The Depth Varied From About
Twenty To Fifty Feet, And The Bottom Was Very Uneven, Rocks And
Chasms And Little Hills And Valleys, Offering A Variety Of
Stations For The Growth Of These Animal Forests.
In and out among
them, moved numbers of blue and red and yellow fishes, spotted
and banded and striped
In the most striking manner, while great
orange or rosy transparent medusa floated along near the surface.
It was a sight to gaze at for hours, and no description can do
justice to its surpassing beauty and interest. For once, the
reality exceeded the most glowing accounts I had ever read of the
wonders of a coral sea. There is perhaps no spot in the world
richer in marine productions, corals, shells and fishes, than the
harbour of Amboyna.
From the north side of the harbour, a good broad path passes
through swamp clearing and forest, over hill and valley, to the
farther side of the island; the coralline rock constantly
protruding through the deep red earth which fills all the
hollows, and is more or less spread over the plains and hill-
sides. The forest vegetation is here of the most luxuriant
character; ferns and palms abound, and the climbing rattans were
more abundant than I had ever seen them, forming tangled festoons
over almost every large forest tree. The cottage I was to occupy
was situated in a large clearing of about a hundred acres, part
of which was already planted with young cacao-trees and plantains
to shade them, while the rest was covered with dead and half-
burned forest trees; and on one side there was a tract where the
trees had been recently felled and were not yet burned.
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