BouKu. 387 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



BOUEU. 

 MAY AND JUNE, 1861. Map, p. 350. 



I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bourn, which 

 lies due west of Ceram, and of which scarcely any thing ap- 

 peared to be known to naturalists except that it contained a 

 Babirdsa very like that of Celebes. I therefore made arrange- 

 ments for staying there two months after leaving Timor Delli 

 in 1861. This I could conveniently do by means of the Dutch 

 mail-steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas, 



"We arrived at the hai'bor of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a 

 gun was fired, the commandant of the fort came alongside in 

 a native boat to receive the post-packet, and took me and my 

 baggage on shore, the steamer going off again without com- 

 ing to an anchor. We went to the house of the opzeiner, or 

 overseer, a native of Amboyua — Bouru being too poor a place 

 to deserve even an Assistant Resident ; yet the appearance 

 of the village was very far superior to that of Delli, which 

 possesses "His Excellency the Governor;" and the little fort, 

 in perfect order, sun-ounded by neat grass-plots and straight 

 walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers 

 with an adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in 

 comparison with the miserable mud inclosure at Delli, with 

 its numerous staff of lieutenants, captain, and major. Yet 

 this, as well as most of the forts in the Moluccas, was origi- 

 nally built by the Portuguese themselves. Oh, Lusitania, 

 how art thou fallen ! 



While the opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk 

 round the village with a guide in search of a house. The 

 whole place was dreadfully damp and muddy, bemg built in 

 a Bwamp, with not a spot of ground raised a foot above it, 

 and surrounded by swamps on every side. The houses were 

 mostly well-built, of wooden frame-work filled in with gaba- 

 gaba (leaf-stems of the sago-palm) ; but as they had no 



