348 Batchian. 



lages 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 dam- 

 mar 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 com- 

 plicated network, to which nothing but a photograph could do 

 justice (see illustration, p. 93). The kanary is also abundant 

 in this forest, the nut of which has a very agreeable flavor, 

 and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy outer covering of 

 the nut is the favorite food of the great green pigeons of these 

 islands (Carpophaga perspicillata), and their hoarse cooings 

 and heavy flutterings among the branches can be almost con- 

 tinually heard. 



After ten days atLangundi, 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 veranda if I liked 

 to stay. Seeing forest all round within a short distance, I ac- 

 cepted his offer, and the next morning before breakfast walk- 

 ed out to explore, and on the skirts of the forest captured a 

 few interesting insects. 



Afterward 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 atten- 



