THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO; B[CKMOItE & WALLACE.' [FIRST ARTICLE.]

MR. BICKMORE has written a large book on a very interesting subject. Perhaps no region of the world, after having been studied, in whole or in part, by such competent observers,—amoug whom, for our own country only, it is sufficient to name only Raffles, Marsden, Crawfurd, Jukes (to say nothing of Brooke and the Borneans),—remains so little known generally, although one of the great ocean highways of the world, that to China, and now Japan, from the West, lies through one or other of its straits. Excluding always Borneo, two names, Singapore and Batavia, sum up for most educated Englishmen their chief acquaintance with it, beyond the mere odd shapes of islands on the map, and a few more or less hazy historical reminiscences, as of "the Amboyna massacre." Mr. Bickmore's work will not very permanently assist our ignorance. He has not generally the gift of picturesque description ; in fact, there are only two really vivid scenes in his book, one which narrates a slip of his down a mountain side, which Happened to be a volcano, but which might just as well have been our own Snowdon, so far as the excitement is concerned ; the other indeed a truly sensational fight with a python on board ship, on which the volume closes. The value of his observations, though spread over a wide area, is nevertheless limited. A third probably of his book is made up of notices of islands which he only saw from shipboard, or never saw at all ; only a few of the smallest can he be said to have really explored ; and only through Sumatra did he make any extended land journey. In fact, though his voyage was one of adventure, he has but little of the spirit of adventure in him. When a Dutch governor proposes to reach the top of a volcano, the " thought of such a dangerous undertaking " seems to his guest " enough to make one shudder." Although he has served in the American war, Mr. Bickmore has Travels in the Indian Archipelago. By Albert S. Biekmore, MA., F.G.S., London fie., &co, with Maps and Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1663. The -Malay Areldpelago, the Land of the Grang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise: a Narrative of Trarei, with Studies of Man and Airfare. By Alfred Rus.,1 Walh.ce. Author of "Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,' " Palm Trees of the Amazon," ke. 2 vols. London : Macmillan and Co. Ism.

a holy horror of having his throat cut ; and when he has enjoyed the rare chance of touching on the wild northern coast of little

known Ceram, the mere sight of a party of head-hunters under arrest,—if, indeed, he saw them at all,—gives him at night such " a sickeuing sensation akin to fear," that in the morning he is " anxious to go back to Autboyna," Le., to a quiet pillow.

But we must not ask too much at Mr. Bickmore's hands. He did not visit the Eastern Archipelago to study for our amusement the manners and customs of heal-hunters and cannibals, but simply to collect shells. The great Ituniphius (let our readers bow the more reverently to his greatness that they probably never heard of it before), the great Ruinphius,—by his every-day name Dr. George Everard Rualpf, a Hesse-Casseler, who entered the service of the Dutch East India Company and spent the greater part of his life in Amboyna,—in his great work, the llariteit Kamer (" Chamber of Rarities "), published in 1705, figured the shells of .-ainboyna from those of his collection, which was brought to Europe, but from which many specimens have disappeared ; and it was " partly to restore Rumphius's specimens," partly to carry to America a like standard collection, that Mr. Bickinore set out to search himself " for the shells figured in the Rarileit Kamer, on the very points and headlands and in the very bays where Rumphius's specimens were found." For such a purpose a coast line well studded with mollusks had naturally more charms iu his eyes than wild inland districts peopled with ignorant savages,— who, even if innocent of head-limiting, could not distinguish between a whelk and a wentletrap,—amid a good coral reef than even the former. Hence, when our voyager arrives before Dilli, in Timor, " the Portuguese capital in all these waters,—a queer forgotten place, from whence the last governor had run away for want of his last half-year's salary, and where the lieges were anxiously asking whether the ship just steaming in brought a new governor," the captain's reply was that he had but one passenger in the first

cabin, and the onlyplace he appeared to care to see in that region was the coral reef at the mouth of the harbour." Accordingly, whilst it

does not appear that Mr. Biekinore deigned even to land amongst the governorless Dillians, he becomes eloquent in his boat over the " wide garden richly tinted with polyps, with here and there vermilion star-fishes scattered about, and bright-hued fishes dart ing hither and thither like flashes of light," amongst which in an hour he collected "three species of beautiful star-fishes, and sixtyfive kinds of shells, almost all of the richest colours." Unfortunate Dillians! Why were ye not rayed like star-fishes? Why wore ye no shells to your backs? Then at least ye would have won sympathy from this stranger of the Far West, in whose pages we catch but this one passing glimpse of your forlornness, as ye wait, wait, wait for a governor, and seek him in vain under steam or sail!

Mr. Bickmore's shell-collecting expeditions proper end, however, at page 212, when he had " not only collected all the shells figured in itumphius's Rariteit Kamer . . . . but more than twice as many species besides," and turned his attention to other branches of natural history. Bird-hunting, in particular, led him more to the interior, and we owe to it a few pleasant pages describing a week's stay in a but within the forests of Buru. It is true that his three

months' sojourn in the island was compulsory, owing to Governor Arriens being detained by a revolt in Ceram, whilst the Buru people are particularly noted as "mild and inoffensive." But at the end of the week lie returned to Kay6li, the chief town of the island, feeling, " though there were only eight white persons in the whole place," that he was returning to civilization ; and he seems never to have been tempted to a bush life again.

It is, indeed, in this second half of Mr. Bickmore's volume that for the general reader its chief interest is centred, more particularly in those portions which describe his inland excursions—not, indeed, very extensive ones—in the "Minahassa," as the long northern claw of Celebes is called ; or again, his longer journeys in Sumatra. Judging from Mr. Bickmore's observations,—which, however, as must be always borne in mind, are generally confined to one or two coast points in each island which lie visited,—the Minahassa seems to be the happiest portion of the Dutch Indian possessions:—

"The more I travelled in the Minahassa, the more I admired the kampongs [villages] ; they are so incomparably superior to those of every other part of the Archipelago in the regularity of their streets and the beautiful hedges with which they are lined, and, above all, in the neatness and evidence of thrift that everywhere appear."

The population of the district has more than quadrupled since 1800, rising from 24,000 to 104,418, although in the interval, during a year of mortality (1854), one-seventh of the population was swept away. The people, moreover, were within the recol lection of living men head-hunters, and the " wonderful change " which has come over the land, even since 1833, is thus explained :

"What is it that has transferred these people from barbarism to civilization? Tho answer, and the only answer, is Christianity and I education. The Bible, in the hands of the missionaries, has been the chief cause that has induced these people to lay aside their bloody rites. As soon as a few natives had been taught to read and write they were employed as teachers, and schools were established from place to place ; and from these centres a spirit of industry and self-respect has diffused itself among the people, and supplanted in a great measure their previous predisposition to idleness and self-neglect."

In fact, the progress of Christianity has been so remarkable in this quarter that, whereas in 1841) " the number of Christians compared to that of heathen was as 1 to 16, now it is about as 2 to 5." Meanwhile, cultivation has enormously extended, and the yield of coffee, which "commands a much higher price than that of Java, and is superior to any raised in the Archipelago, unless it be some that comes from the highlands in the interior of Sumatra," rose from only 80 piculs in 1822 to 13,000 in 1853, 23,000 in 1854, and for the last few years has averaged 37,000, or 5,000,0001b., the cultivation being, indeed, a Government monopoly.

An interest of an entirely opposite kind attaches to Mr. Bickmore's visit in Sumatra to the land of the Battas, a strange, halfcivilized race, with a language and an alphabet of their own, known as man-eaters since the thirteenth century, and who keep up the practice everywhere beyond the limits of Dutch authority. Here the Dutch Government is also endeavouring to promote education, but with no apparent effect as yet upon the people. Cannibalism, indeed, forms an important part of the Batta penal code ; and whilst crossing a tract occupied by the independent liattas, Mr. Bickmore was shown a spot by the wayside where a Batta, guilty of adultery, " had been killed and eaten by his fellows not long before." And it is quite " a common thiug to hear that one or more natives have been eaten on the neighbouring mountains."

Apart, however, from his special conchological merits,—and God forbid that we should underrate the momentous importance to a collector of a work which informs him where only the writer was able to obtain a live pearly nautilus, where and when the great Troches Mornioratus is to be procured alive, in what deep waters alone lives StromInts latissinzas, and on what only mile of coast "a very beautiful cone, covered with mottled bands of black and salmon colour," is "sometimes found,"—Mr. 13ickmore's observations on geology and ethnology are the more valuable, that he appears to have carefully studied the works of those who have trod the same ground before him. He brings out, not so much by single descriptions as by accumulation, the strange geological conditions of that volcanic region, with its many fire mountains in full action, and its myriad craters (one of them in Sumatra, now occupied by Lake Manindyu, being no less than six geographical miles in length on a width of three), and harassed by earthquakes so terrific that 20,000 persons or more, at a time, have perished by them. One suggestion, derived from all ingenious observation in vegetable physiology, deserves especial notice. In examining the temperature of some hot springs in the Minahassa, he found that "the presence of vegetable life depended more on the chemical composition of the water than on its temperature," so that algae of an elementary character appeared under a comparatively trifling reduction of temperature (from 172.82° to 170.15° Fahr.), as soon as the sulphurous gas with which the current was at first charged was thrown off. Hence, he concludes, the whole ocean may yet have been "one great steaming cauldron, when these very simple aquatic plants, each apparently consisting of only a single branching cell, began to grow in the shallow places along its shores."

Travelling with a special pass from the Governor-General of the Dutch Wrest Indies, and almost invariably either in company with local governors, in their yachts or carriages, or'posting free where a post system exists, Mr. Bickmore was little likely to see, and it might have been ungracious of him to have looked for, the under-side of Dutch rule. Those, however, who have read that most remarkable book, Max Haveloar, will be able occasionally to read between the lines,' and discern facts of which our voyager himself seems to have been unconscious. The impression, however, which his book leaves is that the Dutch Government is really in many respects turning over a new leaf in the administration of its magnificent empire of Australind.'