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Updated: June 21, 2025
Rattans from Borneo, sandal-wood and bees'-was from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, cajputi-oil from Bouru, wild nutmegs and mussoi-bark from New Guinea, are all to be found in the stores of the Chinese and Bugis merchants of Macassar, along with the rice and coffee which are the chief products of the surrounding country.
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.
One of these, a native of Bouru, where there are a great many snakes, said he would get him out, and proceeded to work in a businesslike manner. He made a strong noose of rattan, and with a long pole in the other hand poked at the snake, who then began slowly to uncoil itself. He then managed to slip the noose over its head, and getting it well on to the body, dragged the animal down.
My collections in Bouru, though not extensive, were of considerable interest; for out of sixty-six species of birds which I collected there, no less than seventeen were new, or had not been previously found in any island of the Moluccas.
About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with clouds, while its lower lands were still invisible.
The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The Sula Islands, which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach to within forty miles of the north coast of Bouru, while the island of Manipa offers an easy point of departure for the people of Ceram.
I asked him to tell me if he knew of any part of Bouru where there was no "kusu-kusu," as the coarse grass of the country is called. He assured me that a good deal of the south coast was forest land, while along the north was almost entirely swamp and grassy hills.
We went to the horse of the Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna Bouru being too poor a place to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major.
But although the Sula islands belong to Celebes, they are so close to Bouru and the southern islands of the Gilolo group, that several purely Moluccan forms have migrated there, which are quite unknown to the island of Celebes itself; the whole thirteen Moluccan species being in this category, thus adding to the productions of Celebes a foreign element which does not really belong to it.
THE Moluccas consist of three large islands, Gilolo, Ceram, and Bouru, the two former being each about two hundred miles long; and a great number of smaller isles and islets, the most important of which are Batchian, Morty, Obi, Ke, Timor-Laut, and Amboyna; and among the smaller ones, Ternate, Tidore, Kaióa, and Banda.
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