The Flora And Fauna Of The Tropical East

June 15 8am. We left our anchorage off Surabaya, and steamed down the Madura Strait for Macassar, the capital of Celebes. Along the shores of the strait were many villages of fishermen, and bamboo weirs extending out to a distance of five or six miles from both the Java and Madura shores, and showing well how shallow the water must be so far from land.

During the forenoon it was nearly calm, but the motion of the steamer supplied a pleasant air. In the afternoon the wind rose to a light breeze from the east. At noon we passed Pulo Kambing (“Goat Island”), a small, low coral island off the south coast of Madura. Near by was a fleet of small fishing-boats, each containing two men, who were only protected from the broiling sun by a hat and a narrow cloth about the loins. These boats and other larger ones farther out to sea were extremely narrow, and provided with outriggers.

Madura receives its name from a Hindu legend, which makes it the abode of the demigod, Baladewa. It has but one mountain-range, and that crosses it from north to south. It is, therefore, not well watered,[72] and unsuitable for raising rice; and many of its people have been obliged to migrate to the adjoining fertile shores of Java. The coffee-tree is raised on this island, but the land is best adapted for pasturage of the sapi, which is similar in its habits to our own neat-cattle, and never wallows in mires and morasses like the buffalo. In the mountains on the western part of Java, a wild species, the banteng (Bos sondaicus), is still found. It is not regarded as the source of the sapi, but a fertile cross is obtained from the two, and this intermediate breed is said to be the one used on Bali and Lombok.

The sapi is found on all the islands to and including Timur, on Borneo, Celebes, and the Spice Islands, and has been introduced into the Philippines since their discovery, and now lives in a wild state on Luzon, just as the cattle of the pampas in South America, which have also descended from the domesticated breeds imported by the Spaniards.

On the eastern end of the island, which is quite low, great quantities of salt are obtained by evaporating water in “pans,” or small areas enclosed with low dikes, like rice-fields. It is also manufactured in a similar manner at several places on the north coast of Java and on the western shore of Luzon, in the province of Pangasinan. Generally the coasts of the islands throughout the archipelago are either too high, or so low as to form merely muddy morasses, which are mostly covered with a dense growth of mangroves. In some places on the south coast of Java, sea-water is sprinkled over sand. When this water has evaporated, the process is repeated. The sand is then[73] gathered, and water filtered through it and evaporated by artificial heat.

In Borneo, and among some of the Philippines, marine plants are burned, and the lye made from their ashes is evaporated for the sake of the salt contained in the residuum.

All through the interior, and among the mountains, houses are built for storing it, and officials are appointed to dispose of it to the natives. The quantity yearly manufactured for the government at all the various places is about 40,000 koyangs, or 80,000 tons; but it is not allowed to be shipped and used until it is five years old, and a supply of 200,000 koyangs, or 400,000 tons, is therefore constantly kept on hand. It is deposited in the government store-houses by individuals at one-third of a guilder per picul. It is then transported and sold at a great profit by the government, which monopolizes the traffic in this necessary condiment, and obtains a large portion of its revenue in this manner.[10]

In the afternoon we were abreast the high Tenger (i. e., wide or spacious) mountains. Here is the famous “Sandy Sea,” a strange thing on an island covered with such luxuriant vegetation as everywhere appears in Java. To reach it one has to climb an old volcano to a height of about 7,500 feet above the sea, when he suddenly finds himself on the rim of an old crater of an irregular elliptical form, with a minor[74] axis of three and a half and a major axis of four and a half miles. It is the largest crater in Java, and one of the largest in the world. Its bottom is a level floor of sand, which in some places is drifted by the wind like the sea, and is properly named in Malay the Laut Pasar, or “Sandy Sea.” From this sandy floor rise four cones, where the eruptive force has successively found vent for a time, the greatest being evidently the oldest, and the smallest the present active Bromo, or Brama, from the Sanscrit Brama, the god of fire. The position and relation of this Bromo, as compared to the surrounding crater, is entirely analogous to those that exist between Vesuvius and Monte Somma. The outer walls of this old mountain are of trachytic lava, and Dr. Junghuhn thinks its history may be summed up thus: first, a period when the trachyte was formed; this was followed by a period of trachytic lavas, then of obsidian; fourth, of obsidian and pumice-stone; fifth, the sand period, during which an enormous quantity of sand was thrown out, and the present sandy floor formed with the cones rising from it; and sixth, the present ash-period, during which only fine ashes are thrown out from time to time, and steam and sulphurous acid gas are constantly emitted.

The earliest descriptions of this crater represent it nearly as it is seen at the present day; but great eruptions, similar to the one supposed to have occurred, have been witnessed by Europeans since they first came to Java. In the year 1772 the volcano Papandayang, which is near the south coast of Java, and about in Long. 108° E., threw out such an[75] immense quantity of scoriæ and ashes, that Dr. Junghuhn thinks a layer nearly fifty feet thick was spread over an area within a radius of seven miles; and yet all this was thrown out during a single night. Forty native villages were buried beneath it, and about three thousand souls are supposed to have perished between this single setting and rising of the sun. Dr. Horsfield, who drew up an account of this terrible phenomenon from the stories of the natives, wrongly supposed that “an extent of ground, of the mountain and its environs, fifteen miles long, and full six broad, was by this commotion swallowed up within the bowels of the earth.”

On the 8th of July, 1822, Mount Galunggong, an old volcano, but a few miles northeast of Papandayang, suffered a far more terrible and destructive eruption. At noon on that day not a cloud could be seen in the sky. The wild beasts gladly sought the friendly shades of the dense forest; the hum of myriads of insects was hushed, and not a sound was to be heard over the highly-cultivated declivities of this mountain, or over the rich adjoining plain, but the dull creaking of some native cart drawn by the sluggish buffalo. The natives, under shelter of their rude huts, were giving themselves up to indolent repose, when suddenly a frightful thundering was heard in the earth; and from the top of this old volcano a dark, dense mass was seen rising higher and higher into the air, and spreading itself out over the clear sky with such an appalling rapidity that in a few moments the whole landscape was shrouded in the darkness of night.

[76]

Through this thick darkness flashes of lightning gleamed in a hundred lines, and many natives were instantly struck down to the earth by stones falling from the sky. Then a deluge of hot water and flowing mud rose over the rim of the old crater, and poured down the mountain-sides, sweeping away trees and beasts and human bodies in its seething mass. At the same moment, stones and ashes and sand were projected to an enormous height into the air, and, as they fell, destroyed nearly every thing within a radius of more than twenty miles. A few villages, that were situated on high hills on the lower declivities of the mountain, strangely escaped the surrounding destruction by being above the streams of hot water and flowing mud, while most of the stones and ashes and sand that were thrown out passed completely over them, and destroyed many villages that were farther removed from the centre of this great eruption.

The thundering was first heard at half-past one o’clock. At four the extreme violence of the eruption was past; at five the sky began to grow clear once more, and the same sun that at noon had shed his life-giving light over this rich landscape, at evening was casting his rays over the same spot then changed into a scene of utter desolation. A second eruption followed within five days, and by that time more than twenty thousand persons had lost their lives.

When the mountain could be ascended, a great valley was found, which Dr. Junghuhn considers analogous to the “Val del Bove” on the flanks of[77] Ætna, except that a great depression among these movable materials could not have such high, precipitous walls as are seen in that deep gulf. This eruption was quite like that of Papandayang, except that there was a lake in the bottom of this crater which supplied the hot water and the mud, while all the materials thrown out by the former volcano were in a dry state. In a similar way it is supposed the great crater and the “Sandy Sea” of the Tenger Mountains were formed in ancient times. On these Tenger Mountains live a peculiar people, who speak a dialect of the Javanese, and, despite the zealous efforts of the Mohammedan priests, still retain their ancient Hindu religion.

In the evening, fires appeared on the hills near the sea. This was the last we saw of Java, which, though but one-sixth of the area of Borneo, and one-third that of Sumatra, is by far the most important island in the archipelago. It is to the East Indies what Cuba is to the West Indies. In each there is a great central chain of mountains. Both shores of Cuba are opposite small bodies of water, and are continuously low and swampy for miles, but in Java only the north coast borders on a small sea. This shore is low, but the southern coast, on the margin of the wide Indian Ocean that stretches away to the Antarctic lands, is high and bold, an exception which is in accordance with the rule that the higher elevations are opposite the greater oceans, or, more properly, that they stand along the borders of the ocean-beds or greatest depressions on the surface of our globe. In Java, where the coast is rocky,[78] the rocks are hard volcanic basalts and trachytes, which resist the action of the sea, and the shore-line is therefore quite regular; but in Cuba there is a fringing of soft coral rock, which the waves quickly wear away into hundreds of little projecting headlands and bays, and on the map the island has a ragged border. In its geological structure, Cuba, with its central axis of mica slates, granitic rocks, serpentines, and marbles, has a more perfect analogue in Sumatra; for in Java the mountains, instead of being formed by elevations of preëxisting strata, are merely heaps of scoriæ, ashes, sand, and rock, once fluid, which have all been ejected out of separate and distinct vents. The area of Java is estimated at 38,250 square geographical miles; that of Cuba at about 45,000. The length of Java is 575 geographical or 666 statute miles; that of Cuba 750 statute miles. But while the total population of Cuba is estimated only at a million and a half, the total population of Java and Madura is now (1865), according to official statements, 13,917,368.[11] In 1755, after fifteen years of civil war, the total population of Java and Madura was but 2,001,911. In a single century, therefore, it has increased more than sixfold. This is one of the beneficial effects of a government that can put down rebellions and all internal wars, and encourage industry. In Cuba, of a total area of thirty million acres, it was estimated, in 1857, that only 48,572 were under cultivation, or,[79] including pasturage, 218,161 acres. In Java and Madura, last year (1864), the cultivated fields and the groves of cocoa-nut palms covered an area of 2,437,037 acres. In Cuba, from 1853 to 1858, the yearly exports were from 27,000,000 to 32,000,000 of dollars, and the imports of about the same value. In Java, last year, the imports amounted to 66,846,412 guilders (26,738,565 dollars); and the exports to the enormous sum of 123,094,798 guilders (49,237,919 dollars). During 1864 twenty-four ships arrived from the United States, of 12,610 tons’ capacity, and three sailed for our country, of a united capacity of 2,258 tons.[12]

Both of these great islands abound in forests, that yield large quantities of valuable timber. Java furnishes the indestructible teak, from which the Malays and Javanese fitted out a fleet of three hundred vessels that besieged Malacca, two years after it had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese. In like manner the Spaniards, between 1724 and 1796, built with timber from the forests of Cuba an armada that numbered one hundred and fourteen vessels, carrying more than four thousand guns. From the Cuban forests come the indestructible lignum-vitæ, and the beautiful mahogany. Those jungles shelter no wild animals larger than dogs, but these in Java are the haunts of wild oxen, tigers, one large and two small species of leopard, the rhinoceros, two wild species of hog, and five species of weasel. Two of the latter yield musk; and one, the Viverra musanga,[80] of the size of a cat, is also found in the Philippines. Six species of deer are found on this island, and two of them, the Cervus rufa and Cervus mantjac, are sometimes domesticated.[13] The elephant is not found in Java, though it lives in Sumatra, Borneo, and the peninsula. Also the wild horse of Sumatra or Celebes does not exist in Java.

Among the more noticeable birds of Java is a beautiful species of peacock, the Pavo spicifer. It was represented to me as quite abundant in some places along the south coast. The natives make very beautiful cigar-holders from fine strips of its quills. In Sumatra it is not found, but is represented by an allied species. Of pigeons, Java has no less than ten species. The web-footed birds are remarkably few in species and numbers. A single duck, a teal, and two pelicans, are said to comprise the whole number. The white heron has already been noticed, and besides this, ten other species have been described. One of the smallest birds in Java, and yet, perhaps, the most important, from its great numbers, is the rice-eater, Fringilla oryzivora, a kind of sparrow. Great flocks of these birds are continually annoying the Malays as soon as the rice is nearly grown. The[81] natives have a very simple and effective mode of driving them away. In the midst of a field a little bamboo house, sufficient to shelter its occupant from the rain and scorching sunshine, is perched high up on poles above the rice-stalks. Around each field are placed rows of tall, flexible stakes, which are connected together by a string. Many radiating lines of such stakes extend from the house to those along the borders, and the child or old person on watch has simply to pull any set of these lines in order to frighten away the birds from any part of the field. There are seven species of owls, and when the hooting of one is heard near any house, many of the natives believe that sickness or some other misfortune will certainly come to the inmates of that dwelling. Of eagles and falcons, or kites, eight species are mentioned. One of the kites is very abundant at all the anchorages, and so tame as to light on the rigging of a ship quite near where the sailors are working. When it has caught any offal in its long talons, it does not fly away at once to a perch to consume the delicious morsel at its leisure, like many birds of prey, but is so extremely greedy that it tears off pieces with its beak and swallows them as it slowly sails along in the air.

When we begin to examine the luxuriant flora of these tropical islands, almost the first tree that we notice by the shore is the tall, graceful cocoa-nut palm. Occasionally it is found in small clumps, far from the abode of man, for instead of being reared by his care, it often comes to maturity alone, and then invites him to take up his abode beneath its shade, by[82] offering him at the same time its fruit for food, and its leaves as ample thatching for the only kind of a hut which he thinks he needs in an unchanging, tropical climate.

As it stands along the shore, it invariably inclines toward its parent, the sea, for borne on the waves came the nut from which it sprang, and now fully grown, it seeks to make a due return to its ancestor by leaning over the shore and dropping into the ocean’s bosom rich clusters of its golden fruit. Here, buoyed up by a thick husk which is covered with a water-tight skin, the living kernel safely floats over the calm and the stormy sea, until some friendly wave casts it high up on a distant beach. The hot sun then quickly enables it to thrust out its rootlets into the genial soil of coral sand and fragments of shells, and in a few years it too is seen tossing its crest of plumes high over the white surf, which in these sunny climes everywhere forms the margin of the deep-blue ocean.

When the nut is young, the shell is soft and not separate from the husk. In a short time it turns from a pale green to a light yellow. The shell is now formed, and on its inner side is a thin layer, so soft that it can be cut with a spoon. The natives now call it klapa muda, or the young cocoa-nut, and they rarely eat it except in this condition. As it grows older, the exterior becomes of a wood-color, the husk is dry, and the shell hard and surrounded on the inside with a thick, tough, oily, and most indigestible layer, popularly known as “the meat” of the nut. This is the condition in which it is brought to our[83] markets, but the Malays seldom or never think of eating it in this condition, and only value it for its oil. To obtain this the nut is broken, and the meat scraped out with a knife. This pulp is then boiled in a large pan, when the oil separates, floats on the top, and is skimmed off. This oil is almost the only substance used for lighting in the East, where far more lights are kept burning, in proportion to the foreign population, than in our own temperate zone, notwithstanding our long winter evenings, it being the custom there for each man to light his house and veranda very brilliantly every evening; and, if it is a festive occasion, rows of lamps must be placed throughout his grounds.

The natives also are fond of such display. The common lamp which they have for burning cocoa-nut oil is nothing but a glass tumbler. This is partly filled with water, a small quantity of oil is then poured in, and on this float two small splints that support a piece of pith in a vertical position for a wick. When the oil is first made, it has a sweet, rich taste, but in such a hot climate it soon becomes extremely rancid, and that used for cooking should not be more than two or three days old. The cool, clear water which the young nuts contain is a most refreshing drink in those hot climates, far preferable, according to my taste, to the warm, muddy water usually found in all low lands within the tropics. Especially can one appreciate it when, exposed to the burning sun on a low coral island, he longs for a single draught from the cold sparkling streams among his native New-England hills. He looks[84] around him and realizes that he is surrounded by the salt waters of the ocean—then one of his dark attendants, divining his desire, climbs the smooth trunk of a lofty palm, and brings down, apparently from the sky, a nectar delicious enough for the gods.

This tree is of such importance to the natives that the Dutch officials are required to ascertain as nearly as possible the number of them in their several districts. In 1861 there were in Java and Madura nearly twenty millions of these trees, or more than three to every two natives.

Near the cocoa-nut grows the Pandanus, or “screw-pine,” which may be correctly described as a trunk with branches at both ends. There are two species of it widely distributed over the archipelago. The flowers of one, the P. odoratissimus, are very fragrant and highly prized among the Malays. In some places mats and baskets are made from its leaves. Its woody fruit is of a spherical form, from four to six inches in diameter, and its surface is divided with geometrical precision by projections of a pointed pyramidal or diamond shape.

On the low lands, back from the shore, where the soil has been enriched with vegetable mould, the banana thrives. Unlike the cocoa-nut tree, it is seldom seen where it has not been planted by the hand of man. The traveller, therefore, who is worn out with his long wanderings through the thick, almost impassable, jungles, beholds with delight the long, green, drooping leaves of this tree. He knows that he is near some native hut where he can find a shelter from the hot sun, and slake his thirst with[85] the water of the cocoa-nut, and appease his hunger on bananas and boiled rice, a simple and literally a frugal meal. Out of the midst of these drooping leaves hangs down the top of the main stem, with its fruit decreasing in size to the end. Some near the base are already changing from a dark green to a bright golden yellow. Those are filled with delicious juices, and they melt in your mouth like a delicately-flavored cream. Such bananas as can be purchased in our markets have been so bruised, and taste so little like this fruit at its home in the tropics, or at least in the East Indian islands, that they scarcely serve to remind one of what he has been accustomed to enjoy. The number of the varieties of bananas and the difference between them is as great as among apples in our own land.

Botanists call this tree the Musa paradisiaca, for its fruit is so constantly ripening throughout the year, and is such a common article of food, that it corresponds well to “the tree that yielded her fruit every month,” and whose “leaves were for the healing of the nations.”

Besides these plants, there are also seen on the low lands Aroideæ, Amaranthaceæ, papilionaceous or leguminous plants, and poisonous Euphorbiaceæ. The papaw (Carica papaya) thrives luxuriantly on most soils. The natives are always fond of it, and I found it a most palatable fruit, but the Europeans in the East generally consider it a too coarse or common fruit to be placed on the table. It was evidently introduced by the Portuguese and Spanish from[86] the West Indies, and the Malay name papaya comes from the Spanish papayo.

At the height of one thousand feet ferns appear in very considerable numbers, and here also the useful bamboo grows in abundance, though it is found all the way down to the level of the sea. Practically this is a tree, but botanically it is grass, though it sometimes attains a height of seventy or eighty feet. It is used by the natives for the walls of their huts. For this purpose it is split open and pressed out flat, and other perpendicular and horizontal pieces hold it in place. It is also used for masts, spear-handles, baskets, vessels of all kinds, and for so many other necessary articles, that it seems almost indispensable to them. Its outer surface becomes so hard when partially burned, that it will take a sharp, almost cutting edge, and the weapons of the natives were probably all made in this manner previous to the introduction of iron. At the present time sharpened stakes, ranjaus, of this kind are driven into the ground in the tall grass surrounding a ladang or garden, so that any native with naked feet (except the owner) will spear himself in attempting to approach. I saw one man, on the island of Bum, who had received a frightful, ragged wound in this way.

Above one thousand feet the palms, bananas, and papilionaceous plants become fewer, and are replaced by the lofty fig or waringin, which, with its high top and long branches, rivals the magnificent palms by the sea-shore. The liquidambar also accompanies the fig. Orchidaceous plants of the most wonderful forms appear on the forest-trees, and are fastened[87] to them so closely, that they seem to be parts of them. Here the ferns also are seen in great variety. Loranthaceæ and Melanostomaceæ are found in this zone. To this region belongs the beautiful cotton-wood tree. Its trunk is seldom more than ten or twelve inches in diameter, and rises up almost perpendicularly thirty feet. The bark is of a light olive-green, and remarkably smooth and fair. The limbs shoot out in whorls at right angles to the trunk, and, as they are separated by a considerable space, their open foliage is in strong contrast to the dark, dense jungle out of which they usually rise. They thrive well also along the banks of rivers. In Java these trees are frequently used as telegraph-posts—a purpose for which they are admirably adapted on account of their regularity. Besides, any thing but a living post would quickly decay in these tropical lands. The fruit is a pod, and the fibrous substance it yields is quite like cotton. I found it very suitable for stuffing birds.

Over this region of the fig comes that of oaks and laurels. Orchidaceous plants and melastomas are more abundant here.

Above five or six thousand feet are Rubiaceæ, heaths, and cone-bearing trees; and from this region we pass up into one where small ferns abound, and lichens and mosses cover the rocks and hang from the trees. The tropical world is now beneath us, and we are in the temperate zone.

The tops of all those volcanic mountains that are still in a state of eruption are usually bare; and in others so large a quantity of the sulphur they produce[88] is washed down their sides by the rains that the vegetation is frequently destroyed for some distance below their summits.

One of the great privileges of a residence in the tropics is to enjoy the delicious fruits of those regions in all their perfection. Of all those fruits, in my opinion, the mangostin ought unquestionably to be considered the first. This tree, a Garcinia, is about the size of a pear-tree. Its Malay name is manggusta, whence our own, but it is more generally known in the archipelago by the Javanese name manggis. It flourishes in most of the islands from the south coast of Java to Mindanao, the southernmost of the Philippines. On the continent it yields well as far up the Peninsula of Malacca as Bankok, in Siam, and in the interior to 16° N., but on the coast of the Bay of Bengal only to 14° N. The attempts to introduce it into India have failed, but the fruit is sometimes sent from Singapore after it has been carefully coated with wax to exclude the air. In Ceylon they have only partially succeeded in cultivating it. All the trials to raise it in the West Indies have proved unsuccessful, so that this, the best of all tropical fruits, is never seen on our continent. Its limited geographical range is the more remarkable, for it is frequently seen flourishing in the East Indian islands on all kinds of soils, and there is reason to suppose that it has been introduced into the Philippines within a comparatively late period, for in 1685 Dampier did not notice it on Mindanao. The fruit is of a spherical form, and a reddish-brown color. The outer part is a thick, tough[89] covering containing a white, opaque centre an inch or more in diameter. This is divided into four or five parts, each of which usually contains a small seed. This white part has a slightly-sweet taste, and a rich yet delicate flavor, which is entirely peculiar to itself. It tastes perhaps more like the white interior of a checkerberry than any other fruit in our temperate climate. The thick covering is dried by the natives and used for an astringent.

FRUIT MARKET.

Several fruits claim the second place in this scale. Some Europeans would place the rambutan next the mangostin, and others would prefer the mango or the duku. The rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum) is nearly as large as an apple-tree. The fruit is globular in form, and an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. The outside is a bright-red rind, ornamented with coarse, scattered bristles. Within is a semi-transparent pulp, of a slightly acid taste, surrounding the seed. This tree, like the durian and the mangostin, is wholly confined to the archipelago, and its acid fruit is most refreshing in those hot lands. At Batavia it is so abundant in February and March, that great quantities almost line the streets in the market parts of the city, and small boats are seen filled to overflowing with this bright, strawberry-colored fruit.

The mango-tree (Mangifera indica) is a large, thickly-branching tree, with bright-green leaves.

Its fruit is of an elliptical form, and contains a flat stone of the same shape. Before it is ripe it is so keenly acid, that it needs only to be preserved in salt water to be a nice pickle for the table, especially with the[90] universal curry.

As it ripens, the interior changes from green to white, and then to a bright yellow. A tough outer skin being removed, there is seen a soft, almost pulpy, but somewhat fibrous mass within. Some of these fruits are extremely rich, and quite aromatic, while others have a sharp smack of turpentine. They even vary greatly in two localities, which may be but a few miles apart.

Rumphius informs us that it was introduced into the moluccas by the Dutch in 1655.

It has also been introduced into Zanzibar and Madagascar.

When the Spaniards first visited the Philippines it was not noticed, but now it is very common in those islands, and considerable quantities of it are shipped to China, where I was frequently assured it was very delicious; but those who have tasted this or any other tropical fruit from only one locality are by no means competent judges.

At Singapore I found some very nice ones that had been brought down from Siam. It also flourishes in India, and Mr. Crawfurd thinks, from the fact that the Malay and Javanese names are evidently only corruptions of the old Sanscrit, that it was originally brought into the archipelago from the continent, and should not be regarded as indigenous.

The duku is another highly-esteemed fruit. The tree is tall, and bears a loose foliage. From its trunk and limbs little branchlets grow out, bearing in long clusters the fruit, which is about the size of a robin’s egg. The outer coating of this fruit is thin and leathery, and of a dull-yellow color. This contains several long seeds, surrounded by a transparent pulp, which is sweet or pleasantly acid. The seeds themselves[91] are intensely bitter. The natives, however, invariably prefer the durian to all other fruits. The Durio zibethinus is a very large tree. Its fruit is spherical in form, six or eight inches in diameter, and generally covered with many sharply-pointed tubercles. This exterior is a hard shell. Within it is divided into several parts. On breaking the shell, a seed, as large as a chestnut, is found in each division, surrounded by a pale-yellow substance of the consistency of thick cream, and having an odor of putrid animal matter, so strong that a single fruit is enough to infect the air in a large house. In the season for this fruit the whole atmosphere in the native villages is filled with this detestable odor. The taste of this soft, salvy, half-clotted substance is well described by Mr. Crawfurd as like “fresh cream and filberts.” It seems paradoxical to state that the same substance may violate a man’s sense of smell, and yet gratify his sense of taste at the same time, but the natives certainly are most passionately fond of it, and I once met a foreigner who assured me that when he had once smelled this fruit he could never be satisfied till he had eaten some of it. Its simple odor is generally quite enough for all Europeans. It thrives well in Sumatra, Java, the Spice Islands, and Celebes, and is found as far north as Mindanao. On the continent forests of it exist on the Malay Peninsula, and it is successfully raised as far north in Siam as the thirteenth or fourteenth parallel. On the coast of the Bay of Bengal it is grown as far north as Tenasserim, in Lat. 14° N. It flourishes well on all the kinds of soils in this area, but all attempts have failed to introduce[92] it into India and also into the West Indies. Its Malay name durian comes from duri, a thorn, and is thus applied on account of the sharp, thorny points of the pyramidal tubercles that cover its shell. The fact, that the Malay name is the one used wherever the fruit is known, indicates that it originated in a Malay country, and this view is strengthened by the circumstance that, while I was crossing Sumatra, I passed through large forests mostly composed of these trees in the high lands near the sources of the Palembang River.

Another far-famed fruit is the bread-fruit. It grows on a tree, the Artocarpus incisa, which attains a height of forty or fifty feet. It will be noticed at once by the stranger, on account of its enormous, sharply-lobed leaves, which are frequently a foot wide and a foot and a half long. The fruit has nearly the form of a melon, and is attached by its stem directly to the trunk or limbs. It is regarded of little value by the Malays, but farther east, in the Society Islands, and other parts of the South Sea, it furnishes the natives with their chief sustenance. Just before it is ripe it is cut into slices and fried, and eaten with a thick, black molasses, obtained by boiling down the sap of the gomuti-palm. When prepared in this manner it tastes somewhat like a potato, except that it is very fibrous. The seeds of this fruit in the South Sea are said, when roasted, to be as nice as chestnuts, but I never saw the Malays make any use of them. From the Pacific Islands it has been introduced into the West Indies and tropical America. Another species of this genus, the A. integrifolia, bears the huge[93] “jack-fruit,” which very closely resembles the bread-fruit. Sometimes it attains a weight of nearly seventy-five pounds, so that one is a good load for a coolie. The only part which the natives eat is a sweet, pulpy substance enveloping each seed.

June 16th.—This morning the gigantic mountain on Bali, Gunung Agung, or “The Great Mountain,” towered up abeam of us against the southern sky. According to Mr. Crawford it attains an elevation of twelve thousand three hundred and seventy-nine feet, or four hundred and thirty-three feet higher than the far-famed Peak of Teneriffe.

These mountains are only a continuation of the chain which traverses Java, and Bali may be regarded as almost a part of Java, as it has quite the same flora and fauna, and is only separated from that island by a narrow strait. Here the Asiatic fauna of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java reaches its most eastern boundary. On Lombok, the next island eastward, a wholly different fauna is seen, having well-marked affinities with that of Australia. According to the traditions of the Javanese, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, and Sumbawa, were all formerly united, and afterward separated into nine different parts, and when three thousand rainy reasons shall have passed away they will be reunited. The dates of these separations are given as follows:

Palembang (the eastern end of Sumatra) from Java, A. D. 1192.

Bali from Balembangan (the eastern end of Java), A. D. 1282.

Lombok from Sumbawa, A. D. 1350.

[94]

All these dates are absurdly recent, and besides, the separations, in all probability, did not occur in the order given above. When we compare the fauna of the continent with that of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, we find that Sumatra has the greatest number of species identical with those of the Peninsula of Malacca; that Borneo has a somewhat less proportion, and that Java has the largest number peculiar to itself. Thence we conclude that Java was the first of these islands that was separated from the continent, that Borneo was next detached, and Sumatra at the latest period. Bali was probably separated from Java at a yet more recent date.

Mr. Sclater was the first to notice the fact that the dividing line between the Asiatic fauna and that of Australia must be drawn down the Strait of Macassar, and this observation has only been confirmed by all who have collected in those regions since. Mr. A. R. Wallace further ascertained that this line should be continued southward, through the Strait of Lombok, between the island of that name and Bali. He visited the latter island, and thus contrasts its birds with those of Lombok: “In Bali we have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers; on passing over to Lombok these are seen no more, but we have an abundance of cockatoos, honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys (Megapodiidæ), which are equally unknown in Bali, and every island farther west. The strait here is but fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from one great division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America.”

[95]

The royal tiger of Sumatra and Java is also found on that part of Bali nearest Java, but neither this nor any other feline animal exists on Lombok.

Monkeys, squirrels, civets, and others are seen west of this dividing line, but not east of it. Wild hogs are distributed over all the larger islands from Sumatra to New Guinea, and even occur as far eastward as Ceram. The flora of these islands is not divided in this manner, but maintains quite the same character from the northern end of Timur to the eastern end of Java.

In 1845 Mr. Earl pointed out the fact that Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, all stand on a plateau which is only covered by a shallow sea. They therefore not only were formerly connected, as the similarity of their faunæ shows, but are at the present day, and a line on the map, which indicates where the sea reaches a depth of one hundred fathoms, shows exactly where the great basins of the Pacific and Indian Oceans really begin. Northward this line unites the Philippines to Asia, and also proves that Formosa, the Lew-Chew and Japanese Islands, and the Kuriles, are all parts of the same great continent. Judging from what is known of their fauna, Mr. Wallace thinks the separation of the Philippines from the continent occurred before that of Java, and since that epoch they have undergone very considerable changes in their physical geography.

In 1478, when the Hindu religion was driven out of Java, it took refuge in Bali, where it exists to the present day. The natives here, as in India, are divided into four castes. The first and highest[96] includes only the priests; the second, the soldiers; the third, the merchants; and the fourth, and lowest, comprises the common laborers. According to Mr. Crawford, who visited the island, the wives of the soldiers frequently sacrifice themselves by stabbing with the kris, and the body is afterward burned, and “with the princes, the sacrifice of one or two women is indispensable.” The high mountains on Bali contain a number of lakes or tarns, which supply many streams, and the natives are thus enabled to irrigate their land so completely, that about twenty thousand tons of rice are annually exported to other parts of the archipelago, after a population of nearly three-quarters of a million is supplied. In 1861 Java had only a population of three hundred and twenty-five to a square mile, while Bali was supposed to have nearly five hundred, and it is probably the most densely populated island in these seas at the present time.

The Hindu religion also prevails over a part of Lombok. On this island a huge mountain rises up, according to the trigonometrical measurements of Baron van Carnbée, to a height of twelve thousand three hundred and sixty English feet, and probably overtops every other lofty peak in the whole archipelago.