Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

In 1852 some natives came from Timur, Timur-laut, and the neighboring islands, to work on the nutmeg-plantations, or, as the Dutch prefer to call them, “parks.” In two years these people numbered two hundred and thirteen, but they have not increased since to such a degree as to form a large fraction of the whole population.

But while we have been glancing back over the eventful history of the Bandas, our fast yacht has rapidly brought us nearer to them over the quiet, glassy sea. This is Pulo Ai on our right. It is only from three hundred to five hundred feet high, and, as we see from the low cliffs on its shores, is mostly composed of coral rock. This is also said to be the case with the other islands outside of the first circle we have already described, and we notice that, like it, they are all comparatively low. Now changing our course to the east, we steam up under the high, steep Gunong Api. On its north-northwest side, about one-fourth of the distance from its summit down to the sea, is a deep, wide gulf, out of which rise thick, opaque clouds of white gas, that now, in the still, clear air, are seen rolling grandly upward in one gigantic, expanding column to the sky. On its top also thin, veil-like clouds occasionally gather, and then slowly float away like cumuli dissolving in the pure ether. These cloud-masses are chiefly composed of steam and sulphurous acid gas, and, as they pour out, indicate what an active laboratory Nature has established deep within the bowels of this old volcano.

The western horn of crescent-shaped Lontar is before us. Its shore is composed of a series of nearly perpendicular crags from two to three hundred feet high, but particularly on the northern or inner side the luxuriant vegetation of these tropical islands does not allow the rocks to remain naked, and from their crevices and upper edges hang down broad sheets of a bright-green, unfading verdure. The western entrance to the road, the one through which we are now passing, is between the abrupt, magnificent coast of Lontar on the right, and the high, overhanging peak of Gunong Api on the left; and, as we advance, they separate, and disclose to our view the steep and lofty wall that forms Lontar’s northern shore. This is covered with a dense, matted mass of vegetation, out of which rise the erect, columnar trunks of palms, from the crests of which, as from sheaves, long, feathery leaves hang over, slowly and gracefully oscillating in the light air, which we can just perceive fanning our faces. Now Banda Neira is in full view. It is composed of hills which gradually descend to the shore of this little bay. On the top of one near us is Fort Belgica, in form a regular pentagon. At the corners are bastions surmounted by small circular towers, so that the whole exactly resembles an old feudal castle. Its walls are white, and almost dazzling in the bright sunlight; and beneath is a broad, neatly-clipped glacis, forming a beautiful, green, descending lawn. Below this defence is Fort Nassau, which was built by the Dutch when they first arrived in 1609, only two years before the foundations of Belgica were laid, and both fortifications have existed nearly as they are now for more than two and a half centuries. On either hand along the shore extends the chief village, Neira, with rows of pretty shade-trees on the bund, or front street, bordering the bay. Its population is about two thousand. In the road are a number of praus from Ceram, strange-looking vessels, high at stern, and low at the bow, and having, instead of a single mast, a tall tripod, which can be raised and lowered at pleasure. They are all poorly built, and it seems a wonder that such awkward boats can live any time in a rough sea. A number of Bugis traders are also at anchor near by. They are mostly hermaphrodite schooners, carrying a square-sail or foresail, a fore-topsail, and fore-royal, and evidently designed, like the praus, to sail only before the wind. They visit the eastern end of Ceram, the southwestern and western parts of Papua or New Guinea, the Arus, and most of the thousand islands between Banda, Timur, and Australia. When the mail-steamer that took me to Amboina touched here, a merchant of this place, who joined us, brought on board four large living specimens of the Paradisea apoda or “Great Bird of Paradise,” which he had purchased a short time before from one of these traders, and was taking with him to Europe.[36] They were all sprightly, and their colors had a bright, lively hue, incomparably richer than the most magnificent specimens I have ever seen in any museum.

THE LONTAR PALM.

At our main truck a small flag slowly unfolds and displays a red ball. This indicates that the governor is on board, and immediately a boat comes to take us to the village; but as business is not pressing—as is usually the case in the East—we prefer to conform to the established custom in these hot lands, and enjoy a siesta, instead of obliging our good friends on shore to come out in full dress and parade in the scorching sunshine.

At 5 P. M. we landed, and the Resident politely conducted us to his residence. Our first excursion was to the western end of the opposite island, Lontar, the Malay name of the Palmyra palm, Borassus flabelliformis. Its leaves were used as parchment over all the archipelago before the introduction of paper by the Arabs or Chinese, and in some places even at the present time. Lontar, as already noticed, has the form of a crescent. Its inner side is a steep wall, bordered at the base with a narrow band of low land. On the outer side from the crest of the wall many radiating ridges descend to the sea, so that its southwestern shore is a continued series of little points separated by small bays. The whole island is covered with one continuous forest of nutmeg and canari trees. The nutmeg-tree, Myristica moschata, belongs to the order Myristicaceæ. A foot above the ground the trunk is from six to ten inches in diameter. It branches like the laurel, and its loftiest sprays are frequently fifty feet high. It is diœcious, that is, the pistils and the stamens are borne on different trees, and of course some of them are unproductive. The fruit, before it is folly ripe, closely resembles a peach that has not yet been tinged with red; but this is only a fleshy outer rind, epicarp, which soon opens into two equal parts, and within is seen a spherical, black, polished nut, surrounded by a fine branching aril—the “mace”—of a bright vermilion. In this condition it is probably by far the most beautiful fruit in the whole vegetable kingdom. It is now picked by means of a small basket fastened to the end of a long bamboo. The outer part being removed, the mace is carefully taken off and dried on large, shallow bamboo baskets in the sun. During this process its bright color changes to a dull yellow. It is now ready to be packed in nice casks and shipped to market. The black, shining part, seen between the ramifications of the vermilion mace, is really a shell, and the nutmeg is within. As soon as the mace is removed, the nuts are taken to a room and spread on shallow trays of open basket-work. A slow fire is then made beneath, and here they remain for three months. By the end of that time the nutmeg has shrunk so much that it rattles in its black shell. The shell is then broken, and the nutmegs are sorted and packed in large casks of teak-wood, and a brand is placed on the head of the cask, giving the year the fruit was gathered and the name of the plantation or “park” where it grew.

From Neira a large cutter took us swiftly over the bay to Selam, a small village containing the ruins of the old capital of the Portuguese during the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries, while their rights remained undisputed by the Dutch. This western end of Lontar is about four hundred feet high, and is composed of coral rock of a very recent date. Walking eastward, we next came to a conglomerate containing angular fragments of lava. This rock was succeeded on the shore of the bay by a fine-grained, compact lava, somewhat stratified, and this again by trachytic and basaltic lavas. Indeed, the whole island, except the parts described above, consists of these eruptive rocks, and Lontar may be regarded as merely a part of the walls of an immense crater about six miles in diameter, if it were circular, though its form may have been more nearly elliptical. Pulo Pisang and Pulo Kapal, already noticed as falling in the first circle, are two other fragments of the old crater wall. All the remaining parts have disappeared beneath the sea. Here, then, is another immense crater, greater even than the famous one in the Tenger Mountains in the eastern part of Java, the bottom of which is covered with shifting, naked sand, and has been appropriately named by the Malays the Laut Pasar or “Sandy Sea.” That crater is elliptical in outline, its major axis measuring four and a half miles, and its minor axis three and a half miles, and, though of such dimensions, its bottom is nearly a level floor of sand. Out of this rise four truncated cones, each containing a small crater. One of these, the “Bromo” (so named from Brama, the Hindu god, whose emblem is fire), is still active. In this old crater the island Banda Neira represents the extinct cones rising in the “Sandy Sea,” and Gunong Api has a perfect analogue in the active Bromo. The enclosed bay or road, where vessels now anchor in eight or nine fathoms, is the bottom of this old crater, and, like that in the Tenger Mountains, is composed of volcanic sand. The radiating ridges on the outer side of Lontar represent the similar ridges on the sides of every volcano that is not building up its cone by frequent eruptions at its summit. Again, the islands crossed by the second and third circles are only so many cones on the flanks of this great volcano. True, those parts of them now above the sea are largely composed of coral rock like the west end of Lontar, but undoubtedly the polyps began to build their high walls on the stores of islands of lava. They are doing this at the present moment. Every island in the group is now belted with a fringing reef, except at a few places where the shore is a perpendicular precipice and the water of great depth. The western entrance, through which we came to the road, is already quite closed up by a broad reef of living coral.

A stroll through these beautiful groves would be one of the richest treats a traveller could enjoy, even if he took no interest in the rocks beneath his feet. All the nutmeg-trees were loaded down with fruit, which is chiefly gathered during this month (September), and again in June, though some is obtained from time to time throughout the year. It seemed surprising that the trees could bear so abundantly season after season, but the official reports show that there has been little variation in the annual yield for the last thirty years. An average crop for the last twenty years has been about 580,000 Amsterdam pounds of nuts and 137,000 pounds of mace. The trees may be estimated, in round numbers, at 450,000, of which only two-thirds bear. As the governor remarked to me, while I was expressing my wonder at the abundance of fruit on every side, it is, indeed, strange that the income of the government does not equal its expense. For this cause it now, for the first time, proposes to give up its long-continued monopoly. Beneath the trees is spread a carpet of green grass, while high above them the gigantic canari trees stretch out their gnarled arms and shield the valuable trees intrusted to their care from the strong winds which strive in vain to make them cast off their fruit before it is ripe. Such good service do the tall canaris render in this way, that they are planted everywhere, and when the island is seen from a distance, their tops quite hide the nutmeg-trees from view. The roots of this canari are most remarkable. They spring off from the trunk above the ground in great vertical sheets, which are frequently four feet broad where they leave the tree, and wind back and forth for some distance before they disappear beneath the soil, so that the lower part of one of these old trees might well be fancied to be a huge bundle of enormous snakes struggling to free themselves from a Titanic hand that held them firmly forever.

As we leisurely strolled along the crest of Lontar, with a thick foliage over our heads that effectually shut out the direct rays of the sun, we occasionally caught distant views under the trees of the blue sea breaking into white, sparkling surf on the black rocks far, far beneath us.