BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
NOTES OF TRAVEL. VII. 
A TROPICAL FOREST IN CERAM. 
THE steamer Japara of the Netherlands India Packet Boat Com- 
pany had a cargo of American pipe for a new oil well which was being 
sunk at Boela on the northeast coast of Ceram. To unload this pipe, 
the steamer anchored about noon on January 18 in the open roadstead, 
a half mile off shore. With our glasses Mr. Lathrop and I studied 
for some time one of those fascinating pictures of green and brown 
foliage which are the charm of steamboat travel in this tropical 
archipelago. We made up our minds that the low flat country and the 
hills behind it were covered with as rich a tropical forest as we had 
ever seen, but neither of us was prepared to find so many novel sights 
and interesting things as our short stay on land revealed. 
Boela is a tiny clearing on the ocean edge of the forest, and not 
only has no harbor but its roadstead shoals so gradually that at low 
tide even a ship’s boat grounds an eighth of a mile from the beach. 
So our party, the owners of the oil concession, the two travelers, and 
- several native men and women, were forced to wade that distance 
before they reached the shore. The water was warm and our slight 
discomfort was quickly forgotten in the beauty or the oddity of count- 
less things that attracted our attention. 
_ Asa first surprise, the beach was covered with thousands of moving 
shells of all sizes and shapes. These shells moved about in the most 
bewildering fashion. The rotting logs and even the mangrove bushes 
on the shore were literally alive with them. On examination each one 
was found to be the home of a hermit crab. Shells even smaller thap 
the head of a shirt-stud were inbabited, and it was with difficulty that 
we found any uninhabited specimens. In our stay ashore we did not 
see a single hermit crab which had left its shell. 
To add to this bewildering impression of moving strand shells, 
scores of small ash-colored fish were jumping about in the liveliest 
manner on the sand, often many yards from the water. ‘These fish wert 
218 [SEPTEMBER 
