330 AMBOINA. [chap. 



which, in truth, it woukl liattie any pen or pencil to give an idea. 

 Nature is not so miserly in her gifts. In each and all of the coral 

 islands of these seas there are a thousand creeks where we may 

 lean over the boat's side and make ourselves for the moment 

 inhabitants of an earthly Paradise teeming with the same exquisite 

 corals, the same rainbow-banded fish. It is merely the fact that 

 Amboina is a port of call for steamers which has given her this 

 undeserved reputation. 



It was the Centering or change of the winds during the peiiocl 

 of our stay, and the north-west monsoon had just begun to set in. 

 This season, which lasts until INIay, is the driest, or, to speak more 

 accurately, the least wet, for the rainfall is enormous. Meteoro- 

 logical records kept at the station show it to be as much as 191 

 inches. Judging from a day we experienced ourselves, we had no 

 reason to doubt the accuracy of the register. The wet months are 

 said to have an average of twenty-two days' rain, and with the 

 steady high temperature prevailing it might be imagined that the 

 island would be particularly trying to Europeans. This does not, 

 however, appear to be the case. Slight attacks of fever are 

 common, but the hospital — a wonderfully well-kept and cleanly 

 building — ^was by no means significantly full. 



One of the hospital officials, who took an interest in birds, told 

 us that he had some tame specimens of the Great Black Cockatoo, 

 and we accordingly went with him to his house to see them. We 

 had shot these birds in New Guinea — to which region they are 

 entirely confined — but had tried in vain to obtain them alive, and, 

 though parrots of perhaps a dozen species or more were to be 

 found in the Marchcsas menagerie, the Microglossus was not 

 among them. It was therefore with the greatest pleasure that we 

 watched these peculiar and interesting creatures. There were 

 three of them, but one only was perfectly adult. They were per- 

 mitted to go at liberty about the room, and I was struck at once 

 by the extreme slowness, as well as by the clumsiness, of their 

 movements. The common white Cockatoos (C. alba and triton) 



