LIFE IN LONDON 391 



My own voyage was beset with misfortunes. After passing Mysol, 

 I lost two of my scanty crew on a little desert island, our anchor break- 

 ing while they were on shore, and a powerful current carrying us rap- 

 idly away. One of them was our pilot; and, without a chart or any 

 knowledge of the coasts, we had to blunder our way short-handed 

 among the rocks and reefs and innumerable islands which surround the 

 rocky coasts of Waigiou. Our little vessel was five times on the rocks 

 in the space of twenty-four hours, and a little more wind or sea would 

 in several cases have caused our destruction. On at length reaching our 

 resting-place on the south coast of Waigiou, I immediately sent a native 

 boat after my lost sailors, which, however, returned in a week without 

 them, owing to bad weather. Again they were induced to make the 

 attempt, and this time returned with them in a very weak and emaci- 

 ated condition, as they had lived a month on a mere sand-bank, about a 

 mile in diameter, subsisting on shell-fish and the succulent shoots of a 

 wild plant. 



I now devoted myself to an investigation of the natural history of 

 Waigiou, having great expectations raised by Lesson's account, who 

 says that he purchased the three true Paradiseas, as well as P. magnifica 

 and P. sexsetacea, with Epimachus magnus and Sericulus aureus, in 

 the island, and also mentions several rare Psittaci as probably found 

 there. I soon ascertained, however, from the universal testimony of 

 the inhabitants, afterwards confirmed by my own observation, that none 

 of these species exist on the island, except P. rubral, which is the sole 

 representative of the two families, Paradiseidse and Epimachidse, and is 

 strictly limited to this one spot. 



With more than the usual amount of difficulties, privations, and 

 hunger, I succeeded in obtaining a good series of this beautiful and 

 extraordinary bird ; and three months' assiduous collecting produced no 

 other species at all worthy of attention. The parrots and pigeons were 

 all of known species ; and there was really nothing in the island to 

 render it worth visiting by a naturalist, except the P. rubra, which can 

 be obtained nowhere else. 



Our two expeditions to two almost unknown Papuan islands have 

 thus added but one species to the Paradiseas which I had before ob- 

 tained from Aru and Dorey. These voyages occupied us nearly a year ; 

 for we parted company in Amboyna in February, and met again at 

 Ternate in November, and it was not till the following January that 

 we were either of us able to start again on a fresh voyage. 



At Waigiou I learned that the birds of paradise all came from three 

 places on the north coast, between Salwatty and Dorey — Sorong, Maas, 

 and Amberbaki. The latter I had tried unsuccessfully from Dorey; at 

 Maas, the natives who procured the birds were said to live three days' 

 journey in the interior, and to be cannibals; but at Sorong, which was 

 near Salwatty, they were only about a day from the coast, and were less 



