IN TIMOR-LAUT. 335 



over which my operations extended. Artoearpus incisa, not the 

 true bread-fruit, which is a seedless variety, but the species 

 more common in the Moluccas, was found in considerable abun- 

 dance. In its broad features, as far as we yet know, the plants 

 of the Tenimber Island belong to a typically coral island flora. 

 But among them are two most interesting species belonging to 

 monotypic genera hitherto represented, as Sir Joseph Hooker 

 has pointed out, only by single specimens — the one from the 

 far separated islands of New Caledonia, and the other from 

 West Australia. Growing in the coral crevices, often within 

 the splash of the waves, I gathered a most lovely orchid, Den- 

 drohium plialoenopsis, previously known only from Queensland 

 in Australia, while open to the wash of the Arafura Sea out- 

 side Cape Yatusianga, the trees were covered with Polypodia- 

 ceous ferns and orchids of the species Dendrohium antennatum, 

 while the whole shore was strewed with seeds of many kinds. 



The Herbarium on which our present knowledge of the 

 flora is based is very small ; my own would have been much 

 larger but for an unfortunate fire in the drying-house in which 

 it was being prepared, which consumed the greater portion of 

 my botanical collection — a heart-breaking episode which I 

 give in my companion's words : — 



" September 9th. This forenoon, when quite alone, H 



and the hunters having gone to the opposite shore for the day, 

 and Kobes to the well a mile off, while I was sitting in that 

 miserable, restless condition which succeeds a fever attack, a 

 longing seized me to look out of the door, for I had for many 

 days been unable to leave my sleeping apartment. Fortunate 

 impulse ! Kobes had piled half a dozen great logs on the fire 

 of the drying-house (an erection like our dwelling, and all the 

 Tenimber tenements, of bamboo and atap thatch, now, at the 

 close of the dry season, very imflammable) and left them to 

 the whims of a strong breeze, which, at the moment I looked, 

 had just fanned the fire into fierce flames. I sped into the 

 village for help, but met the Postholder with his men running 

 towards me, attracted by the rushing noise of the flames. With- 

 out a moment's delay some of them cut great palm branches 

 to interpose between the burning house and the overhanging 

 eaves of our dwelling, others tore apart the framework, scattered 

 the bundles of plants, and beat the flames with green branches, 



