I Have Been Able
To Prove This In Considerable Detail By My Observations On The
Natural History Of The Various
Parts of the Archipelago; and, as
in the description of my travels and residence in the several
islands I shall
Have to refer continually to this view, and
adduce facts in support of it, I have thought it advisable to
commence with a general sketch of the main features of the
Malayan region as will render the facts hereafter brought forward
more interesting, and their bearing upon the general question
more easily understood. I proceed, therefore, to sketch the
limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out the more
striking features of its geology, physical geography, vegetation,
and animal life.
Definition and Boundaries. - For reasons which depend mainly on
the distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago
to include the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenasserim and the
Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and
the Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the
great islands included within these limits are connected together
by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be
distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all
enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a
luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we study their form and
distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to island,
our first impression will be that they form a connected whole,
all the parts of which are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands. - The Malay Archipelago
extends for more than 4,000 miles in length from east to west,
and is about 1,300 in breadth from north to south. It would
stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe from the
extreme west far into Central Asia, or would cover the widest
parts of South America, and extend far beyond the land into the
Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands larger
than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the
British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea
of forests. New Guinea, though less compact in shape, is probably
larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great
Britain; Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of
Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as
Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight;
while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater
than that contained by Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but,
owing to the manner in which the land is broken up and divided,
the variety of its productions is rather in proportion to the
immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the
quantity of land which they contain.
Geological Contrasts. - One of the chief volcanic belts upon the
globe passes through the Archipelago, and produces a striking
contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-volcanic islands.
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. Here there
is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles
to the westward, where the volcanic belt begins again in North
Celebes, and passes by Sian and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands
along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line,
to their northern extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of
this belt at Banda, we pass onwards for 1,000 miles over a non-
volcanic district to the volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699,
on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace
another volcanic belt through New Britain, New Ireland, and the
Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of the Archipelago.
In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and
for a considerable breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of
continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of
every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down
whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and
property, are sure to happen, in one part or another of this
district, almost every year. On many of the islands the years of
the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native
inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their children are
remembered, and the dates of many important events are
determined.
I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have
taken place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and
property, and in the magnitude of their effects, they have not
been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed
by the eruption of Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole
mountain was blown up by repeated explosions, and a large lake
left in its place. By the great eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa,
in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed, and the ashes darkened the
air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles around.
Even quite recently, since I left the country, a mountain which
had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly burst into
activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent
open in 1646 by a violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one
side, extending into the heart of the mountain. It was, when I
last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit,
and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of
December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again
suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely altering the
appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the
inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken
the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely
destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
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