BOOKS.
MR. HENRY FORBES'S "EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO."* DELIGHTFUL as to most persons are descriptions of Nature when written without affectation and in sufficiently good language, it often happens that such descriptions are the reverse of pleasing to those who, possessing a fondness for plants or animals, have intelligently added thereto some real knowledge of the objects of their taste. Thus while the merits of the Natural History of Selborne strike equally the adept and the tyro, many imitations of that charming book, if imitations some of them are entitled to be called, affect only the uninstructed. The reason of this is, and ought to be, obvious ; but it is for all that seldom perceived. The writer who can touch alike both learned and unlearned must have something to tell that both will care to read, and that something, if not absolutely new, must be in the main correct and worth telling.
In this book we have a real naturalist speaking to us of things worthy to be spoken of, and things that he under- stands far better than almost any other man,—a naturalist fit to rank as an observer with Darwin and with Belt, with
• A Naturalises Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago: a Narrative of Travel and Exploration, from 1878 to 1883. By Henry 0. Forbes, F.R.G.S., &a. London : Damp= Low and Co. Mr. Bates and Mr. Wallace, not to mention others, some of whom, alas ! have laid down their life before they could give to the world the results of their observations. Mr. Henry Forbes, in his preface, apologises for his book not having "the literary grace and finish " of that written by his immediate pre- decessor, the author of The Malay Archipelago. We think he has underrated his own capacity. It is true that here and there we find a rugged sentence—one, perhaps, the grammar of which is doubtful or its meaning not evident at a glance, blemishes that might easily and advantageously be removed against a second edition by a friendly reviser,—but there is a spirit and a charm in the whole narrative that carries the reader onward, regardless of such slight defects, while most surely the author rises at times to a level of very considerable merit, and there are passages which for mere penmanship will favourably compare with those written by any naturalist, while they are all the more pleasant since they are obviously written without effort. Omitting the scientific portions, which are wisely appended to the different portions of the narrative, the general reader will, we think,scarcely find a dull page in the whole volume, and is more likely to put it down with a feeling of regret that Mr. Forbes has not told him more,than with the sensation, so common after reading books of travels, that the author has been insuffer- ably prolix. One reason, perhaps, of this is that the "Eastern• Archipelago" is a very wide phrase, comprehending many dis- similar lands, many wholly diverse scenes, and many distinct races of men. Mr. Forbes's wanderings extended from one end of it to the other—to say nothing of that extremely interesting spot,. the Cocos-Keeling Islands, situated considerably on the hither side of anything that can be properly called the Archipelago. Taking only the human races with whom he lived and had to deal, we have the unsophisticated settlers on the little group just named, the true Malays of Java and Sumatra—differing, how- ever, greatly in many important particulars—the nomadic forest- haunting Kuhns, supposed to be descended from the earliest inhabitants of the latter island, the semi-Christianised people of Amboina, and the doubtfully descended populations of Timor- Lent, of Burn and Timor—to say nothing of Papuans or the far- penetrating Chinese, and,. of course, Dutch and Portuguese—one or other of which nationalities dominates over nearly all the rest.
Mr. Forbes has divided his volume into six parts, treating respectively of (1) the Cocos-Keeling Islands, (2) Java, (0) Sumatra, (4) the Moluccas and Timor-Last, (5), Burn, and (6)' Timor. It is hard to say which of these is the most interesting, and certainly each might form the subject of a separate review ; but those about which he gives the most novel, and therefore, in one way, the most important, information, are the first and third. Keeling Island is already classical ground, for there the' Beagle," in her memorable voyage, anchored for nearly a fortnight, and there Darwin elaborated that famous theory on the structure of coral-reefs, on which his reputation so long rested, since after holding its own without a rival for more than forty years, it has only recently, and that as the result of far wider observation,. been impugned. It is not for us here to enter into the discus- sion, upon which the last word has by no means been said. More instructive to the general public is the remarkable state- ment of Mr. Forbes that after the captain of a Queen's ship had in 1857 visited Keeling Island, and declared it part of her Majesty's dominions, it was found that he had come to the wrong place, for the island that it was intended to annex was situated somewhere else ! However, the mistake was set right some twenty years later, and the Cocos-Keeling group, which since 1825 had been virtually, though not formally, a British possession, was properly enrolled among the dependencies of the Empire. Perhaps before another sixty years have passed away, the in- tense geographical ignorance which now pervades the educated Philistine of this country may give place to such a moderate- share of geographical knowledge as will, among other things, save England from being the sport of American surveyors or German Chancellors. Small as is the area of this group of coral-reefs, and small as are its flora and terrestial fauna, both the latter are of great interest, while the wealth of the oceanic- inhabitants of its shores is abundant, and Mr. Forbes seems justified in pointing to the advantages it would possess for a marine biological station. We wish we- had room to dwell on several other matters of which Mr. Forbes tells us in his account of this fascinating spot—its crabs, its corals, and its cocoanuts. If ever there were "isles of palms" deserving the name it is here, and here the cocoanut- tree indulges in wanton sports—producing occasionally persist.-
ent branches crowned with leaves, instead of fruiting spikes only—and thereby adds to the beauty of the already graceful palm. One hint the author lets drop (p. 24) seems worthy of notice in connection with the curious and often unaccountable cases of poisoning by eating fish that so freoently occur in tropical islands. He says that " there is a species of Scants [a Labroid fish represented in our seas by the Wrasses] which requires to be prepared for the table with very great care, for should the gall-bladder be ruptured, and its contents escape into the body-cavity, the flesh of the fish becomes quite poisoned." He speaks of several instances of children dying from this cause, and of a frigate-bird on which the effect was immediately fatal; for, after picking off the surface the entrails of one of these fishes, it rose only some thirty feet in the air, and fell back on the water lifeless.
We must pass over the portion relating to Java to mention more particularly the chapters on Sumatra, every page of which is highly interesting on account of the variety of subjects touched by the author. We are sure that if he had chosen to do so, he might have brought out a whole volume of valuable matter on this island alone ; and it must have been with some discontent that he condensed his notes on a country with so exuberant a fauna and flora—each of them marvellous for beauty and curiosity—into less than one hundred and sixty pages. Sumatra is in one sense an old land, one on which many books have been written, and there may be people who fondly think that they "know all about it." To such persons we have only to say, read what Mr. Forbes has written, and acknowledge your error. It is perfectly clear that there is room for half a dozen more travelling naturalists of his kind before the novelties of this teeming island will show signs of exhaustion. Moreover, it would be well if some of these half dozen travelling naturalists would lose no time in wending their way thither. The real virgin forests are suffering systematic violation, and the ex- perience of other countries tells us what that means. Sumatra is one of the largest islands in the world, and it will take a longer time to ruin its peculiar features than it does to ruin those of a smaller area ; but the ruin is inevitable sooner or later as things go on now, and we know that such ruin pro- ceeds with progressively accelerating force. Unless something of a wholly unexpected nature happens, it is quite probable that another half century will see Sumatra as bare as Barbadoes. Of course, there will be gain to the human race in regard to material prosperity ; but the loss to the human race in regard to scientific knowledge—not an unimportant factor in the future of human happiness—will be irreparable, and it behoves naturalists of all kinds to make the most of the short time that awaits them. And here a word—even in a whisper—of protest. It seems to us hardly necessary that a botanist should fell, one after another, the mightiest growths of the forest simply to supply his herbarium with specimens of their foliage, flowers, and fruits. More than that, the cutting down of one of these gigantic trees involves the destruction of many others, which are levelled to the earth as its ponderous bole, wide-spreading and interlocking arms and branches crash through the serried ranks of its neighbours. Surely the botanist can devise some means of gaining his strictly innocent ends without doing all this mischief. But this by the way.
Just as we have said that the narrative of Mr. Forbes's researches in Sumatra might be expanded into a whole enter- taining volume, so, if space allowed us, at least a whole article might be well devoted to what he tells us of Timor-Laut—a name, it would seem, arbitrarily bestowed on a group of islands, more properly to be called Tenimber, of which islands he has the high merit of being the first naturalist explorer. Yet there the fates were against him; and, after settling himself (very uncomfortably, it would seem), he found that very little explora- tion could be effected. In fact, the place at which he settled- Bitabel, on the island of Larat—was subject to a temporary siege or blockade instituted by its neighbours. Every night the village was under watch and ward, and imagination carries us back to the middle ages of Europe, aye, and even of England, when in such circumstances every possible access to a town was closed—drawbridge up and portcullis down. Every morning the gates were opened, and the inhabitants went out into the country about their several businesses with the utmost caution. These being performed, they returned at evening within the protected precincts, taking care at the last moment to guard their retreat by besetting every path with sharp-pointed bam- boos or other effective obstructions, which the earliest to go forth from the refuge the next morning had to remove, that no harm might come to the honest wayfarer. Under conditions of this kind, it is simply wonderful that Mr. Forbes—who, by the way, was now accompanied by his wife, the partner of his cares and pleasures, but a brave lady, as the story shows, and certainly no encumbrance—did as much as he did in the study of natural history. The confinement to which he was subjected was, of course, irksome to the last degree ; and naturally chafing against it, he tried to release himself and his fellow-residents by going on a peaceful embassy to one of the discontented neigh- bours. There, it will be seen, he endured about as bad a quarter of an hour, short of bodily pain, as ever fell to the lot of a travelling naturalist, and he was glad to make his escape by the simple stratagem of a bolt-hole. He obviously had a very narrow escape. Worse luck, however, befell him. Every- body ought to know that in tropical climates one of the greatest troubles of a botanist is the difficulty of drying the specimens collected for his herbarium. The collection from Timor-Laut was not only large, but absolutely unique—no naturalist, as we have said, having ever before formed one on this group. Un- speakable must have been his mortification to find, on his return from a short marine excursion, that it had just caught fire and been destroyed through the carelessness of his otherwise faithful Chinese servant ; and the only consolation left to Mr. and Mrs. Forbes was that, had the fire extended, the doubtful toleration with which they were regarded in Larat would have been turned to downright hostility, and in all probability they would have paid with their lives for the mis- adventure. After this they had to suffer for a time from the alarm of an attack on the village, which fortunately turned out to be false, and then from the real experience of famine. Yet in the very nick of time the good ship Amboina ' hove in sight, and with a thankful heart Mr. Forbes saw his wife, and his scarcely less-beloved collections, safe on board. Now we have to add that all this is told in the calmest—we had almost written cold-blooded—way. The imminent dangers to which the author and his wife had been exposed, and the discomforts (worse, per- haps, in the long-run than the dangers) they endured are evident; but both are treated lightly, and hence it is that we form a much higher opinion of Mr. Forbes as a scientific traveller, from the placid temper which seems never to have been ruffled, than from the mere fact of his interesting discoveries and pains- taking observations, though these place him in a rank above the average of his calling. A writer of the modern school would have made out of these events a narrative more exciting than the imagination of half the authors of sensation-novels could compass ; but in us the plain unvarnished tale inspires feelings which could not be raised by the artificial agony " piled on " by the practised penman. We infinitely prefer Mr. Forbes's unexaggerated language.
The exigencies of space compel us to leave unnoticed the author's account of Burn and of Timor. In neither of these islands was he tried by such hazards or misadventures as had before befallen him ; but his narrative continues to the end interesting and highly readable. For the same cause we must forbear recounting his botanical and zoological prizes. Due meed, we are sere, has been or will be accorded to him by our scientific contemporaries. It is only necessary to point out that those in search of exemplifications of many of the wonderful contrivances of nature to which Mr. Darwin first gave a mean- ing will find here a store that will be highly grateful. The in- stances of " mimicry " of which Mr. Forbes tells us, though not absolutely novel in kind, are startling enough. The marvellous spider (Ornithoscatoides decipiens) which lies on its back at one end of a thin white web it has so spun over the surface of a leaf as to simulate accurately the dung of a bird, even to thick- ening the web towards the edge of the leaf—" as if to represent some of the fluid portions of the excreta arrested in a drop before it had altogether run to the margin" (p. 216)—was one of his most remarkable discoveries. The figure at p. 64 is very poor. A better notion of the creature and its creation may be gathered from plate 51 of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1883; but even that is by no means what it ought to be. The. passage (from which we have copied only a few words) in which he tells of his second meeting with an example, is worth any- one's reading. Not less interesting is his finding the "mimicry" of Honeysucker (Philemon) by Oriole (Mimeta), already noticed by Mr. Wallace in Burn, and elsewhere, repeated in Timor-Laut.
A pleasing recollection it must be to Mr. Forbes that wherever• he went, with one exception, he met with a hearty welcome from the Dutch and the Portuguese authorities. This exception was afforded by the Governor of Amboina,—a gentleman whose name has been more than once commemorated by naturalists, —and it is not easy to suggest why he did not follow the admir- able example set by other Colonial officials. Mr. Forbes gives us no hint to explain this strange conduct, and we are left to wonder whether he was regarded as a poacher in his intended descent upon Timor-Laut, which Governor Riedel looked upon as his preserve,—let to a German naturalist as shooting-tenant ! However, as matters turned out, it does not seem that Mr. Forbes would have been at all better-off for the protection that was refused to him.
For illustrations this book compares favourably as to numbers with most others of similar character, though that, perhaps, is not saying much, since in works of this sort there is scarcely a paragraph that might not fitly have a corresponding illustration; but, except the maps, which are fair, there is little to praise and much to deplore as to execution ; for, however skilful may have been the draughtsman, the engraver has spoilt nearly all. We entirely agree with Mr. Linton that for the present the art of wood-cutting is lost, and we have seldom seen, even in the costliest American or French examples of it, any that are so aggravating as some of these. Hold the page out at arm's length, or, still better, reflect it in a mirror, and you may form some idea of what the draughtsman intended you to see at that sort of distance ; but anything like truth of detail (artistic or other- wise) is wholly wanting. This we do not say is the fault of Mr. Forbes. Every one knows that in a matter of this kind an author is generally at the mercy of his publishers, and there is no reason why publishers as a class should be aware of the difference between false art and true when the public certainly do not perceive the distinction. But it is the duty of a reviewer to point out shortcomings of this nature ; and perhaps we may also venture upon another grumble, which is that this work was not issued in two handy volumes—like its prototypes, Mr. Wallace's Archipelago and Mr. Bates's Amazons—instead of in the single big tome that is wearisome to hold, and by its weight detracts from the almost unmixed pleasure we should otherwise enjoy in read- ing Mr. Forbes's pages.
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