CELEBES, THE MOLUCCAS, ETC. 371 



occupying in all seventy-eight days (or only twelve days 

 short of three months), all in what was supposed to be the 

 favourable season, we had not one single day of fair wind. 

 We were always close braced up, always struggling against 

 wind, currents, and leeway, and in a vessel that would scarcely 

 sail nearer than eight points from the wind ! Every seaman 

 will admit that my first (and last) voyage in a boat of my 

 own was a very unfortunate one." 



While living at Bessir, the little village where I went to 

 get the red paradise birds, I wrote a letter to my friend 

 George Silk, which I finished and posted after my arrival at 

 Ternate. As such letters as this, absolutely familiar and con- 

 fidential, exhibit my actual feelings, opinions, and ideas at 

 the time, I reproduce it here: — 



" Bessir, September 1, i860. 

 " My Dear George, 



" It is now ten months since the date of my last let- 

 ter from England. You may fancy therefore that, in the 

 expressive language of the trappers, I am ' half froze ' for 

 news. No such thing! Except for my own family and per- 

 sonal affairs I care not a straw and scarcely give a thought 

 as to what may be uppermost in the political world. In my 

 situation old newspapers are just as good as new ones, and 

 I enjoy the odd scraps, in which I do up my birds (advertise- 

 ments and all), as much as you do your Times at breakfast. 

 If I live to return to Ternate in another month, I expect to 

 get such a deluge of communications that I shall probably 

 have no time to answer any of them. I therefore bestow one 

 of my solitary evenings on answering yours beforehand. By 

 the bye, you do not yet know where I am, for I defy all the 

 members of the Royal Geographical Society in full conclave 

 to tell you where is the place from which I date this letter. 

 I must inform you, therefore, that it is a village on the 

 south-west coast of the island of Waigiou, at the north-west 

 extremity of New Guinea. How I came here would be too 

 long to tell, the details I send to my mother and refer you 

 to her. While hon. members are shooting partridges I am 



