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Updated: May 5, 2025
The showers of spring, the torrential rains of autumn, the snows of winter, have filtered to a depth of several thousand feet. We are not within sight of the grand Causse Mejean, nor of the Black Causse, or Causse Noir, and only on the threshold of Sauveterre, yet some idea may be gathered here of what M. E. Reclus calls a 'Jurassic archipelago, once a vast Jurassic island.
Formerly convulsed by repeated volcanic commotions, this Archipelago contains a great number of craters almost all extinct, or in repose during a long succession of years. The air there is burning, and would be almost unfit to breathe, if frequent rains did not fall and refresh the atmosphere. The natural productions are extremely valuable.
The traveller who reaches those enchanted gates of the Far East which swing open at the palm-girt shores of Ceylon, enters upon a new range of thought and feeling. The first sight of tropical scenery generally awakens a passionate desire for further experiences of the vast Archipelago in the Southern Seas which girdles the Equator with an emerald zone.
On the other hand, the King of Johore, panic-struck on the departure of his Dutch protectors, had burned his own capital, and had betaken himself with all his court into the jungle. Commending the one and rebuking the other potentate, the admiral provided assistance for both, some Dutch trading, vessels having meantime arrived in the archipelago.
And if his grace is not willing to do anything in this matter, and will not consent to come with all his camp and join this fleet, as I have also asked him to do, I summon him, on behalf of the very Catholic and Christian sovereigns, to depart from this land and archipelago of ours forthwith, with all his camp, fleet, and munitions of war, and leave it free and unembarrassed to the said lord thereof.
Within this great island there is an archipelago or cluster of smaller islands, the number of which is not well known; yet the smallest of these is said to be well inhabited, and to abound in cattle. Among these islands there are very uncertain and violent currents, which are by no means safe.
It is under these circumstances that I have considered individual exertion may be usefully applied to rouse the zeal of slumbering philanthropy, and to lead the way to an increased knowledge of the Indian Archipelago. Such an exertion will be made at some cost and some sacrifice; and I shall here quit the general topic, and confine myself to the specific objects of my intended voyage.
These are things to make modern agriculturists hold up their hands and stare; but the same mode of cultivation is not yet entirely in desuetude in some distant parts of North Britain, and may be witnessed in full force and exercise in the Zetland Archipelago. The habitations of the church-feuars were not less primitive than their agriculture.
If we compare, for instance, the number of endemic land-shells in Madeira, or of endemic birds in the Galapagos Archipelago, with the number found on any continent, and then compare the area of the island with that of the continent, we shall see that this is true.
Hence I affirm that as to it, we have a distinct separate problem, which cannot be solved in the lifetime of anybody now living. But it is a problem which need not in the least delay the advent of independence for the other fourteen fifteenths of the inhabitants of the archipelago all Christians living on islands north of Mindanao.
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