resolved to stay a few days at the chief village, and see if their animal
productions were correspondingly interesting. While searching for a secure
anchorage for the night we again saw the comet, still apparently as brilliant as at
first, but the tail had now risen to a higher angle.
October 14th.—All this day we coasted along the Kaióa Islands, which have
much the appearance and outline of Ke on a small scale, with the addition of flat
swampy tracts along shore, and outlying coral reefs. Contrary winds and currents
had prevented our taking the proper course to the west of them, and we had to go
by a circuitous route round the southern extremity of one island, often having to
go far out to sea on account of coral reefs. On trying to pass a channel through
one of these reefs we were grounded, and all had to get out into the water, which
in this shallow strait had been so heated by the sun as to be disagreeably warm,
and drag our vessel a considerable distance among weeds and sponges, corals
and prickly corallines. It was late at night when we reached the little village
harbour, and we were all pretty well knocked up by hard work, and having had
nothing but very brackish water to drink all day-the best we could find at our last
stopping-place. There was a house close to the shore, built for the use of the
Resident of Ternate when he made his official visits, but now occupied by
several native travelling merchants, among whom I found a place to sleep.
The next morning early I went to the village to find the "Kapala," or head
man. I informed him that I wanted to stay a few days in the house at the landing,
and begged him to have it made ready for me. He was very civil, and came down
at once to get it cleared, when we found that the traders had already left, on
hearing that I required it. There were no doors to it, so I obtained the loan of a
couple of hurdles to keep out dogs and other animals. The land here was
evidently sinking rapidly, as shown by the number of trees standing in salt water
dead and dying. After breakfast I started for a walk to the forest-covered hill
above the village, with a couple of boys as guides. It was exceedingly hot and
dry, no rain having fallen for two months. When we reached an elevation of
about two hundred feet, the coralline rock which fringes the shore was
succeeded by a hard crystalline rock, a kind of metamorphic sandstone. This
would indicate flat there had been a recent elevation of more than two hundred
feet, which had still more recently clanged into a movement of subsidence. The
hill was very rugged, but among dry sticks and fallen trees I found some good
insects, mostly of forms and species I was already acquainted with from Ternate
and Gilolo. Finding no good paths I returned, and explored the lower ground
eastward of the village, passing through a long range of plantain and tobacco
grounds, encumbered with felled and burnt logs, on which I found quantities of