We had arrived at Dorey about the end of the wet season, when the whole country was soaked with moisture The native paths were so neglected as to be often mere tunnels closed over with vegetation, and in such places there was always a fearful accumulation of mud. To the naked Papuan this is no obstruction. He wades through it, and the next watercourse makes him clean again; but to myself, wearing boots and trousers, it was a most disagreeable thing to have to go up to my knees in a mud-hole every morning. The man I brought with me to cut wood fell ill soon after we arrived, or I would have set him to clear fresh paths in the worst places. For the first ten days it generally rained every afternoon and all night r but by going out every hour of fine weather, I managed to get on tolerably with my collections of birds and insects, finding most of those collected by Lesson during his visit in the Coquille, as well as many new ones. It appears, however, that Dorey is not the place for Birds of Paradise, none of the natives being accustomed to preserve them. Those sold here are all brought from Amberbaki, about a hundred miles west, where the Doreyans go to trade.
The islands in the bay, with the low lands near the coast, seem to have been formed by recently raised coral reef's, and are much strewn with masses of coral but little altered. The ridge behind my house, which runs out to the point, is also entirely coral rock, although there are signs of a stratified foundation in the ravines, and the rock itself is more compact and crystalline. It is therefore, probably older, a more recent elevation having exposed the low grounds and islands. On the other side of the bay rise the great mass of the Arfak mountains, said by the French navigators to be about ten thousand feet high, and inhabited by savage tribes. These are held in great dread by the Dorey people, who have often been attacked and plundered by them, and have some of their skulls hanging outside their houses. If I was seem going into the forest anywhere in the direction of the mountains, the little boys of the village would shout after me, "Arfaki! Arfaki?" just as they did after Lesson nearly forty years before.
On the 15th of May the Dutch war-steamer Etna arrived; but, as the coals had gone, it was obliged to stay till they came back. The captain knew when the coalship was to arrive, and how long it was chartered to stay at Dorey, and could have been back in time, but supposed it would wait for him, and so did not hurry himself. The steamer lay at anchor just opposite my house, and I had the advantage of hearing the half-hourly bells struck, which was very pleasant after the monotonous silence of the forest. The captain, doctor, engineer, and some other of the officers paid me visits; the servants came to the brook to wash clothes, and the son of the Prince of Tidore, with one or two companions, to bathe; otherwise I saw little of them, and was not disturbed by visitors so much as I had expected to be. About this time the weather set in pretty fine, but neither birds nor insects became much more abundant, and new birds-were very scarce. None of the Birds of Paradise except the common one were ever met with, and we were still searching in vain for several of the fine birds which Lesson had obtained here. Insects were tolerably abundant, but were not on the average so fine as those of Amboyna, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that Dorey was not a good collecting locality. Butterflies were very scarce, and were mostly the same as those which I had obtained at Aru.
Among the insects of other orders, the most curious and novel were a group of horned flies, of which I obtained four distinct species, settling on fallen trees and decaying trunks. These remarkable insects, which have been described by Mr. W. W. Saunders as a new genus, under the name of Elaphomia or deer-flies, are about half an inch long, slender-bodied, and with very long legs, which they draw together so as to elevate their bodies high above the surface they are standing upon. The front pair of legs are much shorter, and these are often stretched directly forwards, so as to resemble antenna. The horns spring from beneath the eye, and seem to be a prolongation of the lower part of the orbit. In the largest and most singular species, named Elaphomia cervicornis or the stag-horned deer-fly, these horns are nearly as long as the body, having two branches, with two small snags near their bifurcation, so as to resemble the horns of a stag. They are black, with the tips pale, while the body and legs are yellowish brown, and the eyes (when alive) violet and green. The next species (Elaphomia wallacei) is of a dark brown colour, banded and spotted with yellow. The horns are about one-third the length of the insect, broad, flat, and of an elongated triangular foam. They are of a beautiful pink colour, edged with black, and with a pale central stripe. The front part of the head is also pink, and the eyes violet pink, with a green stripe across them, giving the insect a very elegant and singular appearance. The third species (Elaphomia alcicornis, the elk-horned deer-fly) is a little smaller than the two already described, but resembling in colour Elaphomia wallacei. The horns are very remarkable, being suddenly dilated into a flat plate, strongly toothed round the outer margin, and strikingly resembling the horns of the elk, after which it has been named. They are of a yellowish colour, margined with brown, and tipped with black on the three upper teeth. The fourth species (Elaphomia brevicornis, the short-horned deer-fly) differs considerably from the rest. It is stouter in form, of a nearly black colour, with a yellow ring at the base of the abdomen; the wings have dusky stripes, and the head is compressed and dilated laterally, with very small flat horns; which are black with a pale centre, and look exactly like the rudiment of the horns of the two preceding species. None of the females have any trace of the horns, and Mr. Saunders places in the same genus a species which has no horns in either sex (Elaphomia polita). It is of a shining black colour, and resembles Elaphomia cervicornis in form, size, and general appearance. The figures above given represent these insects of their natural size and in characteristic attitudes.
The natives seldom brought me anything. They are poor creatures, and, rarely shoot a bird, pig, or kangaroo, or even the sluggish opossum-like Cuscus. The tree-kangaroos are found here, but must be very scarce, as my hunters, although out daily in the forest, never once saw them. Cockatoos, lories, and parroquets were really the only common birds. Even pigeons were scarce, and in little variety, although we occasionally got the fine crown pigeon, which was always welcome as an addition to our scantily furnished larder.
Just before the steamer arrived I had wounded my ankle by clambering among the trunks and branches of fallen trees (which formed my best hunting grounds for insects), and, as usual with foot wounds in this climate, it turned into an obstinate ulcer, keeping me in the house for several days. When it healed up it was followed by an internal inflammation of the foot, which by the doctor's advice I poulticed incessantly for four or five days, bringing out a severe inflamed swelling on the tendon above the heel. This had to be leeched, and lanced, and doctored with ointments and poultices for several weeks, till I was almost driven to despair,—for the weather was at length fine, and I was tantalized by seeing grand butterflies flying past my door, and thinking of the twenty or thirty new species of insects that I ought to be getting every day. And this, too, in New Guinea—a country which I might never visit again,—a country which no naturalist had ever resided in before,—a country which contained more strange and new and beautiful natural objects than any other part of the globe. The naturalist will be able to appreciate my feelings, sitting from morning to night in my little hut, unable to move without a crutch, and my only solace the birds my hunters brought in every afternoon, and the few insects caught by my Ternate man, Lahagi, who now went out daily in my place, but who of course did not get a fourth part of what I should have obtained. To add to my troubles all my men were more or less ill, some with fever, others with dysentery or ague; at one time there were three of them besides myself all helpless, the coon alone being well, and having enough to do to wait upon us. The Prince of Tidore and the Resident of Panda were both on board the steamer, and were seeking Birds of Paradise, sending men round in every direction, so that there was no chance of my getting even native skins of the rarer kinds; and any birds, insects, or animals the Dorey people had to sell were taken on board the steamer, where purchasers were found for everything, and where a larger variety of articles were offered in exchange than I had to show.
After a month's close confinement in the house I was at length able to go out a little, and about the same time I succeeded in getting a boat and six natives to take Ali and Lahagi to Amberbaki, and to bring them back at the end of a month. Ali was charged to buy all the Birds of Paradise he could get, and to shoot and skin all other rare or new birds; and Lahagi was to collect insects, which I hoped might be more abundant than at Dorey. When I recommenced my daily walks in search of insects, I found a great change in the neighbourhood, and one very agreeable to me. All the time I had been laid up the ship's crew and the Javanese soldiers who had been brought in a tender (a sailing ship which had arrived soon after the Etna), had been employed cutting down, sawing, and splitting large trees for firewood, to enable the steamer to get back to Amboyna if the coal-ship did not return; and they had also cleared a number of wide, straight paths through the forest in various directions, greatly to the astonishment of the natives, who could not make out what it all meant. I had now a variety of walks, and a good deal of dead wood on which to search for insects; but notwithstanding these advantages, they were not nearly so plentiful as I had found them at Sarawak, or Amboyna, or Batchian, confirming my opinion that Dorey was not a good locality. It is quite probable, however, that at a station a few miles in the interior, away from the recently elevated coralline rocks and the influence of the sea air, a much more abundant harvest might be obtained.
One afternoon I went on board the steamer to return the captain's visit, and was shown some very nice sketches (by one of the lieutenants), made on the south coast, and also at the Arfak mountain, to which they had made an excursion. From these and the captain's description, it appeared that the people of Arfak were similar to those of Dorey, and I could hear nothing of the straight-haired race which Lesson says inhabits the interior, but which no one has ever seen, and the account of which I suspect has originated in some mistake. The captain told me he had made a detailed survey of part of the south coast, and if the coal arrived should go away at once to Humboldt Pay, in longitude 141° east, which is the line up to which the Dutch claim New Guinea. On board the tender I found a brother naturalist, a German named Rosenberg, who was draughtsman to the surveying staff. He had brought two men with him to shoot and skin birds, and had been able to purchase a few rare skins from the natives. Among these was a pair of the superb Paradise Pie (Astrapia nigra) in tolerable preservation. They were brought from the island of Jobie, which may be its native country, as it certainly is of the rarer species of crown pigeon (Goura steursii), one of which was brought alive and sold on board. Jobie, however, is a very dangerous place, and sailors are often murdered there when on shore; sometimes the vessels themselves being attacked. Wandammen, on the mainland opposite Jobie, inhere there are said to be plenty of birds, is even worse, and at either of these places my life would not have been worth a week's purchase had I ventured to live alone and unprotected as at Dorey. On board the steamer they had a pair of tree kangaroos alive. They differ chiefly from the ground-kangaroo in having a more hairy tail, not thickened at the base, and not used as a prop; and by the powerful claws on the fore-feet, by which they grasp the bark and branches, and seize the leaves on which they feed. They move along by short jumps on their hind-feet, which do not seem particularly well adapted for climbing trees. It has been supposed that these tree-kangaroos are a special adaptation to the swampy, half-drowned forests of, New Guinea, in place of the usual form of the group, which is adapted only to dry ground. Mr. Windsor Earl makes much of this theory, but, unfortunately for it, the tree-kangaroos are chiefly found in the northern peninsula of New Guinea, which is entirely composed of hills and mountains with very little flat land, while the kangaroo of the low flat Aru Islands (Dorcopsis asiaticus) is a ground species. A more probable supposition seems to lie, that the tree-kangaroo has been modified to enable it to feed on foliage in the vast forests of New Guinea, as these form the great natural feature which distinguishes that country from Australia.
On June 5th, the coal-ship arrived, having been sent back from Amboyna, with the addition of some fresh stores for the steamer. The wood, which had been almost all taken on board, was now unladen again, the coal taken in, and on the 17th both steamer and tender left for Humboldt Bay. We were then a little quiet again, and got something to eat; for while the vessels were here every bit of fish or vegetable was taken on board, and I had often to make a small parroquet serve for two meals. My men now returned from Amberbaki, but, alas brought me almost nothing. They had visited several villages, and even went two days' journey into the interior, but could find no skins of Birds of Paradise to purchase, except the common kind, and very few even of those. The birds found were the same as at Dorey, but were still scarcer. None of the natives anywhere near the coast shoot or prepare Birds of Paradise, which come from far in the interior over two or three ranges of mountains, passing by barter from village to village till they reach the sea. There the natives of Dorey buy them, and on their return home sell them to the Bugis or Ternate traders. It is therefore hopeless for a traveller to go to any particular place on the coast of New Guinea where rare Paradise birds may have been bought, in hopes of obtaining freshly killed specimens from the natives; and it also shows the scarcity of these birds in any one locality, since from the Amberbaki district, a celebrated place, where at least five or six species have been procured, not one of the rarer ones has been obtained this year. The Prince of Tidore, who would certainly have got them if any were to be had, was obliged to put up with a few of the common yellow ones. I think it probable that a longer residence at Dorey, a little farther in the interior, might show that several of the rarer kinds were found there, as I obtained a single female of the fine scale-breasted Ptiloris magnificus. I was told at Ternate of a bird that is certainly not yet known in Europe, a black King Paradise Bird, with the curled tail and beautiful side plumes of the common species, but all the rest of the plumage glossy black. The people of Dorey knew nothing about this, although they recognised by description most of the otter species.
When the steamer left, I was suffering from a severe attack of fever. In about a week I got over this, but it was followed by such a soreness of the whole inside of the mouth, tongue, and gums, that for many days I could put nothing solid between my lips, but was obliged to subsist entirely on slops, although in other respects very well. At the same time two of my men again fell ill, one with fever, the other with dysentery, and both got very bad. I did what I could for them with my small stock of medicines, but they lingered on for some weeks, till on June 26th poor Jumaat died. He was about eighteen years of age, a native, I believe, of Bouton, and a quiet lad, not very active, but doing his work pretty steadily, and as well as he was able. As my men were all Mahometans, I let them bury him in their own fashion, giving them some new cotton cloth for a shroud.