i6 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



Dutch. The roads and open spaces are shaded by 

 Kanari trees, which also produce a most dehcious nut, 

 and the gardens are hedged with flowering Hibiscus and 

 Oleander and gaudy-leafed Crotons. Roses, as well as 

 many other temperate plants, in addition to " hot- 

 house " plants, flourish in the gardens, and the verandahs 

 of the houses themselves are often decorated with 

 orchids from Ceram and the Tenimber Islands. Birds 

 arc not common in the town itself except in captivity, 

 and you see, especiahy in the gardens of the natives' 

 houses, parrots and lories, and pigeons from the Moluccas 

 and New Guinea, and you may even hear the call of the 

 Greater bird of paradise. Attracted by the many 

 flowering plants are swarms of butterflies, some of them 

 of great beauty. One of the most gorgeous of these is 

 the large blue Papilio ulysses, which floats from flower 

 to flower hke a piece of living blue sky. 



The harbour of Amboina is a wide deep channel, 

 which nearly divides the island into two, and in it are 

 the wonderful sea-gardens, which aroused the enthusiasm 

 of Mr. Wallace.* They are not perhaps so wonderful 

 as the sea-gardens at Banda and elsewhere, but to those 

 who have never seen such things before the many 

 coloured sea-weeds and corals and shells and shoals of 

 fantastic fishes seen through crystal water are a source 

 of unfaihng interest. The sea is crowded with fish of 

 every size and form and colour. Nearly eight hundred 

 species have been described from Ambonese waters, 

 and it is worth while to visit the market in the early 

 morning, when the night's haul is brought in, and before 

 * Malay Archipelago, Chapter XX. 



