370 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



crosses from the south to the north coast. But never in the 

 whole of my tropical wanderings have I found a luxuriant 

 forest so utterly barren of almost every form of animal life. 

 Though I had three guns out daily, I did not get a single 

 bird worth having ; beetles, too, were totally wanting ; and 

 the very few butterflies seen were most difficult to capture. 

 Those who imagine that a tropical forest in the very midst 

 of so rich a region as the Moluccas must produce abundance 

 of birds and insects, would have been woefully disillusioned 

 if they could have been with me here. After immense diffi- 

 culties I reached Goram, about fifty miles beyond the east end 

 of Ceram, where I purchased a boat and started for Ke ; but 

 after getting half-way, the weather was so bad and the winds 

 so adverse that I was obliged to return to the Matabello 

 Islands, and thence by way of Goram and the north coast of 

 Ceram to the great island of Waigiou. This was a long and 

 most unfortunate voyage, as fully described elsewhere. I 

 found there, however, what I chiefly went for — the rare red 

 bird of paradise {Paradisea rubra) ; but during the three 

 months I lived there, often with very little food, I obtained 

 only about seventy species of birds, mostly the same as those 

 from New Guinea, though a few species of parrots, pigeons, 

 kingfishers, and other birds were new. Insects were never 

 abundant, but by continued perseverance I obtained rather 

 more species of both butterflies and beetles than at New 

 Guinea, though fewer, I think, of the more showy kinds. 



The voyage from Waigiou back to Ternate was again 

 most tedious and unfortunate, occupying thirty-eight days, 

 whereas with reasonably favourable weather it should not 

 have required more than ten or twelve. Taking my whole 

 voyage in this canoe from Goram to Waigiou and Ternate, I 

 thus summarize my account of it in my "Malay Archipelago" : 

 " My first crew ran away in a body ; two men were lost on 

 a desert island, and only recovered a month later after twice 

 sending in search of them ; we were ten times run aground 

 on coral reefs ; we lost four anchors ; our sails were devoured 

 by rats ; our small boat was lost astern ; we were thirty-eight 

 days on a voyage which should not have taken twelve ; we 



