was not published till 1705, twelve years after his
death, was for a long time the acknowledged standard
to which all conchological writers referred. His
most extensive work, however, was the “ Hortus
Amboinense,” which was only rescued from the
Hutch archives and published at the late date of
forty-eight years after his death. It contains the
names and careful descriptions of the plants of this region,
their flowering seasons, their habitats, their uses
and the modes of caring for those that are cultivated’
When we consider that, in his time, neither botany
nor zoology had become a science, and consider, moreover,
the amount and the accuracy of the information
e gives us, we agree with his contemporaries in
giving him the high but well-merited title of “ the
Indian Pliny.”
CHAPTER Vm .
BURTI.
Sept. 25tli.—Steamed down the bay from Amboina,
this time not without a slight feeling of sadness
as I recalled the many happy hours I had passed
gathering shells on its shores and rambling over its
high hills, and as I realized that it would probably
never be my privilege to enjoy those pleasures again.
Only three months had elapsed since my arrival at
Batavia, but I had passed through so many and such
different scenes, that Amboina appeared to have been
my home for a year—and so it seems to this day.
As we came out of the mouth of the bay, we
changed our course to the west, and kept so near the
land, that I had a fine opportunity to reexamine the
places I had visited during a heavy storm, when the
sea was rolling into white surf and thundering along
the shore.
Off the western end of Ceram lie three islands,
Bonoa, Kilang, and Manipa. Bonoa, the most easterly,
is a hilly island about twelve miles long and
half as broad. Its population is divided into Christians
and Mohammedans, and each has such a bitter
hatred against the other, that the Christians at last
determined to expatriate themselves, and accordingly,