THE EAST INDIAN ISLANDS. 
221 
any other part of the globe, and teem with natural productions which 
are elsewhere unknown. Here grow the richest of fruits, the costliest 
of spices. Here giant flowers expand to the stimulating splendour of 
the sun ; here the air coruscates with butterflies of the brightest coloure ; 
here disport the most gorgeous creatures of the Bird World ; here the 
uplands bloom with forest-masses of the deepest verdure. The islands 
we speak of extend over a space of 4000 miles in length from east to 
west, and of 1300 miles in breadth from north to south. Three among 
them are larger than Great Britain ; in one of them the whole of the 
British Isles might be set down, and yet a sea of forests would surround 
them. Beginning with Sumatra, we come in succession to Java, Lom- 
bok, Sumbawa, Floris, and Timor. To the north extends another line : 
Borneo, Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Bouru, and Ceram. Still 
further north lie the Philippines. All these enjoy a uniform and very 
similar climate, and are clothed with an exuberant vegetation. Most 
of them are more or less volcanic in character. But a careful examina- 
tion shows that, so far as their natural productions are concerned, they 
may be divided into two sections, in the westward of which the animal 
and vegetable life approximates in type to that of the Indian and 
Indo-Chinese peninsulas, while in the eastward it approximates to that 
of Australia. The boundary between the two sections is furnished by 
the strait which separates Lombok from Bali, and Celebes from Borneo. 
This is what Mr. Wallace — a thoroughly competent authority — 
advances : — 
The great contrast between the two divisions of the Archipelago is 
nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing from the island of Bali to 
that of Lombok, where the two are in closest proximity. In Bali we 
have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers ; on passing over to Lom- 
bok these are seen no more, but we have abundance of cockatoos, 
honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali, 
or any island further west. The strait is here fifteen miles wide, so 
that we may 2)ass in two hours from one great division of the earth to 
another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from 
America. If we travel from Java or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, 
the diff'erence is still more striking. In the first, the forests abound in 
