These Again, Combined With Changes In External Conditions, React Upon Structure, And By Means Of "Variation" And "Natural Selection", Both Are Kept In Harmony.

My friends remained three days, and got plenty of wild pigs and two Anoas, but the latter were much injured by the dogs, and I could only preserve the heads.

A grand hunt which we attempted on the third day failed, owing to bad management in driving in the game, and we waited for five hours perched on platforms in trees without getting a shot, although we had been assured that pigs, Babirusas, and Anóas would rush past us in dozens. I myself, with two men, stayed three days longer to get more specimens of the Maleos, and succeeded in preserving twenty-six very fine ones - the flesh and eggs of which supplied us with abundance of good food.

The Major sent a boat, as he had promised, to take home my baggage, while I walked through the forest with my two boys and a guide, about fourteen miles. For the first half of the distance there was no path, and we had often to cut our way through tangled rattans or thickets of bamboo. In some of our turnings to find the most practicable route, I expressed my fear that we were losing our way, as the sun being vertical, I could see no possible clue to the right direction. My conductors, however, laughed at the idea, which they seemed to consider quite ludicrous; and sure enough, about half way, we suddenly encountered a little hut where people from Licoupang came to hunt and smoke wild pigs. My guide told me he had never before traversed the forest between these two points; and this is what is considered by some travellers as one of the savage "instincts," whereas it is merely the result of wide general knowledge. The man knew the topography of the whole district; the slope of the land, the direction of the streams, the belts of bamboo or rattan, and many other indications of locality and direction; and he was thus enabled to hit straight upon the hut, in the vicinity of which he had often hunted. In a forest of which he knew nothing, he would be quite as much at a loss as a European. Thus it is, I am convinced, with all the wonderful accounts of Indians finding their way through trackless forests to definite points; they may never have passed straight between the two particular points before, but they are well acquainted with the vicinity of both, and have such a general knowledge of the whole country, its water system, its soil and its vegetation, that as they approach the point they are to reach, many easily-recognised indications enable them to hit upon it with certainty.

The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get into such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along the ground until they meet with another trunk up which to ascend. A tangled mass of twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited powers of growth, and a single plant may moult up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning- conductor.

The other most interesting object in the forest was a beautiful palm, whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises erect to more than a hundred feet high, with a thickness of only eight or ten inches; while the fan-shaped leaves which compose its crown, are almost complete circles of six or eight feet diameter, borne aloft on long and slender petioles, and beautifully toothed round the edge by the extremities of the leaflets, which are separated only for a few inches from the circumference. It is probably the Livistona rotundifolia of botanists, and is the most complete and beautiful fan-leaf I have ever seen, serving admirably for folding into water-buckets and impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching and other purposes.

A few days afterwards I returned to Menado on horse-back, sending my baggage around by sea; and had just time to pack up all my collections to go by the next mail steamer to Amboyna. I will now devote a few pages to an account of the chief peculiarities of the Zoology of Celebes, and its relation to that of the surrounding countries.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.

THE position of Celebes is the most central in the Archipelago. Immediately to the north are the Philippine islands; on the west is Borneo; on the east are the Molucca islands; and on the south is the Timor group - and it is on all sides so connected with these islands by its own satellites, by small islets, and by coral reefs, that neither by inspection on the map nor by actual observation around its coast, is it possible to determine accurately which should be grouped with it, and which with the surrounding districts. Such being the case, we should naturally expect to find that the productions of this central island in some degree represented the richness and variety of the whole Archipelago, while we should not expect much individuality in a country, so situated, that it would seem as if it were pre- eminently fitted to receive stragglers and immigrants from all around.

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