CHAPTER XXVI. BOURU.
MAY AND JUNE 1861.
I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due west of
Ceram, and of which scarcely anything appeared to be known to naturalists,
except that it contained a babirusa very like that of Celebes. I therefore made
arrangements for staying there two months after leaving Timor Delli in 1861.
This I could conveniently do by means of the Dutch mail-steamers, which make
a monthly round of the Moluccas.
We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired, the
Commandant of the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive the post-
packet, and took me and my baggage on shore, the steamer going off again
without coming to an anchor. We went to the horse of the Opzeiner, or overseer,
a native of Amboyna—Bouru being too poor a place to deserve even an
Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to that
of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency the Governor," and the little fort, in
perfect order, surrounded by neat brass-plots and straight walks, although
manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was
a very Sebastopol in comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with
its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major. Yet this, as well as most
of the forts in the Moluccas, was originally built by the Portuguese themselves.
Oh! Lusitania, how art thou fallen!
While the Opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk round the village
with a guide in search of a horse. The whole place was dreadfully damp and
muddy, being built in a swamp with not a spot of ground raised a foot above it,
and surrounded by swamps on every side. The houses were mostly well built, of
wooden framework filled in with gaba-gaba (leaf-stems of the sago-palm), but as
they had no whitewash, and the floors were of bare black earth like the roads,
and generally on the same level, they were extremely damp and gloomy. At
length I found one with the floor raised about a foot, and succeeded in making a
bargain with the owner to turn out immediately, so that by night I had installed
myself comfortably. The chairs and tables were left for me; and as the whole of
the remaining furniture in the house consisted of a little crockery and a few