THE KI ISLANDS. 
107 
kindly parish priest and welcome visitor at every cottage door; in England, a well-to-do 
farmer, a good judge of horseflesh, never absent from the hunting-field, and whom the squire 
or even his lordship would think it no condescension to notice with a 
friendly nod. Here he is the enterprising merchant, whose prahu has 
ploughed the eastern seas for many a year, and who has conic to the 
remote Arrou Islands in search of the pearl and the silken plumage of 
the bird of paradise. 
One day, having ascended, not without trepidation, the frail 
ladder which connected the street with the reception-room of our host, 
we found that he had made festive preparations in our honour. Among 
the unexpected delicacies offered to us were a box of Huntley & Palmer’s biscuits and 
butter, with which our friend the Malay merchant probably intended to give us a surprise. 
Save an uneasy fear lest the slender floor on which we were assembled should give way 
and land the whole party on the ground, which could be seen through the openings between 
the slips of bamboo, nothing interfered with the enjoyment of our visit. 
Dobbo is already known to the European reader from the description given by 
Wallace, the distinguished naturalist, who resided here for some time. No doubt he still 
retains a vivid recollection of its busy main street beneath the carved gable-ends and the 
waving palm branches, of its friendly inhabitants, and of the magnificent forest which presses 
so closely upon the settlement. Before leaving the Arrou Islands we secured specimens 
of the buvong rajah or king-bird, and of the famous bird of paradise, both unsurpassed for 
beauty of plumage. The insect fauna of the place includes butterflies of extraordinary 
dimensions. One of these, measuring about eight inches across the wings, I mistook for a 
bird as it sailed past me through the hot summer air. 
THE KI ISLANDS. 
H.M.S. “Challenger” left Dobbo in the morning of the 23rd September. While 
sounding across the strait which divides the Arrou Islands from the Ki Islands, we were 
surprised to find a depth of 800 fathoms at a distance of only seven nautical miles from 
Dobbo. On the following day a sounding of 580 fathoms was obtained at the other side of 
the strait, and in view of Great Ki Island. These were the first depths exceeding fifty 
fathoms that we had ascertained since our departure from Torres Strait, and, taken in 
combination with other soundings, they indicate the existence of a deep channel between 
the Papua-Australian plateau and the plateau of the Indian Archipelago, thus forming a 
deep-sea communication between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. This channel commences 
under the name of the Molucca Passage, continues eastward between the islands of Ceram 
and Mysole, divides the Ki Islands from the Arrou Islands, and, passing to eastward of 
Timor Laut, enters the Indian Ocean at the southern end of the island of Timor. 
About noon on the 24th we rounded the northern extremity of the island of Great 
Ki, which is about forty nautical miles in length, and very mountainous. Its 
