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When I first came I had sent back my boat by the pilot, with two or three other men who had been glad of the opportunity. I now took advantage of a Government boat which had just arrived with rice for the troops, and obtained permission to return in her, and accordingly started on the 13th of April, having resided only a week short of six months on the island of Batchian.
The cocoa-nut tree, when well grown, is certainly the prince of palms both for beauty and utility. During my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I had seen sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly of a dark colour marked with white and yellow spots.
The fact that so many of the islands between New Guinea and the Moluccas such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit.
The forest had a dense luxuriance and loftiness seldom found on the dry and porous lavas and raised coral reefs of Ternate and Gilolo; and hoping for a corresponding richness in the birds and insects, it was with much satisfaction and with considerable expectation that I began my explorations in the hitherto unknown island of Batchian.
The islands of Obi, Batchian, and the three southern peninsulas of Gilolo, possess no true indigenous population; but the northern peninsula is inhabited by a native race, the so-called Alfuros of Sahoe and Galela. These people are quite distinct from the Malays, and almost equally so from the Papuans.
I had now a variety of walks, and a good deal of dead wood on which to search for insects; but notwithstanding these advantages, they were not nearly so plentiful as I had found them at Sarawak, or Amboyna, or Batchian, confirming my opinion that Dorey was not a good locality.
After passing amidst the islands of Caioan, Laigoma, Sico, Giofi, Cafi, Laboan, Toliman, Batchian, Mata, and Batu, the Victoria left this latter island to the west, and steering west-south-west, stopped during the night at the island of Xulla or Zulla.
Two months afterwards eight of the male survivors took passage in a prahu belonging to the Sultan of Batchian, having heard that there was a French ship refitting at that island. "Why did the two others remain?" asked Mr. Dacre. The natives laughed. "Ah! the one man who stayed was a clever man.
The reverse is the case in South America, where the mixture of the Portuguese or Brazilian with the Indian produces the "Mameluco," who is not unfrequently lighter than either parent, and always lighter than the Indian. The women at Batchian, although generally fairer than the men, are coarse in features, and very far inferior in beauty to the mixed Dutch-Malay girls, or even to many pure Malays.
They probably did not grow it in sufficient quantity, and did not persevere sufficiently long. Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researches of a botanist better than any other in the whole Archipelago.
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