We Now Had Seven Or Eight Days Of Hot And Dry Weather, Which
Reduced The Little River To A Succession Of Shallow Pools
Connected By The Smallest Possible Thread Of Trickling Water.
If
there were a dry season like that of Macassar, the Aru Islands
would be uninhabitable, as there is no part of them much above a
hundred feet high; and the whole being a mass of porous coralline
rock, allows the surface water rapidly to escape.
The only dry
season they have is for a month or two about September or
October, and there is then an excessive scarcity of water, so
that sometimes hundreds of birds and other animals die of
drought. The natives then remove to houses near the sources of
the small streams, where, in the shady depths of the forest, a
small quantity of water still remains. Even then many of them
have to go miles for their water, which they keep in large
bamboos and use very sparingly. They assure me that they catch
and kill game of all kinds, by watching at the water holes or
setting snares around them. That would be the time for me to make
my collections; but the want of water would be a terrible
annoyance, and the impossibility of getting away before another
whole year had passed made it out of the question.
Ever since leaving Dobbo I had suffered terribly from insects,
who seemed here bent upon revenging my long-continued persecution
of their race.
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