My Expedition To The Aru Islands Had Been Eminently Successful.
Although I Had Been For Months Confined To The House
By illness,
and had lost much time by the want of the means of locomotion,
and by missing the right
Season at the right place, I brought
away with me more than nine thousand specimens of natural
objects, of about sixteen hundred distinct species. I had made
the acquaintance of a strange and little-known race of men; I had
become familiar with the traders of the far East; I had revelled
in the delights of exploring a new fauna and flora, one of the
most remarkable and most beautiful and least-known in the world;
and I had succeeded in the main object for which I had undertaken
the journey-namely, to obtain fine specimens of the magnificent
Birds of Paradise, and to be enabled to observe them in their
native forests. By this success I was stimulated to continue my
researches in the Moluccas and New Guinea for nearly five years
longer, and it is still the portion of my travels to which I look
back with the most complete satisfaction.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE ARU ISLANDS - PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND ASPECTS OF NATURE.
IN this chapter I propose to give a general sketch of the
physical geography of the Aru Islands, and of their relation to
the surrounding countries; and shall thus be able to incorporate
the information obtained from traders, and from the works of
other naturalists with my own observations in these exceedingly
interesting and little-known regions.
The Aru group may be said to consist of one very large central
island with a number of small ones scattered round it. The great
island is called by the natives and traders "Tang-busar" (great
or mainland), to distinguish it as a whole from Dobbo, or any of
the detached islands. It is of an irregular oblong form, about
eighty miles from north to south, and forty or fifty from east to
west, in which direction it is traversed by three narrow
channels, dividing it into four portions. These channels are
always called rivers by the traders, which puzzled me much till I
passed through one of them, and saw how exceedingly applicable
the name was. The northern channel, called the river of Watelai,
is about a quarter of a mile wide at its entrance, but soon
narrows to abort the eighth of a mile, which width it retains,
with little variation, during its whole, length of nearly fifty
miles, till it again widens at its eastern mouth. Its course is
moderately winding, and the hanks are generally dry and somewhat
elevated. In many places there are low cliffs of hard coralline
limestone, more or less worn by the action of water; while
sometimes level spaces extend from the banks to low ranges of
hills a little inland. A few small streams enter it from right
and left, at the mouths of which are some little rocky islands.
The depth is very regular, being from ten to fifteen fathoms, and
it has thus every feature of a true river, but for the salt water
and the absence of a current.
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