THE MOLUCCAS 
307 
east there is more difficulty. Waigiu and Misol are 
inhabited by true mop-headed Papuans and by birds-of- 
paradise, and therefore undoubtedly belong to New 
Guinea, with which country, moreover, they are con¬ 
nected by a shallow sea-bottom. It will be well, there¬ 
fore, to take the 100-fathom line as the boundary of the 
Papuan group, and we shall thus have the small group 
of Siang, Gebi, Gagi, and Popa as belonging to the 
Moluccas. Beyond the east end of Ceram we have a 
number of small islands leading on to the Ke group; 
and as these agree with all the other islands we have 
been considering, in being forest-clad, while their pro¬ 
ductions ally them more to Ceram and Banda than to 
the Aru Islands, we shall take these as the farthest 
extension of the Moluccan group to the south-east. It 
is true that the Timor Laut group is not much farther 
to the south, but these islands begin to be bare of forest, 
and thus belong naturally to the comparatively arid Timor 
group. Thus limited, the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, as 
they are sometimes called, extend about 600 miles from 
north 10 south, and about 500 from east to west, but 
they fall naturally into two subdivisions—that of Gilolo 
on the north, and that of Burn and Ceram on the south. 
Situated on both sides of the equator, and far enough 
removed from Australia to be unaffected by the arid 
winds which blow from it, these islands are all clothed 
with a magnificent vegetation, and enjoy a climate which, 
by its equability of temperature, combined with moisture, 
and tempered by perpetual breezes, is perhaps unsur¬ 
passed in any part of the tropics. For nearly two 
centuries they were the scene of ceaseless and sanguinary 
struggles between the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch 
for their possession. At the present time their value is 
no longer what it was, but a certain amount of trade is 
