AMBOINA. 387 



condition in my botanical expeditions. Amongst these fruits 

 were abundance of wild nutmegs, and wild coffee-berries ; many 

 of the fruits were entirely uninjured, and the seeds quite fit for 

 germination. 



No doubt, when frightened or wounded by accident, the 

 pigeons eject the whole fruits, and they habitually eject the hard 

 kernels, as I saw quantities of them lying about under the trees 

 on a small island at the Admiralty Islands, on which the birds 

 roost in vast numbers. 



As soon as ever a few littoral trees, such as Barringtonia and 

 Calophyllwn inophyllum, have established themselves by means 

 of their drifting seeds on a freshly dry coral islet, the Fruit- 

 Pigeons alight in the branches in their flight from place to place, 

 and drop the seeds of all kinds of other trees with succulent fruits. 

 I have seen the pigeons thus resting on two or three small littoral 

 trees, which as yet form almost the only vegetation of Observatory 

 Island, a very small islet in Nares Bay, Admiralty Islands. 



Hearing the sound of music in the native district of the 

 town of Banda one evening, I made my way towards a house 

 from which it came, in the hopes of seeing a Malay dance. 

 Instead of this I found Malays indeed dancing, but to my dis- 

 appointment, they were dancing the European waltz. 



I saw a Mahommedan's dancing-party in one of the houses ; 

 the performers were of course all men. The room in which 

 they danced was widely open to the street, and lighted up. 

 About twenty men dressed in their best sat on mats placed 

 against the wall round the room, the host occupying a place at 

 one end ; two members of the party rose at a time and danced. 

 The movements were very slow, and frequently the two dancers 

 led one another by the hand and presenting themselves to 

 different sides of the assembly in turn, bowed with great cere- 

 mony ; the whole reminded me somewhat of a quadrille. 



Amboina, October 5th to 10th, 1814.— On the ship anchoring 

 at Amboina, it was found necessary that a salute should be fired. 

 The " Challenger " being, as a surveying ship, provided with very 

 few guns, was usually excused this ceremony, but it was thought 

 by the Dutch authorities that the natives would not properly 

 understand the arrival of a foreign man-of-war, without the usual 



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