the Dutch, who carried out a much more justifiable, less hurtful, and more
profitable system in their Eastern possessions.
I challenge objectors to point out any physical or moral evils that have
actually resulted from the action of the Dutch Government in this matter;
whereas such evils are the admitted results of every one of our monopolies and
restrictions. The conditions of the two experiments are totally different. The true
"political economy" of a higher race, when governing a lower race, has never yet
been worked out. The application of our "political economy" to such cases
invariably results in the extinction or degradation of the lower race; whence, we
may consider it probable that one of the necessary conditions of its truth is the
approximate mental and social unity of the society in which it is applied. I shall
again refer to this subject in my CHAPTER on Ternate, one of the most
celebrated of the old spice-islands.
The natives of Banda are very much mixed, and it is probable that at least
three-fourths of the population are mongrels, in various degrees of Malay,
Papuan, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch. The first two form the bases of the larger
portion, and the dark skins, pronounced features, and more or less frizzly hair of
the Papuans preponderates. There seems little doubt that the aborigines of Banda
were Papuans, and a portion of them still exists in the Ke islands, where they
emigrated when the Portuguese first took possession of their native island. It is
such people as these that are often looked upon as transitional forms between
two very distinct races, like the Malays and Papuans, whereas they are only
examples of intermixture.
The animal productions of Banda, though very few, are interesting. The
islands have perhaps no truly indigenous Mammalia but bats. The deer of the
Moluccas and the pig have probably been introduced. A species of Cuscus or
Eastern opossum is also found at Banda, and this may be truly indigenous in the
sense of not having been introduced by man. Of birds, during my three visits of
one or two days each, I collected eight kinds, and the Dutch collectors have
added a few others. The most remarkable is a fine and very handsome fruit-
pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, which feeds upon the nutmegs, or rather on the
mace, and whose loud booming note is to be continually heard. This bird is
found in the Ke and Matabello islands as well as Banda, but not in Ceram or any
of the larger islands, which are inhabited by allied but very distinct species. A
beautiful small fruit-dove, Ptilonopus diadematus, is also peculiar to Banda.