season when Wallace was there, Dobbo attracted nearly 500 people of many different
races. There were Chinese, Macassan, Bugis, Ceramese, and men from the other
eastern islands, many of whom had a reputation of dishonesty and immorality. Wallace
goes on to describe how this motley, ignorant, bloodthirsty and thievish population
came to live here without the shadow of any government – with no police, no courts
and no lawyers. He concludes that trade is the magic that keeps them all at peace and
unites these discordant elements into a well-behaved community. Like Wallace, these
men had travelled large distances to be in Dobbo during the trading season. They
knew that peace and order are essential for successful trade and any lawlessness was
quickly settled amongst themselves for the common good.
There was no Dutch presence on these remote islands and Wallace was the only
white man in the settlement. For obvious reasons he became a curiosity and he
describes his many visits from the locals:
This was the first time a real white man had come among them, and, said they, ‘You see
how the people come every day from the villages around to look at you’. This was very
flattering, and accounted for the great concourse of visitors which I had at first imagined
was accidental. A few years before I had been one of the gazers at the Zulus and the Aztecs
in London. Now the tables were turned upon me, for I was to these people a new and strange
variety of man, and I had the honour of affording to them, in my own person, an attractive
exhibition.On Wallace’s first day exploring the forest on Wamma he collected thirty species of
butterfly including many rare and beautiful varieties which had only been previously
known by a few specimens from New Guinea. The following two days were wet and
windy, but on the succeeding day he had the good fortune to capture one of the most
magnificent insects in the world, the great birdwing butterfly or Ornithoptera priamus
poseidon:
I trembled with excitement as I saw it coming majestically toward me, and could hardly
believe I had really succeeded in my stroke till I had taken it out of the net and was gazing,
lost in admiration, at the velvet black and brilliant green of its wings, seven inches across,
its golden body, and crimson breast. It is true I had seen similar insects in cabinets, at home,
but it is quite another thing to capture such one’s self – to feel it struggling between one’s
fingers, and to gaze upon its fresh and living beauty, a bright gem shining out amid the
silent gloom of a dark and tangled forest. The village of Dobbo held that evening at least
one contented man.Alfred Russel Wallace – The Voyage to the Aru Islands 151