The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

sxxvi.] WAIGIOU. 409curious disease known (I have since heard) as brow-ague.Directly after breakfast every morning an intense pain set inon a small spot on the right temi:)le. It was a severe burningache, as bad as the worst toothache, and lasted about two hours,generally going off at noon. When this finally ceased, I had anattack of fever, which left me so weak and so unable to eat ourregular food, that I feel sure my life was saved by a couple oftins of soup which I had long reserved for some such extremity.I used often to go out searching after vegetables, and found agreat treasure in a lot of tomato plants run wild, and bearinglittle fruits about the size of gooseberries. I also boiled up thetops of pumpkin plants and of ferns, by way of greens, andoccasionally got a few green papaws. The natives, when hardup for food, live upon a fleshy seaweed, which they boil till it istender. I tried this also, but found it too salt and bitter tobe endured.Towards tlie end of September it became absolutely necessaryfor me to return, in order to make our homeward voyage beforethe end of the east monsoon. Most of the men who had takenpayment from me had brought the birds they had agreed for.One poor fellow had been so unfoi-tunate as not to get one, andhe very honestly brought back the axe he had received inadvance ; another, who had agreed for six, brought me the fifthtwo days before I was to start, and went off immediately to theforest again to get the other. He did not return, however, andwe loaded our boat, and were just on the point of starting,when he came running down after us holding up a bird, whichhe handed to me, saying Avith great satisfaction, "Now I oweyou nothing." These were i^emai-kable and quite unexpectedinstances of honesty among savages, where it would have beenvery easy for them to have been dishonest without fear ofdetection or punishment.The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged,bristling with jagged and honey-combed coralline rocks, andwith curious little chasms and ravines. The paths often passedthrough these rocky clefts, wliich in the depths of the forestwere gloomy and dark in the extreme, and often full of tineleavedherbaceous plants and curious blue-foliagedLycopodiacea?.It was in such j^laces as these that I obtained many of my mostbeautiful small butterflies, such as Sospita statira and Taxilapulchra, the gorgeous blue Amblypodia hercules, and manyOn the skirts of the plantations I found the handsomeotliers.blue Deudorix despoena, and in the shady woods the lovelyLycpena wallacei. Here, too, I obtained the beautiful Thycaaruna, of the richest orange on the upper side, while below it isintense crimson and glossy black ;and a superb specimen of agreen Ornithoptera, absolutely fresh and jDerfect, and one ofthe glories of my collection.Tlie birds obtained here, though not very rich in number of