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In January of the year 1545, Ruy Lopez de Villa Lobos, formerly mentioned, came with his Spaniards to the isle of Moro , and the city of Camato, where he was well received by the kings of Gilolo and Tidore, and the people of the country; for I, Antonio Galvano, had then left the Moluccas; and they put the governor Don George de Castro to much trouble, and great expence.
This New Guinea voyage had used us all up, and I determined to stay and recruit before I commenced any fresh expeditions. My succeeding journeys to Gilolo and Batchian have already been narrated, and if; now only remains for me to give an account of my residence in Waigiou, the last Papuan territory I visited in search of Birds of Paradise.
On the 18th May, we passed through between the high land of New Guinea and the island of Gilolo, and on the 20th we made another high island which we took to be Ceram, yet, notwithstanding the skill and experience of Captain Dampier, we were at a loss to know whether it were Ceram or Bouro.
We find, also, that many very characteristic New Guinea forms lave not entered the Moluccas at all, while others found in Ceram and Gilolo do not extend so far west as Bouru.
ON the morning of the 8th of January, 1858, I arrived at Ternate, the fourth of a row of fine conical volcanic islands which shirt the west coast of the large and almost unknown island of Gilolo. The largest and most perfectly conical mountain is Tidore, which is over four thousand Feet high Ternate being very nearly the same height, but with a more rounded and irregular summit.
A curving line, marked out by scores of active, and hundreds of extinct, volcanoes may be traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by the islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna, Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island.
Hitherto, we had found the currents set us to the westward; but in the morning of the 21st, a strong ripling of a current set the vessel considerably to the east-south-east, which may easily be accounted for: the passage between New Guinea and Aigeu was quite open, and bore from us south-east, and I think that the current we now felt is an out-set; and as we had experienced a southerly current ever since we made the island of Morotia, it may be presumed that there is an indraught between the Celebes and Gilolo; and an out-set between Gilolo, New Guinea, and Aigeu, which is called "-Pitt's Passage."
Amboyna, Banda, and Ke; and that of Gilolo, including Morty, Batchian, Obi, Ternate, and other small islands. These divisions have each a considerable number of peculiar species, no less than fifty-five being found in the Ceram group only; and besides this, most of the separate islands have some species peculiar to themselves.
On my return from Waigiou in 1860, I stayed some days on the southern extremity of Gilolo; but, beyond seeing something more of its structure and general character, obtained very little additional information.
Proceeding on the voyage, they saw Batochina on the 8th of February, an island near Gilolo, in the lat. of 1° N. The 14th of that month they fell in with eleven or twelve small flat low islands, almost level with the sea, in lat. 3° 10' S. near the Moluccas.
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