in many respects more remarkable and more beautiful. The head, back, and
shoulders are clothed with a richer yellow, the deep metallic green colour of the
throat extends further over the head, and the feathers are elongated on the
forehead into two little erectile crests. The side plumes are shorter, but are of a
rich red colour, terminating in delicate white points, and the middle tail-feathers
are represented by two long rigid glossy ribands, which are black, thin, and
semi-cylindrical, and droop gracefully in a spiral curve. Several other interesting
birds were obtained, and about half-a-dozen quite new ones; but none of any
remarkable beauty, except the lovely little dove, Ptilonopus pulchellus, which
with several other pigeons I shot on the same fig-tree close to my house. It is of a
beautiful green colour above, with a forehead of the richest crimson, while
beneath it is ashy white and rich yellow, banded with violet red.
On the evening of our arrival at Muka I observed what appeared like a display
of Aurora Borealis, though I could hardly believe that this was possible at a
point a little south of the equator. The night was clear and calm, and the northern
sky presented a diffused light, with a constant succession of faint vertical
flashings or flickerings, exactly similar to an ordinary aurora in England. The
next day was fine, but after that the weather was unprecedentedly bad,
considering that it ought to have been the dry monsoon. For near a month we had
wet weather; the sun either not appearing at all, or only for an hour or two about
noon. Morning and evening, as well as nearly all night, it rained or drizzled, and
boisterous winds, with dark clouds, formed the daily programme. With the
exception that it was never cold, it was just such weather as a very bad English
November or February.
The people of Waigiou are not truly indigenes of the island, which possesses
no "Alfuros," or aboriginal inhabitants. They appear to be a mixed race, partly
from Gilolo, partly from New Guinea. Malays and Alfuros from the former
island have probably settled here, and many of them have taken Papuan wives
from Salwatty or Dorey, while the influx of people from those places, and of
slaves, has led to the formation of a tribe exhibiting almost all the transitions
from a nearly pure Malayan to an entirely Papuan type. The language spoken by
them is entirely Papuan, being that which is used on all the coasts of Mysol,
Salwatty, the north-west of New Guinea, and the islands in the great Geelvink
Bay,—a fact which indicates the way in which the coast settlements have been
formed. The fact that so many of the islands between New Guinea and the
Moluccas—such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south
and east peninsulas of Gilolo—possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by
people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative