ee a) On (ae Oo ae oF nes yet he rine ae A pete Oe er “Sk . he roi ar 3 T x a ¥ ad a * ; . S =< ye: *- a oa 4 . » - ar } = Py ‘4 - ai a * . ; Se bs me . as Bt SS . 4 e | " ‘ + ar “ eas PSS te At, ° "| . 2 is s > ys! - pers 7 a ; — » = 4 ea ae, i ~ ¥ < : os —* h is a) ~ . x “— * = “ee ere inn ’ 7 ai ‘ ne De : Py 7 my « = a =, ey , B ie = rr 3. 5 Poe erst a i - . —~* " - ip ee 7 7 : 2. We J ca >,* * a NS her 4 ; oe, : » i . ae ao : * —— ; : d J e ~ * * se a * t * ite ae P : cS ees : 40 fe ee * ‘ x 5 ae ia ' LA mm S, 6 fC a Aas A 4 - lex i wi ay % 3) AG: i ¥ ’ BC 7 q hai a ef a t ui,! ‘ ‘ = » + ‘ a r@ Ay) « ei 4 ; at . ; . ‘ - 4 i] i * rer A s*% a a 4 ayers i . ahd b, . (due. wa 1 i ite 4 d ? a KS. KED BY DYA UTAN ATTAC NG ORA NATIVES OF ARU SHOOTING THE GREAT BIRD OF PARADISE. MALAY ARCHIPELAGO: THE LAND OF THE ORANG-UTAN, AND THE BIRD OF PARADISE. A NARRATIVE OF TRAVEL, WITH STUDIES OF MAN AND NATURE. BY ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, AUTHOR OF “TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO,” “PALM TREES OF THE AMAZON,” ETC. NEW VORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1869. shen iJ fi 1 a the ay | py ® “ x, i iv | ¥, ar TO CHARLES DARWIN, AUTHOR OF “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,” 3 Dedicate this Book, NOT ONLY AS A TOKEN OF PERSONAL ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP, BUT ALSO TO EXPRESS MY DEEP ADMIRATION FOR His Genins and his Works. “Tr a ees ee f “fi en ee Re oe, OG pass) yr MF WALLACES ROUTES. WO E. Gr $4 Harper & Brothers, New For? 5 . 5 y Wallaceh routes shewn thus—— — Hf" Allen routes shewn this —__—— Active Voloanves shewn this & Me | o Selet Ey Bias aa Jou Photolith.by the NVLith? Engr? & Prt? Co.16 6-18 Park Place PREFACE. Y readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this book for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them full satisfaction on this point. When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself surrounded by a room full of packing-cases, containing the collec- tions that I had from time to time sent home for my private use. These comprised nearly three thousand bird-skins, of about a thou- sand species; and at least twenty thousand beetles and butterflies, of about seven thousand species; besides some quadrupeds and land- shells. A large proportion of these I had not seen for years; and in my then weak state of health, the unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a mass of specimens occupied a long time. I very soon decided that, until I had done something toward naming and describing the most important groups in my collection, and had worked out some of the more interesting problems of varia- tion and geographical distribution, of which I had had glimpses while collecting them, I would not attempt to publish my travels. I could, indeed, at once have printed my notes and journals, leaving all reference to questions of natural history for a future work ; but I felt that this would be as unsatisfactory to myself, as it would be disap- pointing to my friends, and uninstructive to the public. Since my return, up to this date, I have published eighteen pa- pers, in the Transactions or Proceedings of the Linnzan Zoological and Entomological Societies, describing or cataloguing portions of my collections ; besides twelve others in various scientific periodicals, on more general subjects connected with them. Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my butterflies, have been already described by various eminent natural- ists, British and foreign; but a much larger number remains unde- scribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted for this la- borious work, I must name Mr. F, P. Pascoe, late President of the En- tomological Society of London, who has almost completed the clas- sification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of v1 PREFACE. which at least nine hundred were previously undescribed, and new to European cabinets. The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saun- ders, who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of ants, of which two hundred were new. The six years’ delay in publishing my travels thus enables me to give what I hope may be an interesting and instructive sketch of the main results yet arrived at by the study of my collections; and as the countries I have to describe are not much visited or written about, and their social and physical conditions are not liable to rapid change, I believe and hope that my readers will gain much more than they will lose, by not having read my book six years ago, and by this time perhaps forgotten all about it. I must now say a few words on the plan of my work. My jourmeys to the various islands were regulated by the seasons and the means of conveyance. I visited some islands two or three times at distant intervals, and in some cases had to make the same voyage four times over. A chronological arrangement would have puzzled my readers. They would never have known where they were; and my frequent references to the groups of islands, classed in accordance with the peculiarities of their animal productions and of their human inhabitants, would have been hardly intelligible. Ihave adopted, therefore, a geographical, zoological, and ethnological ar- rangement, passing from island to island in what seems the most natural succession, while I transgress the order in which I myself visited them as little as possible. I divide the Archipelago into five groups of islands, as follow: I. Tue Inpo-Matay Istanps: comprising the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. Il. Tat Timor Grovur: comprising the islands of Timor, Flores, Sumbawa, and Lombock, with several smaller ones. Ill. CELEBES: comprising also the Sula Islands and Bouton. IV. Tue Montuccan Grovur: comprising Bouru, Ceram, Batchian, Gilolo, and Morty; with the smaller islands of Ternate, Tidore, Maki- an, Kaida, Amboyna, Banda, Goram, and Matabello. V. Tue Papuan Group: comprising the great island of New Guinea, with the Aru Islands, Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and several others. The Ké Islands are described with this group on account of their ethnology, though zoologically and geographically they belong to the Moluccas. The chapters relating to the separate islands of each of these PREFACE. vil groups are followed by one on the Natural History of that group; and the work may thus be divided into five parts, each treating of one of the natural divisions of the Archipelago. The first chapter is an introductory one, on the physical geogra- phy of the whole region; and the last is a general sketch of the races of man in the Archipelago and the surrounding countries. With this explanation, and a reference to the maps which illustrate the work, I trust that my readers will always know where they are, and in what direction they are going. I am well aware that my book is far too small for the extent of the subjects it touches upon. It is a mere sketch; but so far as it goes I have endeavored to make it an accurate one. Almost the whole of the narrative and descriptive portions were written on the spot, and have had little more than verbal alterations. The chap- ters on Natural History, as well as many passages in other parts of the work, have been written in the hope of exciting an interest in the various questions connected with the origin of species and their geographical distribution. In some cases I have been able to ex- plain my views in detail; while in others, owing to the greater com- plexity of the subject, I have thought it better to confine myself to a statement of the more interesting facts of the problem, whose solu- tion is to be found in the principles developed by Mr. Darwin in his yarious works. The numerous illustrations will, it is believed, add much to the interest and value of the book. They have been made from my own sketches, from photographs, or from specimens; and such subjects only have been chosen as would really illustrate the narrative or the descriptions. I have to thank Messrs. Walter and Henry Woodbury, whose ac- quaintance I had the pleasure of making in Java, for a number of photographs of scenery and of natives, which have been of the great- est assistance to me. Mr. William Wilson Saunders has kindly al- lowed me to figure the curious horned flies ; and to Mr. Pasco I am indebted for a loan of two of the very rare Longicorns which appear in the plate of Bornean beetles. All the other specimens figured are in my own collection. As the main object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply dupli- cates to museums and amateurs, I will give a general statement of the number of specimens I collected, and which reached home in good condition. I must premise that I generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants to assist me; and for near- ly half the time had the services of an English lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from England, but as I travelled about fourteen thousand miles within the Archipelago, and made sixty or seventy separate journeys, each involving some preparation and loss vlll PREFACE. of time, I do not think that more than six years were really occupied in collecting. I find that my Eastern collections amounted to: 310 specimens of Mammalia. 100 eS Reptiles. 8,050 ne Birds. 7,500 ce Shells. 13,100 se Lepidoptera. 85,200 49 Coleoptera. 13,400 As other insects. 125,660 specimens of natural history. It now only remains for me to thank all those friends to whom I am indebted for assistance or information. My thanks are more es- pecially due to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, through whose valuable recommendations I obtained important aid from our own Government and from that of Holland; and to Mr. William Wilson Saunders, whose kind and liberal encouragement in the early portion of my journey was of great service to me. I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Samuel Stevens (who acted as my agent), both for the care he took of my collections, and for the untiring as- siduity with which he kept me supplied, both with useful informa- tion, and with whatever necessaries I required. I trust that these, and all other friends who have been in any way interested in my travels and collections, may derive from the perusal of my book some faint reflection of the pleasures I myself enjoyed amid the scenes and objects it describes. CONTENTS. CUAP. PAGE Me RAVSICAT GEOGRAPEY = a5 =< 5 cisiciete sisisicia slelesieicleleeininiele.s.s.e's oe 13 INDO-MALAY ISLANDS. DS SUNG AO RY se ets eece a etaretel stapavena orate ove ale loveusuevstsvouetehe seeleiela eiens,'sie 32 LUE MAG ACOAC AND: MOUNTNOPRHIURE -\tersinienicinereicimechec cle resiacsis 37 IV. BoRNEO—THE ORANG-UTAN.........0..00ccecceecsneceeees 46 V. Bornro—JOURNEY IN THE INTERIOR..............+2.-0cc0- 75 Wiss BORNEKO— DAE: DD YARS\«. oi cic cigeic wis coisas ou siete eo iastos Maer te 98 DU UMeweWAsUPAc as Cacvare creo teratartie tesa sake et oo oa eralion Biot oars aaterete ote oats 105 VETTE RS WIVUATIVA'S tao crates 5 htc: ovava/avareh aptars oferala cleveretctoveue atereronstereiers here a alee. IX. NaturAt Hisrory or THE INDOo-MALAy ISLANDS........... 148 THE TIMOR GROUP. Mey DADE ANiDn POMBO COCKE. (o/s0a' ciel sleteiersrclate Cielnrenorejoretad ara nin eterooieickes 160 XI. LompockK—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS..............0+0eeee eee 178 XII. Lomsock—How THE RAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS...\........- 186 DOD TSAO O RG arash oro cues oltre ectioceiet oe catatel Saet haemo bic troeiceme cereals 1938 XIV. Natural Hisrory or THE TimoR GROUP...........-22002 210 THE CELEBES GROUP. EROVi Ws CuMEBMS——MAGASGATEY, (fun asso aici ceiareretonetta oerai ore sieiel ents nasi Sie 219 OX Vile © ETB HS — MA CASGARY cis, 2,cyass:u (cai sleral's sj) sveralatchelclere(aie ar aie al etslorster eget 236 MeV CLs CML BHS—=MENAD Ole acs a5 ccsercuatelac areas olsloavedele aay sis| eer ehs: oveteteisre 249 MVM NATURAT AISTORY OF CELEBES sclericcicielde celts cciclsiac: e1vortsnaie 277 THE MOLUCCAS. PNADENGae ES ANG Atl a emesis lave wi tdachis Arete braver aichel sone aicisloverdis 'e1sys ol'eiersuarevepateteretans 292 ENG NOSE AWTS OWVIN Averss al acchara’ciarcteccicvet s clavclalend slarnsis areas elelqjeleiauslere Seieraetors oe 298 SERGI eID he crenata eee tes cay cher ordi craiichavshatig'e all avers ale vevere: evstepatarersrarerana 312 D..6 8 ak COUN, ier CRO GGHe RUD IGE Co RE EEO Tenn abu Sepranon 320 XXIII. Voyace To THE Kai6éa ISLANDS AND BATCHIAN..........-. 825 NORIDV BAM ORDA ays arate orcorotote ooretee chelate slat accl ta ea eraeraret rete e aie leeees 333 XXV. CrerRAM, GoRAM, AND THE MATABELLO ISLANDS............- 355 PRONE Ving, OLR! afta ele crnsih GS ota erciate te each re eater Nera etapa leaire Samoa 887 XXVII. Toe NaturAL History oF THE MOLUCCAS...........c00005 396 x CONTENTS. THE PAPUAN GROUP. OHAP. PAGE XXVIII. Macassar To THE Aru ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU........ 408 XOX Tere Kets ISLANDS: jcisiseemme reece ine brealicnieci cect aneiar 420 XXX. Tue Aru IstANDS—RESIDENCE IN DOBBO...............+-- 432 XXXI. Tur Aru IsLANDS—JOURNEY AND RESIDENCE IN THE INTE- BTL OR bok rete ere e Botede eiielare aire tots 0) eros eke aells a ueya le te Welevere stereo tear 445 XXXII. Tue Aru IsLAnDs—Srconp RESIDENCE IN DOBBO.......... 476 XXXIII. Toe Aru Istanps—PuysicaAL GEOGRAPHY AND ASPECTS OF INIA TURE Hn criste areleraie te te eievene wromreteteleieminfociets afd Gia eC 487 XX XIV New. GuineA— DOREY. 2 sien cee eiemsrnaisilae le cis secrete Naat 496 XXXV. VoyvAcr rrom CERAM TO WAIGIOU...........00-00-20e000 516 KINGKGVAE WAT TO Users taretere aie tistare tole ease ein cuties mini orare ereainre hiere ere retorts peteonaataratete 528 XXXVII. VovacE rrom WaAtIGiou TO TERNATE..............---+---. 540 XXXVI Tae. BIRDS OMntPARADISH 6.6 oop clisceeee erie Hote spleens 552 XXXIX. Naturat Hisrory or THE PApuAN JSLANDS..............- 576 XL. Tur Races or MAN IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO......... 584 AP PENDDXS onc CranrAvAND MANGUAGHS.\.> ase. - ROBINSON. e1e\-)0 2112011 283 26. Peculiar form of Wings of Celebes Butterflies WALLACE............ 288 Pieeeee Going AI Intruders aes. ole vivisielsielslaje'a:s oe BAINES..... .to face p. 304 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xll List oF ILLUSTRATIONS. DRAWN BY WOOD BY PAGE 28. Racquet-tailed Kingfisher.........+++..ss00. IROBENSON(/efateleieieistelsite 305 29. ‘‘ Wallace’s Standard Wing,” a new Bird of IBMTACASE Seis loles<(-l)e(e1stelelsiolsteletet iste telat Ie KEULEMANS. .to fuce p. 336 RD; Sew Olisgagpenosusescx8c20no0000000000000 BAINES yeretevelovelstnieisteloie 383 31. Sago-washing inCeram. (From a sketch by the ITAA noi ocr cd: a6 60954009 .9DAbobOd SATN ES y.fos ate stereler iets 384 32. Sago Oven. (From a sketch by the Author)... BAINES .........++++5 385 33. Cuscus ornatus, a Moluccan Marsupial........ IROBINSONGptcleteictt-ietal= 399 34. Moluccan Beetles... 12.2... 0.0. sas eeceee ene Ropryson....to face p. 406 35. Great Black Cockatoo. jis... s\010 5 ele « SAG WACO S pono 30 451 36. Dobbo in the Trading Season. (rom a sketch (oy) WHA AIHUOD): Gaaooe nossa saededede sabe BAINES...... to face p. 476 37. Male Brenthide fighting............-+.+.-.. ROBINSON ® |: « oiele'loln1>l= 299 Amboyna, with parts of Bouru and Ceram..........ss+eeeeesoeee cece eeee 356 The Islands between Ceram and Ké......... SECO CSOSAaAC MERE IO LOND O06. 359 Map of the Aru Islands.........2--.ssee0- Mielalerciate cistess sieie.e iorereicte cele ReTevees 446 Voyage from Ceram to Waigiou........ gnogdopacone aN. rs aero teteas a eee 517 Voyage from Waigiou to Ternate.,..... beet Pel tyre eharetete ‘Poth inee Sener 541 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Ir we look at a globe or a map of the eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands, forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of them. Situated upon the equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part of the globe, and teems with natural produc- tions which are elsewhere unknown. The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are here indigenous. It pro- duces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-wing- ed Ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes), the man- like orang-utan, and the gorgeous birds of paradise. It is in- habited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind—the Malay, found nowhere beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay Archipelago. To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty ; scarcely any of our travellers go to explore it; and im many collections of maps it is almost ignored, being divided be- tween Asia and the Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger than France or the Austrian empire. The traveller, however, soon acquires different ideas. He sails for days, or even for weeks, along the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages among these islands 14 THe MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that their several inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are the native races of the northern to those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look upon this re- gion as one apart from the rest of the world, with its own races of men and its own aspects of nature ; with its own ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and with a climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to itself. From many points of view these islands form one compact geographical whole, and as such they have always been treat- ed by travellers and men of science; but a more careful and detailed study of them under various aspects reveals the un- expected fact that they are divisible into two portions nearly equal in extent, which widely differ in their natural products, and really form parts of two of the primary divisions of the - earth. I have been able to prove this in considerable detail by my observations on the natural history of the various parts of the Archipelago; and as in the description of my travels and residence in the several islands I shall have to refer con- tinually to this view, and adduce facts in support of it, I have thought it advisable to commence with a general sketch of such of the main features of the Malayan region as will ren- der the facts hereafter brought forward more interesting, and their bearing on the general question more easily under- stood, I proceed, therefore, to sketch the limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out the more striking feat- ures of its geology, physical geography, vegetation, and ani- mal life. Definition and Boundaries.—For reasons which depend mainly on the distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenas- serim, and the Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and the Solomon Islands beyond New Guinea on the east. All the great islands included within these limits are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions, all enjoy a uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we study their form and distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to island, our first impression will PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 15 be that they form a connected whole, all the parts of which are intimately related to each other. Extent of the Archipelago and Islands.—The Malay Ar- chipelago extends for more than 4000 miles in length from east to west, and is about 1300 in breadth from north to south. It would stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe THE BRITISH ISLES AND BORNEO ON THE SAME SCALE. from the extreme west far mto Central Asia, or would cover the widest parts of South America, and extend far beyond the land into the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It includes three islands larger than Great Britain ; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the British {sles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea, though less 16 THr MAaLAy ARCHIPELAGO. compact in shape, is probably larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain; Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight; while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable. The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater than that contained by Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but, owing to the manner in which the land is broken up and divided, the varie- ty of its productions is rather in proportion to the immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land which they contain. Geological Contrasts.—One of the chief volcanic belts upon the globe passes through the Archipelago, and produces a striking contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-volean- ic islands. A curving line, marked out by scores of active and hundreds ‘of extinct volcanoes, may be traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by the islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna, Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gi- lolo, to Morty Island. Here there is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt again begins, in North Celebes, and passes by Siau and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands, along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their northern extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of this belt at Banda, we pass onward for 1000 miles over a non-volcanic district to the vol- canoes observed by Dampier, in 1699, on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace another volcanic belt, through New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Isl- ands, to the eastern limits of the Archipelago. In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and for a considerable breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt at inter- vals of every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in one part or anoth- er of this district, almost every year. In many of the islands the years of the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 17 of their children are remembered, and the dates of many im- portant events are determined. I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and in the magnitude of their effects, they have not been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the eruption of Papandayang, in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by repeated ex- plosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great erup- tion of Tomboro, in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were de- stroyed, and the ashes darkened the air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles round. Even quite recently, since I quitted the country, a mountain which had been quies- cent for more than 200 years suddenly burst into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent open in 1646 by a violent eruption, which left a huge chasm on one side, extending into the heart of the mountain. It was when I last visited it, in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the sum- mit, and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely alter- ing the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely destroy the growing crops on that and the sur- rounding islands. The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double, with entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high. Tt is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly built up by the accumulation of matter—mud, ashes, and lava —ejected by themselves. The openings or craters, however, frequently shift their position; so that a country may be covered with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and masses, only here and there rising into lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true vol- canicaction. In this manner the greater part of Java has been 18 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. formed. There has been some elevation, especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs of coral limestone are found, and there may be a substratum of older stratified rocks; but still essentially Java is volcanic ; and that noble and fertile isl- and—the very garden of the East, and perhaps upon the whole the richest, the best cultivated, and the best governed tropical island in the world—owes its very existence to the same in- tense volcanic activity which stil) occasionally devastates its surface. The great island of Sumatra exhibits, in proportion to its extent, a much smaller number of volcanoes, and a consider- able portion of it has probably a non-volcanic origin. To the eastward, the long string of islands from Java, passing by the north of Timor and away to Banda, are prob- ably all due to volcanic action. Timor itself consists of an- cient stratified rocks, but is said to have one volcano near its centre. © Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Bouru, and the west end of Ceram, the north part of Gilolo, and all the small isl- ands around it, the northern extremity of Celebes, and the islands of Siau and Sanguir, are wholly volcanic. The Philip- pine Archipelago contains many active and extinct volcanoes, and has probably been reduced to its present fragmentary condition by subsidences attending on volcanic action. All along this great line of volcanoes are to be found more or less palpable signs of upheaval and depression of land. The range of islands south of Sumatra, a part of the south coast of Java and of the islands east of it, the west and east end of Timor, portions of all the Moluccas, the Ké and Aru Islands, Waigiou, and the whole south and east of Gilolo, con- sist in a great measure of upraised coral rock exactly corre- sponding to that now forming in the adjacent seas. In many places I have observed the unaltered surfaces of the elevated reefs, with great masses of coral standing up in their natural position, and hundreds of shells so fresh-looking that it was hard to believe that they had been more than a few years out of the water ; and, in fact, it is very probable that such changes have occurred within a few centuries. The united lengths of these volcanic belts is about nine- ty degrees, or one-fourth of the entire circumference of the PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 19 globe. Their width is about fifty miles; but, for a space of two hundred on each side of them, evidences of subterranean action are to be found in recently elevated coral rock, or in barrier coral reefs, indicating recent submergence. In the very centre or focus of the great curve of volcanoes is placed the large island of Borneo, in which no sign of recent volcanic action has yet been observed, and where earthquakes, so char- acteristic of the surrounding regions, are entirely unknown. The equally large island of New Guinea occupies another quiescent area, on which no sign of volcanic action has yet been discovered. With the exception of the eastern end of its northern peninsula, the large and curiously-shaped island of Celebes is also entirely free from volcanoes ; and there is some reason to believe that the volcanic portion has once formed a separate island. The Malay Peninsula is also non- volcanic. The first and most obvious division of the Archipelago would therefore be into quiescent and volcanic regions, and it might, perhaps, be expected that such a division would cor- respond to some differences in the character of the vegetation and the forms of life. This is the case, however, to a very limited extent ; and we shall presently see that, although this development of subterranean fires is on so vast a scale, has piled up chains of mountains ten or twelve thousand feet high, has broken up continents and raised up islands from the ocean, yet it has all the character of a recent action, which has not yet succeeded in obliterating the traces of a more ancient distribution of land and water. Contrasts of Vegetation. — Placed immediately upon the Equator and surrounded by extensive oceans, it is not surpris- ing that the various islands of the Archipelago should be al- most always clothed with a forest vegetation from the level of the sea to the summits of the loftiest mountains. This is the general rule. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philip- pines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cul- tivation or accidental fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the small- er islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such 20 Toe Matay ARCHIPELAGO. as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali. In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species, so characteristic of Australia, with sandal-wood, acacia, and other sorts in less abundance. These are scattered over the country more or less thickly, but never so as to deserve the name of a forest. Coarse and scanty grasses grow be- neath them on the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in the moister localities. In the islands between Timor and Java there is often a more thickly-wooded country, abounding in thorny and prickly trees. These seldom reach any great height, and during the force of the dry season they almost completely lose their leaves, allowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and contrasting strongly with the damp, gloomy, ever-verdant forests of the otherislands. This pecul- iar character, which extends in a less degree to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end of Java, is most probably owing to the proximity of Australia. The south-east mon- soon, which lasts for about two-thirds of the year (from March to November), blowing over the northern parts of that coun- try, produces a degree of heat and dryness which assimilates the vegetation and physical aspect of the adjacent islands to its own. A little further eastward, in Timor-laut and the Ké Islands, a moister climate prevails, the south-east winds blow- ing from the Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests of New Guinea, and as a consequence every rocky islet is clothed with verdure to its very summit. Further west again, as the same dry winds blow over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have time to absorb fresh moisture, and we accordingly find the island of Java possessing a less and less arid climate, till in the extreme west near Batavia rain occurs more or less all the year round, and the mountains are everywhere clothed with forests of unexampled luxuriance. Contrasts in Depth of Sea.—It was first pointed out by Mr. George Windsor Earl, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1845, and subsequently in a pamphlet “On the Physical Geography of South-eastern Asia and Aus- tralia,” dated 1855, that a shallow sea connected the great isl- ands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo with the Asiatic continent, with which their natural productions generally agreed ; while = : EW GUENE Ag PHYSICAL MAP of the MALAY ARCHIPELAGO bye +! * Alfred Russel Wallace. The Shallow Seu is tightly ainted. The wctive Toleanows are s shewr this @ fisere RE + Harper & Brothers The Voleore Taal eternal * NV Lind Hagrk & Prté Co. heles are vvtored Rol PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 91 a similar shallow sea connected New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands to Australia, all being characterized by the presence of Marsupials. We have here a clew to the most radical contrast in the Archipelago, and, by following it out in detail, I have arrived at the conclusion that we can draw a line among the islands, which shall so divide them that one-half shall truly belong to Asia, while the other shall no less certainly be allied to Aus- tralia. I term these respectively the Indo-Malayan, and the Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago. (See Physical Map.) On referring to pages 12, 13, and 36 of Mr. Earl’s pam- phlet, it will be seen that he maintains the former connection of Asia and Australia as an important part of his view, whereas I dwell mainly on their long continued separation. Notwith- standing this and other important differences between us, to him undoubtedly belongs the merit of first indicating the di- vision of the Archipelago into an Australian and an Asiatic region, which it has been my good-fortune to establish by more detailed observations. Contrasts in Natural Productions.-—To understand the im- portance of this class of facts, and its bearing upon the former distribution of land and sea, it is necessary to consider the re- sults arrived at by geologists and naturalists in other parts of the world. It is now generally admitted that the present distribution of living things on the surface of the earth is mainly the result of the last series of changes that it has undergone. Geology teaches us that the surface of the land and the distribution of land and water is everywhere slowly changing. It further teaches us that the forms of life which inhabit that surface have, during every period of which we possess any record, been also slowly changing. It is not now necessary to say any thing about how either of those changes took place; as to that, opinions may differ ; but as to the fact that the changes themselves have occurred, from the earliest geological ages down to the present day, and are still going on, there is no difference of opinion. Every successive stratum of sedimentary rock, sand, or gravel is a proof that changes of level have taken place ; and the dif- 22 THE MaLay ARCHIPELAGO. ferent species of animals and plants, whose remains are found in these deposits, prove that corresponding changes did occur in the organic world. Taking, therefore, these two series of changes for granted, most of the present peculiarities and anomalies in the distri- bution of species may be directly traced to them. In our own islands, with a very few trifling exceptions, every quadru- ped, bird, reptile, insect, and plant is found also on the adjacent continent. In the small islands of Sardinia and Corsica there are some quadrupeds and insects, and many plants, quite pe- culiar. In Ceylon, more closely connected: to India than Brit- ain is to Europe, many animals and plants are different from those found in India, and peculiar to the island. In the Gala- pagos Islands almost every indigenous living thing is peculiar to them, though closely resembling other kinds found in the nearest parts of the American continent. Most naturalists now admit that these facts can only be ex- plained by the greater or less lapse of time since the islands were upraised from beneath the ocean, or were separated from the nearest land; and this will be generally (though not al- ways) indicated by the depth of the intervening sea. The enormous thickness of many marine deposits through wide areas shows that subsidence has often continued (with inter- mitting periods of repose) during epochs of immense duration. The depth of sea produced by such subsidence will therefore generally be a measure of time ; and in like manner the change which organic forms have undergone is a measure of time. When we make proper allowance for the continued introduc- tion of new animals and plants from surrounding countries, by those natural means of dispersal which have been so well explained by Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Darwin, it is remark- able how closely these two measures correspond. Britain is separated from the continent by a very shallow sea, and only in a very few cases have our animals or plants begun to show a difference from the corresponding Continental species. Corsica and Sardinia, divided from Italy by a much deeper sea, present a much greater difference in their organic forms. Cuba, separated from Yucatan by a wider and deeper strait, differs more markedly, so that most of its productions are of distinct and peculiar species ; while Madagascar, divided from PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 23 Africa by a deep channel three hundred miles wide, possesses so many peculiar features as to indicate separation at a very remote antiquity, or even to render it doubtful whether the two countries have ever been absolutely united. Returning now to the Malay Archipelago, we find that all the wide expanse of sea which divides Java, Sumatra, and Borneo from each other, and from Malacca and Siam, is so shallow that ships can anchor in any part of it, since it rarely exceeds forty fathoms in depth; and if we go as far as the line of a hundred fathoms, we shall include the Philippine Isl- ands and Bali, east of Java. If, therefore, these islands have been separated from each other and the continent by subsi- dence of the intervening tracts of land, we should conclude that the separation has been comparatively recent, since the depth to which the land has subsided is so small. It is also to be remarked that the great chain of active volcanoes in Sumatra and Java furnishes us with a sufficient cause for such subsidence, since the enormous masses of matter they have thrown out would take away the foundations of the surround- ing district ; and this may be the true explanation of the often- noticed fact that volcanoes and volcanic chains are always near the sea. The subsidence they produce around them will, in time, make a sea, if one does not already exist. But it is when we examine the zoology of these countries that we find what we most require—evidence of a very strik- ing character that these great islands must have once formed a part of the continent, and could only have been separated at a very recent geological epoch. The elephant and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhinoceros of Sumatra and the allied species of Java, the wild cattle of Borneo and the kind long supposed to be peculiar to Java, are now all known to inhabit some part or other of Southern Asia. None of these large animals could possibly have passed over the arms of the sea which now separate these countries, and their presence plainly indicates that a land communication must have existed since the origin of the species. Among the smaller mammals, a considerable portion are common to each island and the con- tinent ; but the vast physical changes that must have occurred during the breaking up and subsidence of such extensive re- gions have led to the extinction of some in one or more of the 24 THe MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. islands, and in some cases there seems also to have been time for a change of species to have taken place. Birds and insects illustrate the same view, for every family, and almost every genus of these groups found in any of the islands, occurs also on the Asiatic continent, and in a great number of cases the species are exactly identical. Birds offer us one of the best _ means of determining the law of distribution ; for though at first sight it would appear that the watery boundaries which keep out the land quadrupeds could be easily passed over by birds, yet practically it is not so; for if we leave out the aquatic tribes which are pre-eminently wanderers, it is found that the others (and especially the Passeres, or true perching-birds, which form the vast majority) are generally as strictly limited by straits and arms of the sea as are quadrupeds themselves. As an instance, among the islands of which I am now speak- ing, it is a remarkable fact that Java possesses numerous birds which never pass over to Sumatra, though they are separated by a strait only fifteen miles wide, and with islands in mid- channel. Java, in fact, possesses more birds and insects pe- culiar to itself than either Sumatra or Borneo, and this would indicate that it was earliest separated from the continent ; next in organic individuality is Borneo, while Sumatra is so nearly identical in all its animal forms with the peninsula of Malacca that we may safely conclude it to have been the most recently dismembered island. The general result, therefore, at which we arrive is, that the great islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo resemble, in their natural productions, the adjacent parts of the continent, almost as much as such widely-separated districts could be expected to do even if they still formed a part of Asia; and this close resemblance, joined with the fact of the wide extent of sea which separates them being so uniformly and remarkably shal- low, and lastly, the existence of the extensive range of volca- noes in Sumatra and Java, which have poured out vast quan- tities of subterranean matter, and have built up extensive pla- teaux and lofty mountain ranges, thus furnishing a vera causa for a parallel line of subsidence, all lead irresistibly to the conclusion that at a very recent geological epoch the continent of Asia extended far beyond its present limits in a south-east- erly direction, including the islands of Java, Sumatra, and PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 25 Borneo, and probably reaching as far as the present 100-fath- om line of soundings. The Philippine Islands agree in many respects with Asia and the other islands, but present some anomalies, which seem to indicate that they were separated at an earlier period, and have since been subject to many revolutions in their physical geography. Turning our attention now to the remaining portion of the Archipelago, we shall find that all the islands from Celebes and Lombock eastward exhibit almost as close a resemblange to Australia and New Guinea as the Western Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the natural productions of Aus- tralia differ from those of Asia more than those of any of the four ancient quarters of the world differ from each other. Australia in fact stands alone : it possesses no apes or morkeys, no cats or tigers, wolves, bears, or hyenas ; no deer or antelopes, sheep or oxen; no elephant, horse, squirrel, or rabbit: none, in short, of those familiar types of quadruped which are met | with in every other part of the world. Instead of these, it has Marsupials only, kangaroos and opossums, wombats and the duck-billed platypus. In birds it is almost as peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no pheasants, families which exist in every other part of the world; but instead of them it has the mound-making brush-turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the brush-tongued lories, which are found no where else upon the globe. All these striking peculiarities are found also in those islands which form the Austro-Malayan division of the Archipelago. The great contrast between the two divisions of the Archi- pelago is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing from the island of Bali to that of Lombock, where the two regions are in closest proximity. In Bali we have barbets, fruit- thrushes, and woodpeckers; on passing over to Lombock these are seen no more, but we have abundance of cockatoos, honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali,’ or any island further west. The strait is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from one great I was informed, however, that there were a few cockatoos at one spot on the west of Bali, showing that the intermingling of the productions of these islands -is now going on. 26 THe MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America. I we travel from Java or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, the differ- ence is still more striking. In the first the forests abound in monkeys of many kinds, wild-cais, deer, civets, and otters, and numerous varieties of squirrels are constantly met with. In the latter none of these occur; but the prehensile-tailed Cus- cus is almost the only terrestrial mammal seen, except wild pigs, which are found in all the islands, and deer (which have probably been recently introduced) m Celebes and the Moluc- cas. The birds which are most abundant in the Western Isl- ands are woodpeckers, barbets, trogons, fruit-thrushes, and leaf-thrushes: they are seen daily, and form the great ornitho- logical features of the country. In the Eastern Islands these are absolutely unknown, honeysuckers and small lories being the most common birds; so that the naturalist feels himself in a new world, and can hardly realize that he has passed from the one region to the other in a few days without ever being out of sight of land. : The inference that we must draw from these facts is un- doubtedly, that the whole of the islands eastward beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of a former Australian or Pacific continent, although some of them may never have been actually jomed to it. This continent must have been broken up not only before the Western Islands were separa- ted from Asia, but probably before the extreme south-eastern portion of Asia was raised above the waters of the ocean ; for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation, while the very great difference of species, and in many cases of genera also, between the productions of the Eastern Malay Islands and Australia, as well as the great depth of the sea now sepa- rating them, all point to a comparatively long period of iso- lation. It is interesting to observe among the islands themselves how a shallow sea always intimates a recent land-connection. The Aru Islands, Mysol, and Waigiou, as well as Jobie, agree with New Guinea in their species of mammalia and birds much more closely than they do with the Moluccas, and we find that, they are all united to New Guinea by a shallow sea. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. a In fact, the 100-fathom line round New Guinea marks out ac- curately the range of the true paradise birds. It is further to be noted—and this is a very interesting point in connection with theories of the dependence of special forms of life on external conditions—that this division of the Archipelago into two regions characterized by a striking di- versity in their natural productions, does not in any way cor- respond to the main physical or climatal divisions of the sur- face. The great volcanic chain runs through both parts, and appears to produce no effect in assimilating their productions. Borneo closely resembles New Guinea not only in its vast size and its freedom from volcanoes, but in its variety of geo- logical structure, its uniformity of climate, and the general aspect ot the forest vegetation that clothes its surface. The Moluccas are the counterpart of the Philippines in their vol- canic structure, their extreme fertility, their luxuriant forests, and their frequent earthquakes; and Bali with the east end of Java has a climate almost as dry and a soil almost as arid as that of Timor. Yet between these corresponding groups of islands, constructed as it were after the same pattern, sub- jected to the same climate, and bathed by the same oceans, there exists the greatest possible contrast when we compare their animal productions. Nowhere does the ancient doctrine —that differences or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to corresponding phys- ical differences or similarities in the countries themselves — meet with so direct and palpable a contradiction. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two distinct countries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder; while Aus- tralia, with its dry winds, its open plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces birds and quadrupeds which are closely related to those inhabiting the hot, damp, luxuriant forests which everywhere clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea. In order to illustrate more clearly the means by which I suppose this great contrast has been brought about, let us consider what would occur if two strongly-contrasted divis- ions of the earth were, by natural means, brought into prox- imity. No two parts of the world differ so radically in their productions as Asia and Australia, but the difference between 28 THE MaAaLay ARCHIPELAGO. Africa and South America is also very great, and these two re- gions will well serve to illustrate the question we are consider- ing. On the one side we have baboons, lions, elephants, buffa- loes, and giraffes; on the other, spider-monkeys, pumas, tapirs, ant-eaters, and sloths ; while among birds, the hornbills, turacos, orioles, and honeysuckers of Africa contrast strongly with the toucans, macaws, chatterers, and humming-birds of America. Now let us endeavor to imagine (what it is very probable may occur in future ages) that a slow upheaval of the bed of the Atlantic should take place, while at the same time earth- quake-shocks and volcanic action on the land should cause in- creased volumes of sediment to be poured down by the rivers, so that the two continents should gradually spread out by the addition of newly-formed lands, and thus reduce the Atlantic, which now separates them, to an arm of the sea a few hun- dred miles wide. At the same time we may suppose islands to be upheaved in mid-channel; and, as the subterranean éorces varied in intensity, and shifted their points of greatest action, these islands would sometimes become connected with the land on one side or other of the strait, and at other times again be separated from it. Several islands would at one time be joined together, at another would be broken up again, till at last, after many long ages of such intermittent action, we might have an irregular archipelago of islands filling up the ocean-channel of the Atlantic, in whose appearance and arrangement we could discover nothing to tell us which had been connected with Africa and which with America. The animals and plants inhabiting these islands would, however, certainly reveal this portion of their former history. On those islands which had ever formed a part of the South American continent we should be sure to find such common birds as chatterers and toucans and humming-birds, and some of the peculiar American quadrupeds; while on those which had been separated, from Africa, hornbills, orioles, and honeysuckers would as certainly be found. Some portion of the upraised land might at different times have had a temporary connection with both continents, and would then contain a certain amount of mixture in its living inhabitants. Such seems to have been the case with the islands of Celebes and the Philippines. Other islands, again, though in such close proximity as Bali PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 29 and Lombock, might each exhibit an almost unmixed sample of the productions of the continents of which they had direct- ly or indirectly once formed a part. In the Malay Archipelago we have, I believe, a case exact- ly parallel to that which I have here supposed. We have in- dications of a vast continent, with a peculiar fauna and flora, having been gradually and irregularly broken up; the island of Celebes probably marking its furthest westward extension, beyond which was a wide ocean. At the same time Asia ap- pears to have been extending its limits in a south-east direc- tion, first in an unbroken mass, then separated into islands as we now see it, and almost coming into actual contact with the scattered fragments of the great southern land. From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how im- portant an adjunct Natural History is to Geology ; not only in interpreting the fragments of extinct animals found in the earth’s crust, but in determining past changes in the surface which have left no geological record. It is certainly a won- derful and unexpected fact, that an accurate knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should enable us to map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath the ocean long before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wher- ever the geologist can explore the earth’s surface. he can read much of its past history, and can determine approximately its latest movements above and below the sea-level; but wher- ever oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing but spec- ulate on the very limited data afforded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this great gap in the past history of the earth. One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evi- dence of this nature; and my search after such evidence has been rewarded by great success, so that I have been enabled to trace out with some probability the past changes which one of the most interesting parts of the earth has undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here given would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which supplied the facts. In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous islands and groups of 30 THE MaLAay ARCHIPELAGO. islands in the Archipelago, without constant reference to these generalizations which add so much to their interest. Having given this general sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show how the same principles can be applied to the individual isl- ands of a group as to the whole Archipelago, and make my account of the many new and curious animals which inhabit them both more interesting and more instructive than if treat- ed as mere isolated facts. Contrasts of Races.—Before I had arrived at the conviction that the eastern and western halves of the Archipelago be- longed to distinct primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the Archipelago under two radi- cally distinct races. In this I differed from most ethnologists who had before written on the subject, for it had been the al- most universal custom to follow William von Humboldt and Pritchard in classing all the oceanic races as modifications of one type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Ma- lays and Papuans differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character; and more detailed research, continued for eight years, satisfied me that under these two forms, as types, the whole of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago and Polynesia could be classified. On drawing the line which separates these races, it is found to come near to that which divides the zoological regions, but somewhat eastward of it; a circumstance which appears to me very significant of the same causes having influenced the distribution of mankind that have determined the range of other animal forms. The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is sufficiently intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea which animals do not possess, and a superior race has power to press out or assimilate an inferior one. The mari- time enterprise and higher civilization of the Malay races have enabled them to overrun a portion of the adjacent region, in which they have entirely supplanted the indigenous inhabit- ants, if it ever possessed any, and to spread much of their language, their domestic animals, and their customs far over the Pacific into islands where they have but slightly, or not at all, modified the physical or moral characteristics of the people. I believe, therefore, that all the peoples of the various isl- PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 31 lands can be grouped either with the Malays or the Paupans, and that these two have no traceable affinity to each other. T believe, further, that all the races east of the line I have drawn have more affinity for each other than they have for any of the races west of that line; that, in fact, the Asiatic races include the Malays, and all have a continental origin, while the Pacific races, including all to the east of the former (ex- cept perhaps some in the Northern Pacific), are derived, not from any existing continent, but from lands which now exist or have recently existed in the Pacific Ocean. These prelim- inary observations will enable the reader better to apprehend the importance I attach to the details of physical form or moral character which I shall give in describing the inhabitants of many of the islands. a SINGAPORE. CHAPTER IL SINGAPORE. 4 SKETCH OF THE TOWN AND ISLAND AS SEEN DURING SEVERAL VISITS From 1854 To 1862. Few places are more interesting to a traveller from Europe than the town and island of Singapore, furnishing, as it does, examples of a variety of Eastern races, and of many different religions and modes of life. The government, the garrison, and the chief merchants are English, but the great mass of the population is Chinese, including some of the wealthiest merchants, the agriculturists of the interior, and most of the mechanics and laborers. The native Malays are usually fish- ermen and boatmen, and they form the main body of the po- lice. The Portuguese of Malacca supply a large number of the clerks and smaller merchants. The Klings of Western India are a numerous body of Mohammedans, and, with many Arabs, are petty merchants and shop-keepers. The grooms and washer-men are all Bengalese, and there is a small but highly respectable class of Parsee merchants. Besides these, there are numbers of Javanese sailors and domestic servants, as well as traders from Celebes, Bali, and many other islands of the Archipelago. The harbor is crowded with men-of-war and trading-vessels of many European nations, and hundreds of Malay praus and Chinese junks, from vessels of several hun- dred tons burden down to little fishing-boats and passenger sampans; and the town comprises handsome public buildings and churches, Mohammedan mosques, Hindoo temples, Chinese joss-houses, good European houses, massive warehouses, queer old Kling and China bazars, and long suburbs of Chinese and Malay cottages. By far the most conspicuous of the various kinds of people in Singapore, and those which most attract the stranger’s at- tention, are the Chinese, whose numbers and incessant activity give the place very much the appearance of a town in China. ' Tart CHINA BAZAR. 33 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 trow- sers) 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 sev- eral 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 bazar 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 half-penny, and penknives, corkscrews, gun- powder, writing-paper, and many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can purchase them in England. The shop- keeper is very good-natured ; he will show you every thing 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 al- ways ask twice what they are willing to take. If you buy a few things of him, he will speak to you afterward 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 shoe-makers 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-mak- ers, 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 flint lock very handsomely. All about the streets are sellers of water, vege- tables, fruit, soup, and agar-agar (a jelly made of sea-weed), who have many cries as unintelligible as those of London. C 34 SINGAPORE. Others carry a portable cooking apparatus on a pole balanced by a table at the other end, and serve up a meal of shell-fish, rice, and vegetables for two or three half-pence, 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 culti- vate 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 in- land 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 mission- ary 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 practiced in the expendi- ture of the funds. A missionary is allowed about £30 a year, on which he lives in whatever country he may be. This ren- ders 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 con- vinced that they are sincere in what they teach, and have real- ly 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 la- bor 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. TIGERS AND INSECT-HUNTING. 35 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 to-day,’ 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 “T have given away my money, and am in want of such and such articles.” The result was that his flock trust- ed 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 wood-cutters and sawyers, and offered me an excellent collecting-ground for insects. Here and there, too, were tiger-pits, carefully cov- ered 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 gam- bir plantations, which are always made in newly-cleared jun- gle. 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 ani- mals might be lurking close by, waiting an opportunity to spring upon us. Several hours in the middle of every fine day were spent in 36 SINGAPORE. these patches of forest, which were delightfully cool and sha- dy by contrast with the bare open country we had to walk over toreach them. The vegetation was most luxuriant, com- prising enormous forest-trees, as well as a variety of ferns, cal- adiums, and other undergrowth, and abundance of climbing rattan palms. Insects were exceedingly abundant and very in- teresting, 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 longi- corns (Cerambycid), so much esteemed by collectors. Al- most 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 favorable conditions in the soil, climate, and vegetation, and to the season being very bright and sunny, with sufficient showers. to keep every thing fresh. But it was also in a great measure dependent, I feel sure, on the labors 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 larvee. 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 pre- pared. In the same place, and during my walks in other di- rections, I obtained a fair collection of butterflies and of other orders of insect, 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. MaLacca AND Mount OPHIR. 37 CHAPTER III. MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR. JULY TO SEPTEMBER, 1854. Birps 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 Moluc- cas, and of other islands round about, from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java, Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandel, and India, arrive ships, which come and go in- cessantly, charged with an infinity of merchandises. There would be in this place a much greater number of Portuguese if it were not for the inconvemence, 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 38 MALACCA. 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 endeavor 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 modes of speaking of other nations, so that in fact the language of the Malays is at present the most re- fined, 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 round about. The natives, both men and women, are very courte- © ous, and are reckoned the most skillful in the world in com- pliments, 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 Smgapore. 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 use- ful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses, TIn-WoORKS—BIRDS. 39 numbers, and persons. Hw 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 re- duced 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, waist- coat, and trowsers, and the abominable hat and cravat; the Portuguese patronize a light jacket, or, more frequently, shirt and trowsers 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 a tropical climate, whether as regards comfort or appearance. The loosely-hanging trowsers, and neat white half-shirt, half-jack- et, are exactly what a dress should be in this low latitude. I engaged two Portuguese to accompany me into the in- terior; one as a cook, the other to shoot and skin birds, which is quite a trade in Malacca. I first staid a fortnight at a village called Gading, where I was accommodated in the house of some Chinese converts, to whom I was recom- mended 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 neighborhood were exten- sive 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 fur- naces. 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 “rain-bird.” It is about the size of a starling, black and rich claret color, with white shoulder-stripes, and a very large and broad bill of the most pure cobalt-blue 40 MALACCA. 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 colors 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 (Megalema 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 (Calypto- mena viridis), which is like a small cock-of-the-rock, but en- tirely of the most vivid green, delicately marked on the wings with black bars. Handsome woodpeckers and gay kingfishers, ereen and brown cuckoos, with velvety red faces and green beaks, red-breasted doves and metallic honey- suckers, 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 bun- galow 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 how fragmentary and imperfect a traveller’s collec- tion must necessarily be. I was one afternoon walking along a favorite 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 New ButrrerFLY—MountT OPHIR. 41 sitting on the same piece of dung, and succeeded in captur- ing it. It was an entirely new species of great beauty, and has been named by Mr. Hewitson Nymphalis calydona. [| never saw another specimen of it, and it was only after twelve years had elapsed that a second individual reached this country from the north-western part of Borneo. Having determined to visit Mount Ophir, which is situated in the middle of the peninsula about fifty miles east of Ma- lacca, 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 veranda, and gave us a fowl and some eggs. The next day the country got wilder and more hilly. 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 en- camped by the side of a fine stream, whose rocky banks 42, MALACCA. were overgrown with ferns. Our oldest Malay had been ac- customed to shoot birds in this neighborhood for the Ma- lacca dealers, and had been to the top of the mountain ; and while we amused ourselves shoot- « ing and _ insect- hunting, he went with two others to clear the path for our ascent the next day. SSA —~— . Early the next FSS morning we start- o— ed after break- fast, carrying blankets and pro- visions, as we intended to sleep upon the mountain. After pass- ing 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 mod- erate 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, till we came out upon the: “ Padang-batu,” or -