To Wallace’s untutored eye the vessel appeared as a wilderness of masts, yards and
spars of wood or bamboo, lashed together with rattan. The captain was Dutch-Javanese
and the crew of thirty would have been a mixture of Macassan, Bugis and Javanese.
According to Wallace there did not appear to be any distinct chain of command, yet
everyone seemed willing enough to work. There were usually half a dozen voices
giving orders and he writes that in such shrieking and confusion it seems wonderful
that anything gets done at all.
Wallace brought with him an eight-month supply of necessities – sugar, coffee,
tea, a keg of butter, sixteen flasks of oil, cooking utensils, lamps and candles as well
as luxuries such as a dozen bottles of wine and some beer. His hunting and collecting
supplies consisted of guns, bags of shot, gunpowder, insect boxes, pins, preserving
alcohol, as well as tobacco, beads and parang (machetes) for trading. He was
accompanied by his trusty assistant Ali whom he had met in Sarawak and two young
men hired in Macassar. Wallace commandeered the small bamboo and thatch cabin on
deck which he described as ‘the snuggest and most comfortable little place I have ever
enjoyed at sea’. The light filtering through the bamboo walls and the natural smell of
the thatch allowed him to recall quiet scenes in a green and shady forest. At night the
stars hung bright in the sky above and it was a magical sight to look down into the water
and see streams of phosphorescent light as thousands of bioluminescent organisms
swirl and light up in its wake. Something which Wallace describes as resembling ‘one
of the large, irregular, nebulous star-clusters seen through a good telescope, with the
additional attraction of an ever changing form and dancing motion’.
The Banda Islands were their first landfall after crossing the Banda Sea and a
convenient stopping point to take on water and supplies. These tiny islands seem
to be formed by the rim of a remnant volcano which rises 5000 metres from the
depths. Wallace walked up a pretty path to the highest point of the island behind
the small town of Banda Neira. From here he had a perfect view across to the new
volcano called Gunung Api (Fire Mountain) which has a pyramidal shape. This was
the first time that Wallace was able to closely observe a volcano. He commented that
most people of northern Europe viewed the earth as a symbol of stability, whereas a
volcano is opposite to this learned experience. He noted that it is only when gazing
on an active volcano that one can fully realize the mighty forces of the interior of the
earth and from whence comes that inexhaustible fire that produces its smoking peak:
The volcano first appearing – a perfect cone, having much the outline of the Egyptian
pyramids, and looking almost as regular. In the evening the smoke rested over its summit
like a small stationary cloud. This was my first view of an active volcano, but pictures and
panoramas have so impressed such things on one.146 Where Australia Collides with Asia
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