walked out to explore, and on the skirts of the forest captured a few interesting
insects.
Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a very fine
forest, richer in palms than any I had seen in the Moluccas. One of these
especially attracted my attention from its elegance. The stein was not thicker
than my wrist, yet it was very lofty, and bore clusters of bright red fruit. It was
apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense height closely resembled in
appearance the Euterpes of South America. Here also grew the fan-leafed palm,
whose small, nearly entire leaves are used to make the dammar torches, and to
form the water-buckets in universal use. During this walk I saw near a dozen
species of palms, as well as two or three Pandani different from those of
Langundi. There were also some very fine climbing ferns and true wild Plantains
(Musa), bearing an edible fruit not so large as one's thumb, and consisting of a
mass of seeds just covered with pulp and skin. The people assured me they had
tried the experiment of sowing and cultivating this species, but could not
improve it. They probably did not grow it in sufficient quantity, and did not
persevere sufficiently long.
Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researches of a botanist
better than any other in the whole Archipelago. It contains a great variety of
surface and of soil, abundance of large and small streams, many of which are
navigable for some distance, and there being no savage inhabitants, every part of
it can be visited with perfect safety. It possesses gold, copper, and coal, hot
springs and geysers, sedimentary and volcanic rocks and coralline limestone,
alluvial plains, abrupt hills and lofty mountains, a moist climate, and a grand and
luxuriant forest vegetation.
The few days I stayed here produced me several new insects, but scarcely any
birds. Butterflies and birds are in fact remarkably scarce in these forests. One
may walk a whole day and not see more than two or three species of either. In
everything but beetles, these eastern islands are very deficient compared with the
western (Java, Borneo, &c.), and much more so if compared with the forests of
South America, where twenty or thirty species of butterflies may be caught
every day, and on very good days a hundred, a number we can hardly reach here
in months of unremitting search. In birds there is the same difference. In most
parts of tropical America we may always find some species of woodpecker
tanager, bush shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo, and tyrant-flycatcher;
and a few days' active search will produce more variety than can be here met
with in as many months. Yet, along with this poverty of individuals and of
species, there are in almost every class and order, some one, or two species of