There Was A House Close To
The Shore, Built For The Use Of The Resident Of Ternate When He
Made His Official Visits, But Now Occupied By Several Native
Travelling Merchants, Among Whom I Found A Place To Sleep.
The next morning early I went to the village to find the
"Kapala," or head man.
I informed him that I wanted to stay a few
days in the house at the landing, and begged him to have it made
ready for me. He was very civil, and came down at once to get it
cleared, when we found that the traders had already left, on
hearing that I required it. There were no doors to it, so I
obtained the loan of a couple of hurdles to keep out dogs and
other animals. The land here was evidently sinking rapidly, as
shown by the number of trees standing in salt water dead and
dying. After breakfast I started for a walk to the forest-covered
hill above the village, with a couple of boys as guides. It was
exceedingly hot and dry, no rain having fallen for two months.
When we reached an elevation of about two hundred feet, the
coralline rock which fringes the shore was succeeded by a hard
crystalline rock, a kind of metamorphic sandstone. This would
indicate flat there had been a recent elevation of more than two
hundred feet, which had still more recently clanged into a
movement of subsidence. The hill was very rugged, but among dry
sticks and fallen trees I found some good insects, mostly of
forms and species I was already acquainted with from Ternate and
Gilolo. Finding no good paths I returned, and explored the lower
ground eastward of the village, passing through a long range of
plantain and tobacco grounds, encumbered with felled and burnt
logs, on which I found quantities of beetles of the family
Buprestidae of six different species, one of which was new to me.
I then reached a path in the swampy forest where I hoped to find
some butterflies, but was disappointed. Being now pretty well
exhausted by the intense heat, I thought it wise to return and
reserve further exploration for the next day.
When I sat down in the afternoon to arrange my insects, the louse
was surrounded by men, women, and children, lost in amazement at
my unaccountable proceedings; and when, after pinning out the
specimens, I proceeded to write the name of the place on small
circular tickets, and attach one to each, even the old Kapala,
the Mahometan priest, and some Malay traders could not repress
signs of astonishment. If they had known a little more about the
ways and opinions of white men, they would probably have looked
upon me as a fool or a madman, but in their ignorance they
accepted my operations as worthy of all respect, although utterly
beyond their comprehension.
The next day (October 16th) I went beyond the swamp, and found a
place where a new clearing was being made in the virgin forest.
It was a long and hot walk, and the search among the fallen
trunks and branches was very fatiguing, but I was rewarded by
obtaining about seventy distinct species of beetles, of which at
least a dozen were new to me, and many others rare and
interesting.
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