with a great quantity of palm-trees (Arenga saccharifera),
from which palm wine and sugar are made. There were
also great numbers of a wild Jack-fruit tree (Artocarpus),
which bore abundance of large reticulated fruit, serving
as an excellent vegetable. The ground was as thickly
covered with dry leaves as it is in an English wood in
November; the little rocky streams were all dry, and
scarcely a drop of water or even a damp place was anywhere
to be seen. About fifty yards below my house, at
the foot of the hill, was a deep hole in a watercourse
where good water was to be had, and where I went daily
to bathe, by having buckets of water taken out and pouring
it over my body.
My host Mr. M. enjoyed a thoroughly country life, depending
almost entirely on his gun and dogs to supply
his table. Wild pigs of large size were very plentiful
and he generally got one or two a week, besides deer
occasionally, and abundance of jungle-fowl, hornbills, and
great fruit pigeons. His buffaloes supplied plenty of milk,
from which he made his own butter; he grew his own
rice and coffee, and had ducks, fowls, and their eggs in profusion.
His palm-trees supplied him all the year round
with “ sagueir,” which takes the place of beer; and the
sugar made from them is an excellent sweetmeat. All
the fine tropical vegetables and fruits were abundant in
their season, and his cigars were made from tobacco of his
own raising. He kindly sent me a bamboo of buffalo-
niilk every morning; it was as thick as cream, and required
diluting with water to keep it fluid during the day.
It mixes very well with tea and coffee, although it has
a slight peculiar flavour, which after a time is not disagreeable.
I also got as much sweet “ sagueir ” as I liked
o 0
to drink, and Mr. M. always sent me a piece of each pig
he killed, which with fowls, eggs, and the birds we shot
ourselves, and buffalo beef about once a fortnight, kept
my larder sufficiently well supplied.
Every bit of flat land was cleared and used as rice-
fields, and on the lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco
and vegetables were grown. Most of the slopes are
covered with huge blocks of rock, very fatiguing to
scramble over, while a number of the hills are so precipitous
as to be quite inaccessible. These circumstances,
combined with the excessive drought, were very unfavourable
for my pursuits. Birds were scarce, and I got but
few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but
unequal. Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting,
were exceedingly scarce, some of the families being quite
absent and others only represented by very minute species.
The Elies and Bees, on the other hand, were abundant, and
of these I daily obtained new and interesting species.
The rare and beautiful Butterflies of Celebes were the
chief object of my search, and I found many species