1869.] Tlie Malay Archipelago. 167 



"My host Mr. M. enjoyed a tliorouglily country Hfe, depending 

 almost entirely on his gun and dogs to supply his table. Wild pigs 

 of large size were very plentiful, and he generally got one or two 

 a-week, besides deer occasionally, and abundance of jimgle-fowl, horn- 

 bills, and great fruit pigeons. His buffaloes supplied plenty of milk, 

 from which he made his own butter ; he grew his own rice and coifee, 

 and had ducks, fowls, and their eggs in profusion. His palm-trees 

 supplied him all the year round with ' sagueir,' which takes the place 

 of beer ; and the sugar made from them is an excellent sweetmeat. 

 All the fine tropical vegetables and fruits were abundant in their 

 season, and his cigars were made from tobacco of his own raising. He 

 kindly sent me a bamboo of bufi;alo-milk every morning; it was as 

 thick as cream, and required diluting with water to keep it fluid during 

 the day. It mixes very well with tea and coffee, although it has a 

 slight peculiar flavoui", which after a time is not disagreeable. I also 

 got as much sweet 'sagueir' as I liked to drink, and Mr. M. always 

 sent me a piece of each pig he killed, which with fowls, eggs, and the 

 bii'ds we shot ourselves, and buffalo beef about once a fortnight, kept 

 my larder sufficiently well supplied." 



So much for the crecature comforts, and now as regards the 

 intellectual enjoyment which they accompanied. Our readers will 

 not be surprised to hear that under the chcumstances the author's 

 pursuits as a naturahst were equally pleasant. 



" I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence 

 here. As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds 

 would often be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally 

 out in my slippers, and perhaps seciu'e a prize I had been seeking 

 after for weeks. The great hornbills of Celebes {Buceros cassidix) 

 would often come with loud-flapping wings, and percli upon a lofty 

 tree just in front of me ; and the black baboon monkeys (Cynopithecus 

 nigrescens) often stared down in astonishment at such an intrusion into 

 their domains ; while at night, herds of wild pigs roamed about the 

 house, devom'ing refuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatable 

 or breakable from om* little cooking-house. A few minutes' search on 

 the fallen trees around my house at simrise and sunset would often 

 produce me more beetles than I would meet with in a day's collecting, 

 and odd moments could be made valuable which when living in villages 

 or at a distance fi'om the forest are inevitably wasted. Where the 

 sugar-palms were drijiping with sap, flies congregated in immense 

 numbers, and it was by spending half-an-hour at these when I had 

 the time to spare that 1 obtained the finest and most remarkable 

 collection of this grouj) of insects that I have ever made. 



" Then what delightful hours I j)assed wandering up and down the 

 dry river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees, and 

 overshadowed by magnificent vegetation ! I soon got to know every 

 hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious step and 

 bated breath to see what treasures it would produce." * 



* Wallace, vol. i., pp. 364-5. 



