8 



A VISIT TO THE AROA ISLANDS, WITH A LIST OF 

 THE BIRDS FOUND THERE. 



By HERBERT C. ROBINSON, m.b.o.u., c.m.z.s. 



n'^HE Ai'oa Islauds, as they are called on the British Admiralty 

 charts, though the name is uot known to the local Malays, are a 

 small group of islets in the Straits of Malacca some twenty-five miles 

 to the oast of the Sumatrau Coast, south of Asaluiu and aliout the 

 same distance due west of One Fathom Bank, the well-known light- 

 house on the fairway for large shipping between Penang and 

 Singapore. 



The majority of the islands arc of metamorphic formation, sand- 

 stones, shales and schists, thougli there is reason to believe that the 

 southernmost islet, Pulau Tokong, which rises abrviptly from the sea 

 and on which I Avas unable to land owing to heavy sui'f, is of 

 granite. The elevation of no one of the group exceeds eighty feet and 

 most of them are much less than that, some of them being mere half- 

 tide rocks. 



Navigation in the Archipelago is difficult even for small launches, 

 owing to the very strong tides and to the large quantity of mud from 

 the Sungei Rokan estuary hiding the position of sunken rocks, which 

 are numerous. There are onlv two anchorages which are at all safe : 

 one to the nortli of Pulau Jemor in four to six fathoms of water, 

 which can he used in the south-east monsoon ; and another in deeper 

 water to the west of the same island, which is safer during the north- 

 east monsoon, though in both the holding ground is somewhat iowl. 



Pulau Jemor, or Long Aroa, is the only island we visited and is 

 the only one which has permanent water, though this is uncertain in 

 quantity and indifferent in quality. In shape, the island is long and 

 narrow about half a mile in length by a quarter in maximum breadth, 

 and contains perhaps a hundred acres. Near the centre it is cleft, 

 almost to sea level, by a narrow gully, which connects two sandy 

 Ijeaches on which large numbers of turtles deposit their eggs. The 

 privilege of collecting tuz-tle eggs on this and other islauds of the 

 group is farmed to Malays by the Sultan of Siak for the annual sum 

 of 8400 and 12,000 eggs, and two or three tumble-down huts in the 

 gully are more or less regularly inhabited by men on the look-out for 

 the eggs which are laid, fairly uniformly throughout the year. 

 Othensise the group is <j[uite uninhal)ited, though formerly it was much 

 resorted to by pirates from Linggi and Selangor, by whom the fine 

 grove of coconuts existing on Pulau Jemor was probably planted. 



Vegetation is very scanty, and in the more exposed situations 

 consists merely of a coarse and wiry sedge-like grass growing in 

 isolated tufts on the sandstone, interspersed with a few stunted Pan- 

 dani and the almost universal Straits Rhododendron or Senduduk 

 ( Melastorna nuilahothricnm). 



