I Put Up The Smallest Quantity Of Baggage Possible For A Six
Days' Trip, And On The Morning Of December
18th we left Makariki,
with six men carrying my baggage and their own provisions, and a
lad from Awaiya, who
Was accustomed to catch butterflies for me.
My two Amboyna hunters I left behind to shoot and skin what birds
they could while I was away. Quitting the village, we first
walked briskly for an hour through a dense tangled undergrowth,
dripping wet from a storm of the previous night, and full of mud
holes. After crossing several small streams we reached one of the
largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was necessary to
cross. It was both deep and rapid. The baggage was first taken
over, parcel by parcel, on the men's heads, the water reaching
nearly up to their armpits, and then two men returned to assist
me. The water was above my waist, and so strong that I should
certainly have been carried off my feet had I attempted to cross
alone; and it was a matter of astonishment to me how the men
could give me any assistance, since I found the greatest
difficulty in getting my foot down again when I had once moved it
off the bottom. The greater strength and grasping power of their
feet, from going always barefoot, no doubt gave them a surer
footing in the rapid water.
After well wringing out our wet clothes and putting them on, we
again proceeded along a similar narrow forest track as before,
choked with rotten leaves and dead trees, and in the more open
parts overgrown with tangled vegetation. Another hour brought us
to a smaller stream flowing in a wide gravelly bed, up which our
road lay. Here w e stayed half an hour to breakfast, and then
went on, continually crossing the stream, or walking on its stony
and gravelly banks, till about noon, when it became rocky and
enclosed by low hills. A little further we entered a regular
mountain-gorge, and had to clamber over rocks, and every moment
cross and recross the water, or take short cuts through the
forest. This was fatiguing work; and about three in the
afternoon, the sky being overcast, and thunder in the mountains
indicating an approaching storm, we had to loon out for a camping
place, and soon after reached one of Mr. Rosenberg's old ones.
The skeleton of his little sleeping-hut remained, and my men cut
leaves and made a hasty roof just as the rain commenced. The
baggage was covered over with leaves, and the men sheltered
themselves as they could till the storm was over, by which time a
flood came down the river, which effectually stopped our further
march, even had we wished to proceed. We then lighted fires; I
made some coffee, and my men roasted their fish and plantains,
and as soon as it was dark, we made ourselves comfortable for the
night.
Starting at six the next morning, we had three hours of the same
kind of walking, during which we crossed the river at least
thirty or forty times, the water being generally knee-deep. This
brought us to a place where the road left the stream, and here we
stopped to breakfast. We then had a long walk over the mountain,
by a tolerable path, which reached an elevation of about fifteen
hundred feet above the sea. Here I noticed one of the smallest
and most elegant tree ferns I had ever seen, the stem being
scarcely thicker than my thumb, yet reaching a height of fifteen
or twenty feet. I also caught a new butterfly of the genus
Pieris, and a magnificent female specimen of Papilio gambrisius,
of which I had hitherto only found the males, which are smaller
and very different in colour. Descending the other side of the
ridge, by a very steep path, we reached another river at a spot
which is about the centre of the island, and which was to be our
resting place for two or three days. In a couple of hour my men
had built a little sleeping-shed for me, about eight feet by
four, with a bench of split poles, they themselves occupying two
or three smaller ones, which had been put up by former
passengers.
The river here was about twenty yards wide, running over a pebbly
and sometimes a rocky bed, and bordered by steep hills with
occasionally flat swampy spots between their base and the stream.
The whole country was one dense, Unbroken, and very damp and
gloomy virgin forest. Just at our resting-place there was a
little bush-covered island in the middle of the channel, so that
the opening in the forest made by the river was wider than usual,
and allowed a few gleams of sunshine to penetrate. Here there
were several handsome butterflies flying about, the finest of
which, however, escaped me, and I never saw it again during my
stay. In the two days and a half which we remained here, I
wandered almost all day up and down the stream, searching after
butterflies, of which I got, in all, fifty or sixty specimens,
with several species quite new to me. There were many others
which I saw only once, and did not capture, causing me to regret
that there was no village in these interior valleys where I could
stay a month. In the early part of each morning I went out with
my gun in search of birds, and two of my men were out almost all
day after deer; but we were all equally unsuccessful, getting
absolutely nothing the whole time we were in the forest. The only
good bird seen was the fine Amboyna lory, but these were always
too high to shoot; besides this, the great Moluccan hornbill,
which I did not want, was almost the only bird met with. I saw
not a single ground-thrush, or kingfisher, or pigeon; and, in
fact, have never been in a forest so utterly desert of animal
life as this appeared to be.
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