ore seen, together with several of the Amboyna
species, but by no means so numerous or, so beautiful as I had found in
that small island. For example, I collected only 210 different kinds
of beetles during my two months' stay at Bourn, while in three weeks
at Amboyna, in 1857, I found more than 300 species: One of the finest
insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut
colour, and with very long antennae. It varied greatly in size, the
largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only
an inch, the antenna varying from one and a half to five inches.

One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking
through some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a
small fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, and far
to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of the herbage. He
jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good
vies of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being
dragged along through the grass. As he lead several times already shot
large snakes, which he declared were all as nothing compared with
this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. Such
creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man living close by showed
me on his thigh the marks where he had been seized by one close to his
house. It was big enough to take the man's thigh in its mouth, and he
would probably have been killed and devoured by it had not his cries
brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their choppers. As
far as I could make out it was about twenty feet long, but Ali's was
probably much larger.

It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have taken
possession of it, a native hut seems quite a comfortable home. My house
at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a large bamboo platform at one side. At
one end of this platform, which was elevated about three feet, I fixed
up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with a large Scotch
plaid, making a comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a
rude table on legs buried in the earthen floor, and had my comfortable
rattan-chair for a seat. A line across one corner carried my
daily-washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my
small stock of crockery and hardware: Boxes were ranged against the
thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections from ants
while drying, were sus