ch of existing species of animals,
as in that case it must owe its present fauna and flora to recent
immigration from surrounding lands; and with this view its poverty in
species very well agrees. It possesses much in common with East Ceram,
but at the same time has a good deal of resemblance to the Ke Islands
and Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Ke, Banda,
Il-Iatabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinct species, C.
neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islands have also a common
facies--facts which seem to indicate that some more extensive land has
recently disappeared from the area they now occupy, and has supplied
them with a few of its peculiar productions.

The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a race of traders.
Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, and Aru Islands, the whole
north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanata to Salwatty, and the island
of Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend their voyages to Tidore and
Ternate, as well as to Banda and Amboyna, Their praus are all made by
that wonderful race of boatbuilders, the Ke islanders, who annually
turn out some hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be
surpassed for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship, They trade
chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nutmegs, and
tortoiseshell, which they sell to the Bugis traders at Ceram-laut or
Aru, few of them caring to take their products to any other market. In
other respects they are a lazy race, living very poorly, and much given
to opium smoking. The only native manufactures are sail-matting, coarse
cotton cloth, and pandanus-leaf boxes, prettily stained and ornamented
with shell-work.

In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are about a
dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the inhabitants, and
exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any order is received from
the Dutch Government, when, being backed by a higher power, they show
a little more strict authority. My friend the Rajah of Ammer (commonly
called Rajah of Goram) told me that a few years ago, before the Dutch
had interfered in the affairs of the island, the trade was not carried
on so peaceably as at present, rival praus often fighting when on the
way to the same locality, or trafficking in the same village. Now such a
thing is never thought of-one of the good effects of the superintendence
of a civilized government. Disputes between villag