Opposite Us, And All
Along This Coast Of Batchian, Stretches A Row Of Fine Islands
Completely Uninhabited.
Whenever I asked the reason why no one
goes to live in them, the answer always was, "For fear
Of the
Magindano pirates." Every year these scourges of the Archipelago
wander in one direction or another, making their rendezvous on
some uninhabited island, and carrying devastation to all the
small settlements around; robbing, destroying, killing, or taking
captive all they nee with. Their long well-manned praus escape
from the pursuit of any sailing vessel by pulling away right in
the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer generally
enables them to hide in some shallow bay, or narrow river, or
forest-covered inlet, till the danger is passed. The only
effectual way to put a stop to their depredations would be to
attack them in their strongholds and villages, and compel them to
give up piracy, and submit to strict surveillance. Sir James
Brooke did this with the pirates of the north-west coast of
Borneo, and deserves the thanks of the whole population of the
Archipelago for having rid them of half their enemies.
All along the beach here, and in the adjacent strip of sandy
lowland, is a remarkable display of Pandanaceae or Screw-pines.
Some are like huge branching candelabra, forty or fifty feet
high, and bearing at the end of each branch a tuft of immense
sword-shaped leaves, six or eight inches wide, and as many feet
long. Others have a single unbranched stem, six or seven feet
high, the upper part clothed with the spirally arranged leaves,
and bearing a single terminal fruit ac large as a swan's egg.
Others of intermediate size have irregular clusters of rough red
fruits, and all have more or less spiny-edged leaves and ringed
stems. The young plants of the larger species have smooth glossy
thick leaves, sometimes ten feet long and eight inches wide,
which are used all over the Moluccas and New Guinea, to make
"cocoyas" or sleeping mats, which are often very prettily
ornamented with coloured patterns. Higher up on the bill is a
forest of immense trees, among which those producing the resin
called dammar (Dammara sp.) are abundant. The inhabitants of
several small villages in Batchian are entirely engaged in
searching for this product, and making it into torches by
pounding it and filling it into tubes of palm leaves about a yard
long, which are the only lights used by many of the natives.
Sometimes the dammar accumulates in large masses of ten or twenty
pounds weight, either attached to the trunk, or found buried in
the ground at the foot of the trees. The most extraordinary trees
of the forest are, however, a kind of fig, the aerial roots of
which form a pyramid near a hundred feet high, terminating just
where the tree branches out above, so that there is no real
trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of roots of every size,
mostly descending in straight lines, but more or less obliquely-
and so crossing each other, and connected by cross branches,
which grow from one to another; as to form a dense and
complicated network, to which nothing but a photograph could do
justice (see illustration at Vol. I. page 130). The Kanary is
also abundant in this forest, the nut of which has a very
agreeable flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy
outer covering of the nut is the favourite food of the great
green pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga, perspicillata), and
their hoarse copings and heavy flutterings among the branches can
be almost continually heard.
After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get the bird
I was particularly in search of (the Nicobar pigeon, or a new
species allied to it), and finding no new birds, and very few
insects, I left early on the morning of April 1st, and in the
evening entered a river on the main island of Batchian (Langundi,
like Kasserota, being on a distinct island), where some Malays
and Galela men have a small village, and have made extensive
rice-fields and plantain grounds. Here we found a good house near
the river bank, where the water was fresh and clear, and the
owner, a respectable Batchian Malay, offered me sleeping room and
the use of the verandah if I liked to stay. Seeing forest all
round within a short distance, I accepted his offer, and the next
morning before breakfast walked out to explore, and on the skirts
of the forest captured a few interesting insects.
Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a
very fine forest, richer in palms than any I had seen in the
Moluccas. One of these especially attracted my attention from its
elegance. The stein was not thicker than my wrist, yet it was
very lofty, and bore clusters of bright red fruit. It was
apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense height closely
resembled in appearance the Euterpes of South America. Here also
grew the fan-leafed palm, whose small, nearly entire leaves are
used to make the dammar torches, and to form the water-buckets in
universal use. During this walk I saw near a dozen species of
palms, as well as two or three Pandani different from those of
Langundi. There were also some very fine climbing ferns and true
wild Plantains (Musa), bearing an edible fruit not so large as
one's thumb, and consisting of a mass of seeds just covered with
pulp and skin. The people assured me they had tried the
experiment of sowing and cultivating this species, but could not
improve it. They probably did not grow it in sufficient quantity,
and did not persevere sufficiently long.
Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researches of
a botanist better than any other in the whole Archipelago. It
contains a great variety of surface and of soil, abundance of
large and small streams, many of which are navigable for some
distance, and there being no savage inhabitants, every part of it
can be visited with perfect safety.
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