308 Amboyna. 



and almost every visitor takes away a small collection. The 

 result is that many of the commoner sorts have lost all value 

 in the eyes of the amateur, numbers of the handsome but very 

 common cones, cowries, and olives sold in the streets of Lon- 

 don for a penny each, being natives of the distant isle of Am- 

 boyna, where they can not be bought so cheaply. The fishes 

 in the collection were all well preserved in clear spirit in 

 hundreds of glass jars, and the shells were arranged in large 

 shallow pith-boxes lined with paper, every specimen being 

 fastened down with thread. I roughly estimated that there 

 were nearly a thousand different kinds of shells, and perhaps 

 ten thousand specimens, while the collection of Amboyna 

 fishes was nearly pe];fect. 



On the 4th of January I left Amboyna for Ternate ; but 

 two years later, in October, 1859, 1 again visited it after my 

 residence in Menado, and staid a month in the town in a 

 small house which I hired for the sake of assorting and pack- 

 ing up a large and varied collection which I had brought with 

 me from North Celebes, Ternate, and Gilolo. I was obliged 

 to do this because the mail-steamer would have come the fol- 

 lowing month by way of Amboyna to Ternate, and I should 

 have been delayed two months before I could have reached 

 the former place. I then paid my first visit to Ceram, and 

 on returning to prepare for my second more complete explora- 

 tion of that island, I staid (much against my will) two months 

 at Paso, on the isthmus which connects the two portions of 

 the island of Amboyna. This village is situated on the east- 

 ern side of the isthmus, on sandy ground, with a very pleas- 

 ant view over the sea to the island of Haruka. On the Am- 

 boyna side of the isthmus there is a small river which has been 

 continued by a shallow canal to within thirty yards of high- 

 water mark on the other side. Across this small space, 

 which is sandy and but slightly elevated, all small boats and 

 praus can be easily dragged, and all the smaller trafiic from 

 Ceram and the islands of Saparua andHarfika passes through 

 Paso. The canal is not continued quite through, merely be- 

 cause every spring-tide would throw up just such a sand-bank 

 as now exists. 



I had been informed that the fine butterfly Ornithoptera 

 priamus was plentiful here, as well as the racquet-tailed 



