geographical proximity one might suppose they ought to be. So far as I have yet
seen, the Malay and Papuan appear to be as widely separated as any two human
races that exist, being distinguished by physical, mental, and moral
characteristics, all of the most marked and striking kind.
Feb 5th.—I took advantage of a very fine calm day to pay a visit to the island
of Wokan, which is about a mile from us, and forms part of the "canna busar," or
mainland of Aru. This is a large island, extending from north to south about a
hundred miles, but so low in many parts as to be intersected by several creeks,
which run completely through it, offering a passage for good-sized vessels. On
the west side, where we are, there are only a few outlying islands, of which ours
(Wamma) is the principal; but on the east coast are a great number of islands,
extending some miles beyond the mainland, and forming the "blakang tang," or
"back country," of the traders, being the principal seat of the pearl, tripang, and
tortoiseshell fisheries. To the mainland many of the birds and animals of the
country are altogether confined; the Birds of paradise, the black cockatoo, the
great brush-turkey, and the cassowary, are none of them found on Wamma or
any of the detached islands. I did not, however, expect in this excursion to see
any decided difference in the forest or its productions, and was therefore
agreeably surprised. The beach was overhung with the drooping branches of
lame trees, loaded with Orchideae, ferns, and other epiphytal plants. In the forest
there was more variety, some parts being dry, and with trees of a lower growth,
while in others there were some of the most beautiful palms I have ever seen,
with a perfectly straight, smooth, slender stem, a hundred feet high, and a crown
of handsome drooping leaves. But the greatest novelty and most striking feature
to my eyes were the tree-ferns, which, after seven years spent in the tropics, I
now saw in perfection for the first time. All I had hitherto met with were slender
species, not more than twelve feet high, and they gave not the least idea of the
supreme beauty of trees bearing their elegant heads of fronds more than thirty
feet in the air, like those which were plentifully scattered about this forest. There
is nothing in tropical vegetation so perfectly beautiful.
My boys shot five sorts of birds, none of which we had obtained during a
month's shooting in Wamma. Two were very pretty flycatchers, already known
from New Guinea; one of them (Monarcha chrysomela), of brilliant black and
bright orange colours, is by some authors considered to be the most beautiful of
all flycatchers; the other is pure white and velvety black, with a broad fleshy ring
round the eye of are azure blue colour; it is named the "spectacled flycatcher"
(Monarcha telescopthalma), and was first found in New Guinea, along with the
other, by the French naturalists during the voyage of the discovery-ship