CHAPTER VIII.
BURU.
Sept. 25th.—Steamed down the bay from Amboina, this time not without a slight feeling of sadness as I recalled the many happy hours I had passed gathering shells on its shores and rambling over its high hills, and as I realized that it would probably never be my privilege to enjoy those pleasures again. Only three months had elapsed since my arrival at Batavia, but I had passed through so many and such different scenes, that Amboina appeared to have been my home for a year—and so it seems to this day.
As we came out of the mouth of the bay, we changed our course to the west, and kept so near the land, that I had a fine opportunity to reëxamine the places I had visited during a heavy storm, when the sea was rolling into white surf and thundering along the shore.
Off the western end of Ceram lie three islands, Bonoa, Kilang, and Manipa. Bonoa, the most easterly, is a hilly island about twelve miles long and half as broad. Its population is divided into Christians and Mohammedans, and each has such a bitter hatred against the other, that the Christians at last determined to expatriate themselves, and accordingly, in 1837, migrated to Bachian. The clove-gardens in Bonoa were thus in danger of being neglected, and the man who was governor of the Moluccas at that time therefore sent messengers to induce them to return; but, when this measure proved unavailing, he went himself in a war-ship, and brought them back.
From Amboina we passed up the strait between Kilang and Manipa, which is less than a mile wide, and made much narrower by long tongue-shaped reefs of coral which project from several points. A fresh breeze had sprung up from the south, and, under a full head of steam and a good press of canvas, we ploughed through the waves which rolled up against the wind. In all these straits the tidal currents are very strong, and in many places so swift that a good boat cannot make headway against them with oars, and this makes many of these narrow channels very dangerous for the native boats.
That evening the bright fires built by the fishermen on the shores of Bonoa were seen on our larboard side, and the next morning we were near the Seven Brothers, a group of islands on the west side of Sawai Bay. Here are three dangerous reefs not laid down on the charts, a mile or more from the shore. As we passed, mountains three or four thousand feet in height were seen standing by the sea near the head of the bay. At noon we came to anchor in the little harbor of Wahai, which is formed by coral reefs that are bare at low tide. Unfortunately, it is too small for sailing-ships to enter safely, or it would be visited occasionally by those of our whalers who frequent these seas. The whole village consists of a small fort, a house for the commandant, who has the rank of captain, a house for the doctor, and a few native huts on either hand. The only communication the inhabitants of this isolated post have with the rest of the world is by means of coolies, who cross over from the head of Elpaputi Bay to the head of Sawai Bay, and then come along the shore. All the natives in the interior are entirely independent of the Dutch Government, and the coast natives, who carry the mail, are liable to be robbed or killed at any moment while on their journey.
My hunter at once began collecting birds, while I searched the shores for shells, and bought what the natives chanced to have in their miserable dwellings. The most common shell here is an Auricula. Its peculiar aperture, as its name implies, is like that of the human ear. It lives on the soft, muddy flats, where the many-rooted mangrove thrives. The rarest and most valuable shell found here, and indeed one of the rarest living in all these seas, is the Rostellaria rectirostris. It is so seldom found that a pair is frequently sold here for ten guilders, four Mexican dollars. My hunter soon returned with two large white doves, the Carpophaga luctuosa, and a very perfect specimen of that famous bird, the Platycercus hypophonius, G. R. Gray, called by the Malays the castori rajah, or “prince parrot,” from its being the most beautiful of all that brilliantly-plumaged family. It is a small bird for a parrot. The head, neck, and under parts are of a bright scarlet; the wings a dark, rich green, and the back and rump a bright lapis-lazuli blue, that shades off into a deeper blue in the tail, which is nearly as long as the body. These birds generally fly in pairs, and as they dart through the evergreen foliage, and you catch a glimpse of their graceful forms and brilliant plumage, it seems like the momentary recollection of some dream of Paradise. Large flocks of red luris, Eos rubra, Gml., other species of parrakeets, and many sorts of doves, frequent the surrounding woods, and several species of kingfishers and snipes live by the shore. For three days I enjoyed this rare hunting. We then steamed out of the little bay of Wahai for the island of Buru. While passing Bonoa we kept near the shore, and saw a large white monument which was erected by the Portuguese, and is probably one of the padroes, or “pillars of discovery,” placed there by D’Abreu when he first reached these long-sought isles. Soon we passed Swangi, “Spirit Island,” a lonely rock near Manipa, supposed by these superstitious natives to be haunted by some evil spirit.
Buru, the island to which we were bound, lies a few miles west of Manipa. Its area is estimated at about twenty-six hundred geographical square miles, so that it is one-half larger than Bali or Lombok. Its form is oval, with the greatest axis east and west. Its shores, instead of being deeply indented, like those of all the larger islands in that region, are entire, except on the northwest corner, where they recede and form the great bay of Kayéli. The entrance to this bay is between two high capes, three or four miles apart, so that on the northeast it is quite open to the sea. Within these capes the shores become low, forming on the southwest a large morass; and the bay expands to the east and west until it is about seven miles long. In the low lands bordering the south side of this bay is the Dutch “bezitting,” or post, also named Kayéli. Here is a small, well-built fort, in which are stationed a lieutenant and doctor, and a company of militia from Java or Madura. A controleur has charge of the civil department, and the governor had kindly given me a note to him, and he and his good lady at once received me kindly, and, as it proved, I made my home with them and the doctor for a long time. The plan the governor proposed was that we should leave for Ternate and New Guinea in five days after the steamer landed me at Kayéli. Those five days passed, but no steamer appeared. Again and again I watched by the hour, hoping, almost expecting, to be able to discern smoke on the horizon, and soon see the Telegraph coming into the harbor. Thus a week passed, then ten days, and by this time all, like myself, had come to the conviction that some unexpected and unfortunate event must have happened. But what was it? No one could tell. Fifteen days of such uncertainty and solicitude passed, when a large prau was seen coming in from the sea. It brought me a letter from Governor Arriens, stating that just as he was on the point of coming to take me, as proposed, news came that a great revolt had broken out in Ceram. Immediately he accompanied the captain of a large man-of-war, whose duty it was to put down all insurrections. When they arrived off the village, the captain, contrary to the advice of all, landed with a small force, hoping to be able to treat with the rebels, but he had scarcely touched the shore when a party of them in ambush poured a volley into his boat, wounding him twice severely, but not fatally. I now found myself really banished, for the yacht was needed too much to come and take me away. I therefore resigned myself quietly to my fate, and determined to profit by the opportunity to make a collection of the beautiful birds of the island. My first excursion was to a cliff on the southeast side of the bay, near its mouth, which I found was composed of metamorphic schists, that were very much fissured by joints and seams, and fell apart in cubical blocks. Another place I frequently visited was the low morass on the southwest side of the bay, through which flows out a stream of such size that a large canoe can ascend it for three days. Along the canals in this morass is a thick forest, the high branches of which meet above, forming for a considerable distance grand covered avenues. Here the kingfishers delight to gather, and, perching on the lower boughs, occasionally dart downward, like falling arrows, into the quiet water. It was most delightful, during the heat of the day, to glide along in these cool and shady canals, which wind to and fro, and in such an endless series of curves and angles, that no one could weary of the rich, almost oppressive, vegetation that continually surrounds him. At the mouth of this small river are long shallow banks of sand, which are bare at low tide, and on these are many large snags and logs that have come down the streams and grounded while on their way to the sea. On these wide banks, as the ebbing ceases and the tide begins to flow, long lines of gulls, sand-pipers, plovers, and curlews, gather, and, as the water advances, they are forced to approach the shore until the only resting-places left them are the logs and snags that raise their crooked limbs and roots above the surface of the water. At such times these perching-places are one living, fluttering mass of birds. Again and again I came to this spot, and always returned with as many specimens as my native hunter could skin on the following day.
A few minutes’ walk back of the controleur’s house took me into the surrounding forest, where I was accustomed to ramble to and fro hour after hour until I knew all the favorite haunts of most of the birds; yet nearly every day, till the time I left, I secured specimens of a species that had not been represented in my collection. Still others were seen, and one or more specimens of them must be obtained; and thus, the more I collected, the more interesting became my work. My regular daily routine was to hunt in the morning till ten or eleven o’clock, return to the house to avoid the heat, and then go out again about four, and remain till the setting sun warned me to return or grope my way back as best I could through the dark woods. Soon after I arrived, a tree, as large as our oak, became filled with great scarlet flowers, and in the early morning flocks of red luris (Eos rubra, Gml.) and other parrakeets, with blue heads, red and green breasts, and the feathers on the under side of the wings of a light red and brilliant yellow (Trichoglossus cyanogrammus, Wagl.), would come to feed on them. It was easy to know where those birds had begun their morning feast by their loud, unceasing screeching and chattering; and, after stealthily creeping through dense shrubbery for hundreds of yards, I would suddenly behold one of these great trees filled with scores of such brilliantly-plumaged birds, flying about or climbing out to the ends of the branches, and using their wings to aid in poising themselves while they made a dainty breakfast on the rich flowers. These are indeed the birds that Moore describes as—
“Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between