and safety, for
the good of others. No wonder they make converts, for it must be
a great blessing to the poor people among whom they labour to
have a man among them to whom they can go in any trouble or
distress, who will comfort and advise them, who visits them in
sickness, who relieves them in want, and who they see living from
day-to-day in danger of persecution and death--entirely for
their sakes.

My friend at Bukit-tima was truly a father to his flock. He
preached to them in Chinese every Sunday, and had evenings for
discussion and conversation on religion during the week. He had a
school to teach their children. His house was open to them day
and night. If a man came to him and said, "I have no rice for my
family to eat today," he would give him half of what he had in
the house, however little that might be. If another said, "I have
no money to pay my debt," he would give him half the contents of
his purse, were it his last dollar. So, when he was himself in
want, he would send to some of the wealthiest among his flock,
and say, "I have no rice in the house," or "I have given away my
money, and am in want of such and such articles." The result was
that his flock trusted and loved him, for they felt sure that he
was their true friend, and had no ulterior designs in living
among them.

The island of Singapore consists of a multitude of small hills,
three or four hundred feet high, the summits of many of which are
still covered with virgin forest. The mission-house at Bukit-tima
was surrounded by several of these wood-topped hills, which were
much frequented by woodcutters and sawyers, and offered me an
excellent collecting ground for insects. Here and there, too,
were tiger pits, carefully covered over with sticks and leaves,
and so well concealed, that in several cases I had a narrow
escape from falling into them. They are shaped like an iron
furnace, wider at the bottom than the top, and are perhaps
fifteen or twenty feet deep so that it would be almost impossible
for a person unassisted to get out of one. Formerly a sharp stake
was stuck erect in the bottom; but after an unfortunate traveller
had been killed by falling on one, its use was forbidden. There
are always a few tigers roaming about Singapore, and they kill on
an average a Chinaman every day, principally those who work in
the gambir plantations, which are always made in newly-cleared
jungle. We heard a tiger roar once or twice in the evening, and
it was rather nervous work hunting for insects among the fallen
trunks and old sawpits when one of these savage animals might be
lurking close by, awaiting an opportunity to spring upon us.

Several hours in the middle of every fine day were spent in these
patches of forest, which were delightfully cool and shady by
contrast with the bare open country we had to walk over to reach
them. The vegetation was most luxuriant, comprising enormous
forest trees, as well as a variety of ferns, caladiums, and other
undergrowth, and abundance of climbing rattan palms. Insects were
exceedingly abundant and very interesting, and every day
furnished scores of new and curious forms.

In about two months I obtained no less than 700 species of
beetles, a large proportion of which were quite new, and among
them were 130 distinct kinds of the elegant Longicorns
(Cerambycidae), so much esteemed by collectors. Almost all these
were collected in one patch of jungle, not more than a square
mile in extent, and in all my subsequent travels in the East I
rarely if ever met with so productive a spot. This exceeding
productiveness was due in part no doubt to some favourable
conditions in the soil, climate, and vegetation, and to the
season being very bright and sunny, with sufficient showers to
keep everything fresh. But it was also in a great measure
dependent, I feel sure, on the labours of the Chinese wood-
cutters. They had been at work here for several years, and during
all that time had furnished a continual supply of dry and dead
and decaying leaves and bark, together with abundance of wood and
sawdust, for the nourishment of insects and their larvae. This
had led to the assemblage of a great variety of species in a
limited space, and I was the first naturalist who had come to
reap the harvest they had prepared. In the same place, and during
my walks in other directions, I obtained a fair collection of
butterflies and of other orders of insects, so that on the whole
I was quite satisfied with these--my first attempts to gain a
knowledge of the Natural History of the Malay Archipelago.

CHAPTER III.

MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR.

(JULY TO SEPTEMBER, 1854.)

BIRDS and most other kinds of animals being scarce at Singapore,
I left it in July for Malacca, where I spent more than two months
in the interior, and made an excursion to Mount Ophir. The old
and picturesque town of Malacca is crowded along the banks of the
small river, and consists of narrow streets of shops and dwelling
houses, occupied by the descendants of the Portuguese, and by
Chinamen. In the suburbs are the houses of the English officials
and of a few Portuguese merchants, embedded in groves of palms
and fruit-trees, whose varied and beautiful foliage furnishes a
pleasing relief to the eye, as well as most grateful shade.

The old fort, the large Government House, and the ruins of a
cathedral attest the former wealth and importance of this place,
which was once as much the centre of Eastern trade as Singapore
is now. The following description of it by Linschott, who wrote
two hundred and seventy years ago, strikingly exhibits the change
it has undergone:

"Malacca is inhabited by the Portuguese and by natives of the
country, called Malays. The Portuguese have here a fortress, as
at Mozambique, and there is no fortress in all the Indies, after
those of Mozambique and Ormuz, where the captains perform their
duty better than in this one. This place is the market of all
India, of China, of the Moluccas, and of other islands around
about--from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java,
Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandel, and India--arrive ships
which come and go incessantly, charged with an infinity of
merchandises. There would be in this place a much greater number
of Portuguese if it were not for the inconvenience, and
unhealthiness of the air, which is hurtful not only to strangers,
but also to natives of the country. Thence it is that all who
live in the country pay tribute of their health, suffering from a
certain disease, which makes them lose either their skin or their
hair. And those who escape consider it a miracle, which occasions
many to leave the country, while the ardent desire of gain
induces others to risk their health, and endeavour to endure such
an atmosphere. The origin of this town, as the natives say, was
very small, only having at the beginning, by reason of the
unhealthiness of the air, but six or seven fishermen who
inhabited it. But the number was increased by the meeting of
fishermen from Siam, Pegu, and Bengal, who came and built a city,
and established a peculiar language, drawn from the most elegant
nodes of speaking of other nations, so that in fact the, language
of the Malays is at present the most refined, exact, and
celebrated of all the East. The name of Malacca was given to this
town, which, by the convenience of its situation, in a short time
grew to such wealth, that it does not yield to the most powerful
towns and regions around about. The natives, both men and women,
are very courteous and are reckoned the most skillful in the
world in compliments, and study much to compose and repeat verses
and love-songs. Their language is in vogue through the Indies, as
the French is here.

At present, a vessel over a hundred tons hardly ever enters its
port, and the trade is entirely confined to a few petty products
of the forests, and to the fruit, which the trees, planted by the
old Portuguese, now produce for the enjoyment of the inhabitants
of Singapore. Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at
present considered very unhealthy.

The population of Malacca consists of several races. The
ubiquitous Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up
their manners, customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are
next in point of numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca
of the place. Next come the descendants of the Portuguese--a
mixed, degraded, and degenerate race, but who still keep up the
use of their mother tongue, though ruefully mutilated in grammar;
and then there are the English rulers, and the descendants of the
Dutch, who all speak English. The Portuguese spoken at Malacca is
a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost
their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses,
numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I
will go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine
and plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a
marvellous simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay
words, becomes rather puzzling to one who has heard only the pure
Lusitanian.

In costume these several peoples are as varied as in their
speech. The English preserve the tight-fitting coat, waistcoat,
and trousers, and the abominable hat and cravat; the Portuguese
patronise a light jacket, or, more frequently, shirt and trousers
only; the Malays wear their national jacket and sarong (a kind of
kilt), with loose drawers; while the Chinese never depart in the
least from their national dress, which, indeed, it is impossible
to improve for a tropical climate, whether as regards comfort or
appearance. The loosely-hanging trousers, and neat white half-
shirt half jacket, are exactly what a dress should be in this low
latitude.

I engaged two Portuguese to accompany me into the interior; one
as a cook, the other to shoot and skin birds, which is quite a
trade in Malacca. I first stayed a fortnight at a village called
Gading, where I was accommodated in the house of some Chinese
converts, to whom I was recommended by the Jesuit missionaries.
The house was a mere shed, but it was kept clean, and I made
myself sufficiently comfortable. My hosts were forming a pepper
and gambir plantation, and in the immediate neighbourhood were
extensive tin-washings, employing over a thousand Chinese. The
tin is obtained in the form of black grains from beds of
quartzose sand, and is melted into ingots in rude clay furnaces.
The soil seemed poor, and the forest was very dense with
undergrowth, and not at all productive of insects; but, on the
other hand, birds were abundant, and I was at once introduced to
the rich ornithological treasures of the Malayan region.

The very first time I fired my gun I brought down one of the most
curious and beautiful of the Malacca birds, the blue-billed gaper
(Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus), called by the Malays the
"Rainbird." It is about the size of a starling, black and rich
claret colour with white shoulder stripes, and a very large and
broad bill of the most pure cobalt blue above and orange below,
while the iris is emerald green. As the skins dry the bill turns
dull black, but even then the bird is handsome. When fresh
killed, the contrast of the vivid blue with the rich colours of
the plumage is remarkably striking and beautiful. The lovely
Eastern trogons, with their rich-brown backs, beautifully
pencilled wings, and crimson breasts, were also soon obtained, as
well as the large green barbets (Megalaema versicolor)--fruit-
eating birds, something like small toucans, with a short,
straight bristly bill, and whose head and neck are variegated
with patches of the most vivid blue and crimson. A day or two
after, my hunter brought me a specimen of the green gaper
(Calyptomena viridis), which is like a small cock-of-the-rock,
but entirely of the most vivid green, delicately marked on the
wings with black bars. Handsome woodpeckers and gay kingfishers,
green and brown cuckoos with velvety red faces and green beaks,
red-breasted doves and metallic honeysuckers, were brought in day
after day, and kept me in a continual state of pleasurable
excitement. After a fortnight one of my servants was seized with
fever, and on returning to Malacca, the same disease, attacked
the other as well as myself. By a liberal use of quinine, I soon
recovered, and obtaining other men, went to stay at the
Government bungalow of Ayer-panas, accompanied by a young
gentleman, a native of the place, who had a taste for natural
history.

At Ayer-panas we had a comfortable house to stay in, and plenty
of room to dry and preserve our specimens; but, owing to there
being no industrious Chinese to cut down timber, insects were
comparatively scarce, with the exception of butterflies, of which
I formed a very fine collection. The manner in which I obtained
one fine insect was curious, and indicates bow fragmentary and
imperfect a traveller's collection must necessarily be. I was one
afternoon walking along a favourite road through the forest, with
my gun, when I saw a butterfly on the ground. It was large,
handsome, and quite new to me, and I got close to it before it
flew away. I then observed that it had been settling on the dung
of some carnivorous animal. Thinking it might return to the same
spot, I next day after breakfast took my net, and as I approached
the place was delighted to see the same butterfly sitting on the
same piece of dung, and succeeded in capturing it. It was an
entirely new species of great beauty, and has been named by Mr.
Hewitson--Nymphalis calydona. I never saw another specimen of it,
and it was only after twelve years had elapsed that a second
individual reached this country from the northwestern part of
Borneo.

Having determined to visit Mount Ophir, which is situated in the
middle of the peninsula about fifty miles east of Malacca, we
engaged six Malays to accompany us and carry our baggage. As we
meant to stay at least a week at the mountain, we took with us a
good supply of rice, a little biscuit, butter and coffee, some
dried fish and a little brandy, with blankets, a change of
clothes, insect and bird boxes, nets, guns and ammunition. The
distance from Ayer-panas was supposed to be about thirty miles.

Our first day's march lay through patches of forest, clearings,
and Malay villages, and was pleasant enough. At night we slept at
the house of a Malay chief, who lent us a verandah, and gave us a
fowl and some eggs. The next day the country got wilder and more
dilly. We passed through extensive forests, along paths often up
to our knees in mud, and were much annoyed by the leeches for
which this district is famous. These little creatures infest the
leaves and herbage by the side of the paths, and when a passenger
comes along they stretch themselves out at full length, and if
they touch any part of his dress or body, quit their leaf and
adhere to it. They then creep on to his feet, legs, or other part
of his body and suck their fill, the first puncture being rarely
felt during the excitement of walking. On bathing in the evening
we generally found half a dozen or a dozen on each of us, most
frequently on our legs, but sometimes on our bodies, and I had
one who sucked his fill from the side of my neck, but who luckily
missed the jugular vein. There are many species of these forest
leeches. All are small, but some are beautifully marked with
stripes of bright yellow. They probably attach themselves to deer
or other animals which frequent the forest paths, and have thus
acquired the singular habit of stretching themselves out at the
sound of a footstep or of rustling foliage. Early in the
afternoon we reached the foot of the mountain, and encamped by
the side of a fine stream, whose rocky banks were overgrown with
ferns. Our oldest Malay had been accustomed to shoot birds in
this neighbourhood for the Malacca dealers, and had been to the
top of the mountain, and while we amused ourselves shooting and
insect hunting, he went with two others to clear the path for our
ascent the next day.

Early next morning we started after breakfast, carrying blankets
and provisions, as we intended to sleep upon the mountain. After
passing a little tangled jungle and swampy thickets through which
our men had cleared a path, we emerged into a fine lofty forest
pretty clear of undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely.
We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles,
having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or
shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the
forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone
field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get
anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope
of even rock, extending along the mountain side farther than we
could see. Parts of it were quite bare, but where it was cracked
and fissured there grew a most luxuriant vegetation, among which
the pitcher plants were the most remarkable. These wonderful
plants never seem to succeed well in our hot-houses, and are
there seen to little advantage. Here they grew up into half
climbing shrubs, their curious pitchers of various sizes and
forms hanging abundantly from their leaves, and continually
exciting our admiration by their size and beauty. A few
coniferae of the genus Dacrydium here first appeared, and in the
thickets just above the rocky surface we walked through groves of
those splendid ferns Dipteris Horsfieldii and Matonia pectinata,
which bear large spreading palmate fronds on slender stems six or
eight feet high. The Matonia is the tallest and most elegant, and
is known only from this mountain, and neither of them is yet
introduced into our hot-houses.

It was very striking to come out from the dark, cool, and shady
forest in which we had been ascending since we started, on to
this hot, open rocky slope where we seemed to have entered at one
step from a lowland to an alpine vegetation. The height, as
measured by a sympiesometer, was about 2,800 feet. We had been
told we should find water at Padang-batuas we were exceedingly thirsty;
but we looked about for it in vain. At last we turned to
the pitcher-plants, but the water contained in the pitchers
(about half a pint in each) was full of insects, and otherwise
uninviting. On tasting it, however, we found it very palatable
though rather warm, and we all quenched our thirst from these
natural jugs. Farther on we came to forest again, but of a more
dwarf and stunted character than below; and alternately passing
along ridges and descending into valleys, we reached a peak
separated from the true summit of the mountain by a considerable
chasm. Here our porters gave in, and declared they could carry
their loads no further; and certainly the ascent to the highest
peak was very precipitous. But on the spot where we were there
was no water, whereas it was well known that there was a spring
close to the summit, so we determined to go on without them, and
carry with us only what was absolutely necessary. We accordingly
took a blanket each, and divided our food and other articles
among us, and went on with only the old Malay and his son.

After descending into the saddle between the two peaks we found
the ascent very laborious, the slope being so steep, as often to
necessitate hand-climbing. Besides a bushy vegetation the ground
was covered knee-deep with mosses on a foundation of decaying
leaves and rugged rock, and it was a hard hour's climb to the
small ledge just below the summit, where an overhanging rock
forms a convenient shelter, and a little basin collects the
trickling water. Here we put down our loads, and in a few minutes
more stood on the summit of Mount Ophir, 4,000 feet above the
sea. The top is a small rocky platform covered with rhododendrons
and other shrubs. The afternoon was clear, and the view fine in
its way--ranges of hill and valley everywhere covered with
interminable forest, with glistening rivers winding among them.

In a distant view a forest country is very monotonous, and no
mountain I have ever ascended in the tropics presents a panorama
equal to that from Snowdon, while the views in Switzerland are
immeasurably superior. When boiling our coffee I took
observations with a good boiling-point thermometer, as well as
with the sympiesometer, and we then enjoyed our evening meal and
the noble prospect that lay before us. The night was calm and
very mild, and having made a bed of twigs and branches over which
we laid our blankets, we passed a very comfortable night. Our
porters had followed us after a rest, bringing only their rice to
cook, and luckily we did not require the baggage they left behind
them. In the morning I caught a few butterflies and beetles, and
my friend got a few land-shells; and we then descended, bringing
with us some specimens of the ferns and pitcher-plants of Padang-
batu.

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