collections during our four days' stay at Ke were as follow:—Birds, 13 species;
insects, 194 species; and 3 kinds of land-shells.
There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands—the indigenes, who
have the Papuan characters strongly marked, and who are pagans; and a mixed
race, who are nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing, while the
former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These Mahometans are said to
have been driven out of Banda by the early European settlers. They were
probably a brown race, more allied to the Malays, and their mixed descendants
here exhibit great variations of colour, hair, and features, graduating between the
Malay and Papuan types. It is interesting to observe the influence of the early
Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of their language, which still
remain in use even among these remote and savage islanders. "Lenco" for
handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the exclusion of the proper
Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were truly wonderful conquerors
and colonizers. They effected more rapid changes in the countries they
conquered than any other nations of modern times, resembling the Romans in
their power of impressing their own language, religion, and manners on rode and
barbarous tribes.
The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays is
exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the forest, an
old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood very quiet till I had
pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when he could contain himself no
longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed a hearty roar of laughter. Every one
will recognise this as a true negro trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked
with a tone of bewilderment what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to
laugh, never heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom,
however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable than the
most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here were not so
much frightened at strangers, or made to keep themselves so much secluded as
among the Malay races; the children were more merry and had the "nigger grin,"
while the noisy confusion of tongues among the men, and their excitement on
very ordinary occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity and
reserve of the Malay.
The language of the Ke people consists of words of one, two, or three
syllables in about equal proportions, and has many aspirated and a few guttural
sounds. The different villages have slight differences of dialect, but they are
mutually intelligible, and, except in words that have evidently been introduced
during a long-continued commercial intercourse, seem to have no affinity