Near the mouth of the bay the water is very deep, but eight or nine miles within it is sufficiently shallow for an anchorage. Here also the hills on the east or Laitimur side are separated from the beach by a triangular, level area, about a paal[25] long, and on this has been built the city of “Amboina” or “Ambon,” in the native language. Viewed from the anchorage, the city has a pleasing appearance, its streets being broad, straight, and well shaded. About half way from its southern end is Fort Nieuw Victoria. Landing at a quay we passed through this old stronghold out into a pretty lawn, which is surrounded by the Societeit, or Club-House, and the residences of officials and merchants. The total population of the city is about fourteen thousand. Of these, seven hundred are Europeans, three hundred Chinese, and four hundred Arabs. The others are natives. The entire population of the island is about thirty-two thousand. Like all the cities and larger settlements in the Dutch possessions, Amboina is divided into a native kampong or quarter, a Chinese kampong, and a quarter where foreigners reside. The natives are directly under the control of a rajah or prince, and he, in turn, is responsible to a Dutch assistant resident. In a similar manner the Chinese are subject to a “Captain China,” who, in the larger cities, has one or more assistants or “lieutenants.” He, likewise, must report himself to the assistant resident. In this way each separate people is immediately ruled by officers chosen from its own nation, and consequently of the same views and prejudices. Justice is thus more perfectly administered, and the hostile feelings which each of these bigoted Eastern nations always entertains against every other are thus completely avoided.
On leaving Batavia, Cores de Vries & Co., who then owned all the mail-steamers in the Netherlands India, kindly gave me a letter of credit so that I might draw on their agents from place to place, and wholly avoid the trouble and danger of carrying any considerable sum with me. This letter further recommended me to the kind attention of all their employés, and Mr. Var Marle, their agent at this place, at once said that I must make his house my home while I remained in that part of the archipelago; and this unexpected and very generous invitation was still more acceptable, as both he and his good lady spoke English. A chamber was assigned me, and a large room in an adjoining out-building, where I could store my collections and pack them up for their long transit to America; and thus I was ready to commence my allotted work without the least delay. I then called on His Excellency the Governor of the Spice Islands, who received me in the most cordial manner, and said that boats, coolies, and whatever other assistance I might need, would be immediately ordered whenever I wished.
Amboina has long been famous for its shells, and the Dutch officials have been accustomed for years to purchase very considerable quantities as presents for their friends in Europe. The natives, therefore, are in the habit of gathering them for sale, and a few have become extensive traders in these beautiful objects. It was soon noised abroad that a foreigner had come from a land even farther away than “Ollanda,” as they call Holland, solely for the purpose of purchasing shells; and immediately, to my great delight, basketful after basketful of the species that I had always regarded as the rarest and most valuable began to appear, every native being anxious to dispose of his lot before his fellows, and thus obtain a share of the envied shining coin, which I was careful to display to their gloating eyes before I should say I had bought all I desired. Competition, here as elsewhere, had a wonderfully depressing effect on the price of their commodities, judging from what they asked at first and what they were finally willing to take. The trade, however, became more brisk day after day, and some natives came from long distances partly to sell their shells and partly to see whether “that man” could be sane who had come so far and was spending, according to their ideas, so much money for shells. At first I bought them by the basketful, until all the more common species had been obtained, and then I showed the natives the figures in Rumphius’s “Rariteit Kamer” of those species I still wished to secure, and at the same time offered them an extra price for others not represented in that comprehensive work. One species I was particularly anxious to secure alive. It was the pearly nautilus. The shell has always been common, but the animal has seldom been described. The first was found at this place, and a description and drawing were given by Rumphius. Afterward a dissection and drawing were given by Professor Owen, of the British Museum, and his monograph probably contains the most complete anatomical description that has ever been made of any animal from a single specimen. He worked, as he himself described it to me, with a dissecting-knife in one hand and a pencil in the other. So little escaped his pen and pencil, that very little information has been added by later dissections. I was so anxious to secure one of these rare animals, that I felt that, if I should obtain one and a few more common species, I could feel that my long journey had been far from fruitless. Only the second day after my arrival, to my inexpressible delight, a native brought me one still living. Seeing how highly I prized it, he began by asking ten guilders (four Mexican dollars) for it, but finally concluded to part with it for two guilders (less than one Mexican dollar), though I should certainly have paid him fifty if I could not have obtained it for a less price. It had been taken in this way: the natives throughout the archipelago rarely fish with a hook and line as we do, but, where the water is too deep to build a weir, they use instead a bubu, or barrel of open basket-work of bamboo. Each end of this barrel is an inverted cone, with a small opening at its apex. Pieces of fish and other bait are suspended from within, and the bubu is then sunk on the clear patches of sand on a coral reef, or more commonly out where the water is from twenty to fifty fathoms deep. No line is attached to those on the reefs, but they are taken up with a gaff. Those in deep water are buoyed by a cord and a long bamboo, to one end of which a stick is fastened in a vertical position, and to this is attached a piece of palm-leaf for a flag, to make it more conspicuous. In this case it happened that one of these bubus was washed off into deeper water than usual, and the nautilus chanced to crawl through the opening in one of the cones to get at the bait within. If the opening had not been much larger than usual, it could not possibly have got in. It was at once placed in a can containing strong arrack. I then offered twice as much for a duplicate specimen, and hundreds of natives tried and tried, but in vain, to procure another during the five months I was in those seas. They are so rare even there, that a gentleman, who had made large collections of shells, assured me that I ought not to expect to obtain another if I were to remain at Amboina three years. Rumphius, who usually is remarkably accurate in his descriptions of the habits of the mollusks he figures, says it sometimes swims on the sea; but this statement he probably received from the natives, who made such a mistake because many empty shells are frequently found floating on the ocean. When the animal dies and becomes separated from the shell, the latter rises to the surface of the sea on account of the air or other gas contained in the chambers. It is then swept away by the wind and tide to the shore of a neighboring island. When the natives are questioned as to where these shells come from, they invariably reply, “The sea;” and as to where the animal lives, they merely answer, “Dalam,” “In the deep.” The dead shells are so abundant on these islands, that they can be purchased in any quantity at from four to ten cents apiece.
My first excursion from the city of Amboina was with a gentleman to a large cocoa-garden, which he had lately planted on the high hills on the Hitu side. A nice boat or orangbai—literally, “a good fellow”—took us over the bay to the little village of Ruma Tiga, or “Three Houses.” The boatmen were gayly dressed in white trousers with red trimmings, and had red handkerchiefs tied round their heads. A small gong and a tifa or drum, made by tightly stretching a piece of the hide of a wild deer over the end of a short, hollow log, gave forth a rude, wild music, and at least served to aid the boatmen in keeping time as they rowed. Occasionally, to break the monotony of their labor, they sang a low, plaintive song. Instead of steering straight for the point which we wished to arrive at on the opposite side of the bay, our helmsman kept the boat so near the shore that we really passed round the head of the bay, twice as far as it would have been in a right line. This mode of hassar steering, or, as the sailors express it in our language, “hugging the shore,” I afterward found was the one universally adopted in all this part of the archipelago. When we landed, I had the pleasure to find, just beneath low-water level, hundreds of black sea-urchins, with needle-like spines nearly a foot long, and so extremely sharp and brittle, that it was very difficult to get the animals out of the little cavities in the rocks where they had anchored themselves fast with their many suckers. Near by, the villagers were busy boiling down the sap of the sagaru-palm for the sugar it contains. According to my taste it is much like maple-sugar. Up to the time that Europeans first came to the East, this was the only kind of sugar known to the natives, and large quantities of it are still consumed among the islands here in the eastern part of the archipelago.
From the beach, a narrow footpath led through a grove of palm-trees into a thick forest, and then zigzagged up a steep hill-side, until it reached a small plateau. Here were the young cocoa-trees, filled with their long, red, cucumber-like fruit. The original forest had been felled and burned, and these trees had been planted in its place. Almost the only difficulty in cultivating the cocoa-tree here is in removing the grass and small shrubs which are continually springing up; yet the natives are all so idle and untrustworthy that a gentleman must frequently inspect his garden himself, if he expects it to yield a fair return. This tree,[26] the Theobroma cacao, Lin., is not a native of the East. It was discovered by the Spaniards in Mexico during the conquest of that country by Cortez. From Mexico they took it to their provinces in South America and the West India Islands. At present it is cultivated in Trinidad, and in Guiana and Brazil. It probably thrives as well here as in Mexico, and is now completely supplanting the less profitable clove-tree.
The chief article of food of the natives working in this garden is our own yellow Indian corn, another exotic, also introduced into the East by Europeans. It is now raised in every part of the archipelago in such quantities as to form one of the chief articles of food for the natives. The Dutch never use it, and generally think it strange that it should be made into bread for the very nicest tables in our land. I never knew the natives to grind it or pound it. They are accustomed to roast it on the ear after the kernels have become quite hard and yellow. Our house in this tropical garden was merely a bamboo hut, with a broad veranda, which afforded us an ample shelter from the pouring rains and scorching sunshine. I had been careful to take along my fowling-piece, and at once I commenced a rambling hunt through the adjoining forest. Large flocks of small birds, much like our blackbird, were hovering about, but they so invariably chose to alight only on the tops of the tallest trees, that I was a long time securing half a dozen specimens, for at every shot they would select another distant tree-top, and give me a long walk over tangled roots and fallen trees in the dense, almost gloomy, jungle. As evening came on, small green parrots uttered their shrill, deafening screams, as they darted to and fro through the thick foliage. A few of these also entered my game-bag.
In these tropical lands, when the sun sets, it is high time for the hunter to forsake his fascinating sport and hurry home. There is no long, fading twilight, but darkness presses closely on the footsteps of retreating day, and at once it is night. On my return, my friend remarked in the coolest manner that I had secured us both a good supper; and before I had recovered from my shock at such a suggestion, the cook had torn out a large handful of rich feathers from the skins, and all were spoiled for my collection; however, I consoled myself with the thought that it did not fall to the good lot of every hunter to live in the midst of such a wondrous vegetation and feast on parrots. In the evening, a full moon shed broad oscillating bands of silver light through the large polished leaves of the bananas around our dwelling, as they slowly waved to and fro in the cool, refreshing breeze. Then the low cooing of doves came up out of the dark forest, and the tree-toads piped out their long, shrill notes. That universal pest, the mosquito, was also there, singing his same bloodthirsty tune in our ears. Our beds were perched on poles, high above the floor of the hut, that we might avoid such unpleasant bedfellows as large snakes, which are very common and most unceremonious visitors. That night we were disturbed but once, and then by a loud rattling of iron pots and a general crashing of crockery; instantly I awoke with an indefinite apprehension that we were experiencing one of the frightful earthquakes which my friend had been vividly picturing before we retired. The natives set up a loud hooting and shouting, and finally the cause of the whole disturbance was found to be a lean, hungry dog that was attempting to satisfy his appetite on what remained of our parrot-stew.
My chief object on this excursion was to collect insects; and among some white-leaved shrubs, near the shore, I found many magnificent specimens of a very large, richly-colored Papilio. The general color of the upper surface of its wings was a blue-black, and beneath were large patches of bright red. Another was a blue-black above, with large spots of bright blue. The wings of these butterflies expand five or six inches, and they seem almost like small birds as they flit by.
It was my desire not only to obtain the same shells that Rumphius figures, but to procure them from the same points and bays, so that there could be no doubt about the identity of my specimens with his drawings. I therefore proposed to travel along all the shores of Amboina and the neighboring islands, and trade with the natives of every village, so as to be sure of the localities myself, and, moreover, get specimens of all the species alive, and thus have ample material for studying their anatomy. I now realized the value of the letter with which His Excellency the Governor-General had honored me at Batavia. I had only to apply to the assistant resident, and he at once kindly ordered a boat and coolies for me at the same rate as if they were employed by the government, which was frequently less than half of what I should have been obliged to pay if I had hired them myself; and besides, many times I could not have obtained boats nor coolies at any price; and when the Resident ordered them to come at a certain hour, I always found them ready.