INTRODUCTION 



15 



RUMPHIUS AND HIS WORK 



George Everhard Rumphius, as the family name Rumpf or 

 Rumph is Latinized, well named "the Pliny of the Indies," was 

 born in 1627, apparently in Hanau, Hesse Cassel, Germany, and 

 died in Amboina, June 15, 1702, at the age of 75 years. Detailed 

 accounts of his life and work are available in the writings of 

 numerous authors* so that it is unnecessary to enumerate here 

 more than the most important facts in connection with the 

 preparation and publication of his most renowned work, the 

 Herbarium Amboinense. 



Rumphius entered the service of the Dutch East India Com- 

 pany as a young man, proceeded to Batavia, Java, in 1653, and 

 in the latter part of the same year to Amboina, where he resided 

 for the remainder of his life. Perhaps for the first two years 

 of his stay in Amboina he was stationed at Larike, but later he 

 was transferred to Hila. It is evident that he commenced the 

 preparation of the Herbarium Amboinense shortly after his 

 arrival in Amboina, his active work being continued practically 

 until his death, in spite of the great handicap of blindness after 

 the year 1670. In 1670, while still stationed at Hila, he had the 

 work about completed, and it was then his intention to return 

 to Europe. To make a more definite study and comparison of 

 all his species, he undertook a final series of journeys along 

 the coasts and in the hills, and to this he himself attributes his 

 blindness which followed almost at once. His published works 

 are manifestly based largely on observations made by him 

 between 1653 and 1670. The handicap of blindness was some- 

 what lessened by aid given him by his wife and by assistants 

 assigned to him by the Dutch East India Company. In 1673 

 he removed to the town of Amboina and commenced to translate 

 the original Latin text of the Herbarium Amboinense into Dutch. 

 In the following year, however, his wife and eldest child were 

 killed in the great earthquake of that year, and subsequent to 

 that date he had less other assistance, some of it of little real 

 value. The original illustrations for the Herbarium Amboin- 

 ense were apparently made by Rumphius himself, but on Jan- 

 uary 11, 1687, Amboina was visited by a disastrous fire, in 

 which Rumphius's house was destroyed, including his library, 

 many of his manuscripts, and the plates of the Herbarium Am- 



* See Rouffaer and Muller "Biographien van Rumphius" in their: 

 Eerste proeve van een Rumphius-Bibliographie. Rumphius Gedenkboek 

 1702-1902 (1902) 176-185. 



