THE MOLUCCAS 307 



east there is more difficulty. Waigiu and Misol are 

 inhabited by true mop-headed Papuans and by birds-of- 

 paradise, and therefore undoubtedly belong to New 

 Guinea, with which country, moreover, they are con- 

 nected by a shallow sea-bottom. It will be well, there- 

 fore, to take the 100-fathom line as the boundary of the 

 Papuan group, and we shall thus have the small group 

 of Siang, Gebi, Gagi, and Popa as belonging to the 

 Moluccas. Beyond the east end of Ceram we have a 

 number of small islands leading on to the Ke group ; 

 and as these agree with all the other islands we have 

 been considering, in being forest-clad, while their pro- 

 ductions ally them more to Ceram and Panda than to 

 the Aru Islands, we shall take these as the farthest 

 extension of the Moluccan group to the south-east. It 

 is true that the Timor Laut group is not much farther 

 to the south, but these islands begin to be bare of forest, 

 and thus belong naturally to the comparatively arid Timor 

 group. Thus limited, the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, as 

 they are sometimes called, extend about 600 miles from 

 north 10 south, and about 500 from east to west, but 

 they fall naturally into two subdivisions — that of Gilolo 

 on the north, and that of Burn and Ceram on the south. 

 Situated on both sides of the equator, and far enough 

 removed from Australia to be unaffected by the arid 

 winds which blow from it, these islands are all clothed 

 with a magnificent vegetation, and enjoy a climate which, 

 by its equability of temperature, combined with moisture, 

 and tempered by perpetual breezes, is perhaps unsur- 

 passed in any part of the tropics. For nearly two 

 centuries they were the scene of ceaseless and sanguinary 

 struggles between the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch 

 for their possession. At the present time their value is 

 no longer what it was, but a certain amount of trade is 



