The Man I Brought With Me To Cut Wood Fell Ill
Soon After We Arrived, Or I Would Have Set Him To Clear Fresh
Paths In The Worst Places.
For the first ten days it generally
rained every afternoon and all night r but by going out every
Hour of fine weather, I managed to get on tolerably with my
collections of birds and insects, finding most of those collected
by Lesson during his visit in the Coquille, as well as many new
ones. It appears, however, that Dorey is not the place for Birds
of Paradise, none of the natives being accustomed to preserve
them. Those sold here are all brought from Amberbaki, about a
hundred miles west, where the Doreyans go to trade.
The islands in the bay, with the low lands near the coast, seem
to have been formed by recently raised coral reef's, and are much
strewn with masses of coral but little altered. The ridge behind
my house, which runs out to the point, is also entirely coral
rock, although there are signs of a stratified foundation in the
ravines, and the rock itself is more compact and crystalline. It
is therefore, probably older, a more recent elevation having
exposed the low grounds and islands. On the other side of the bay
rise the great mass of the Arfak mountains, said by the French
navigators to be about ten thousand feet high, and inhabited by
savage tribes. These are held in great dread by the Dorey people,
who have often been attacked and plundered by them, and have some
of their skulls hanging outside their houses. If I was seem going
into the forest anywhere in the direction of the mountains, the
little boys of the village would shout after me, "Arfaki!
Arfaki?" just as they did after Lesson nearly forty years before.
On the 15th of May the Dutch war-steamer Etna arrived; but, as
the coals had gone, it was obliged to stay till they came back.
The captain knew when the coalship was to arrive, and how long it
was chartered to stay at Dorey, and could have been back in time,
but supposed it would wait for him, and so did not hurry himself.
The steamer lay at anchor just opposite my house, and I had the
advantage of hearing the half-hourly bells struck, which was very
pleasant after the monotonous silence of the forest. The captain,
doctor, engineer, and some other of the officers paid me visits;
the servants came to the brook to wash clothes, and the son of
the Prince of Tidore, with one or two companions, to bathe;
otherwise I saw little of them, and was not disturbed by visitors
so much as I had expected to be. About this time the weather set
in pretty fine, but neither birds nor insects became much more
abundant, and new birds -were very scarce. None of the Birds of
Paradise except the common one were ever met with, and we were
still searching in vain for several of the fine birds which
Lesson had obtained here.
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