iSG A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS. 



of kanipa, or gin, with filthy spirits of wine in bottles of 

 the same shape. We have often pictured to ourselves the 

 astonished eyes and the jubilant dance of the first Timorese 

 who, passing by, should find the deserted hut, and its Eldorado 

 of kanipa and the rest, especially if he commenced with the 

 snake-tinctured spirits of wine — all his for the appropriating ! 



By five o'clock in the evening the last porter's load dis- 

 appeared round the elbow of the hill ; but we remained behind 

 for a little to take a last sorrowful farewell of the sweet spot 

 in which we had spent so many days of privation and sickness 

 hard enough to bear while they lasted, but which have long 

 been quite forgotten, while the supreme happiness we ex- 

 perienced in our work together and the surpassing beauty 

 of the scene on which we daily looked, will remain among 

 our most treasured reminiscences as long as memory lasts. 

 As it was impossible to obtain sufficient porters to carry A. 

 the long irksome descent had to be accomplished on foot, 

 painfully, but with uncomplaining and resigned cheerfulness, 

 for was it not for the last time ? By nine o'clock we stepped 

 on board. Owing to the fall of a horse baggage and all, down 

 a steep slope, and the breakdown and running away of some 

 of the porters, it was only at sundown of next day that the 

 last of our baggage was safely shipped. By a happy coinci- 

 dence the Governor and his family — fewer by two, and vvofuUy 

 altered by sickness — were again our fellow-passengers on their 

 way back to Europe. 



In the early morning of the 1st of June we steamed away for 

 Batavia via Amboina, and a few hours later our hut on the 

 Fatunaba rocks, glinting in the morning sun, disappeared below 

 the horizon. After one more day under the nutmeg arbours of 

 Banda, and a farewell visit to our friend's Machik in Amboina, 

 we reached Menado on the 10th, where we were delayed by 

 rough weather. " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." 

 In the gale our steamer dragged her anchor, which had to be 

 hauled in, and when it appeared it brought with it three other 



anchors, where, 



" On an island's winding shore, 

 There for ages long they lay, 

 At the bottom of a bay," 



each more foul than the other, with hydroid Zoophytes, Sponges 



