Items related to The cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New...
The cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New Guinea Volume 2 ; with notices of Formosa, Liu-Kiu, and various islands of the Malay archipelago - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...had had but little effect upon his energy. From him we soon learnt the few facts of interest connected with the plantation. Cacao, coffee, bananas, and coconuts had been tried, and the former was doing well. The island, which is nearly seven miles long, and rises into a central lofty ridge about twelve hundred feet in height, supports a native population of 400 people, 150 of whom are engaged on the plantation. They are almost all of the Talautse or Sanghir tribes, and speak a language distinct from any found in Celebes. Talisse was the haunt of numbers of the large Fruit-eating Pigeons, Carpophacia radiata and C. paulina. The latter is a fine bird, weighing a pound and a quarter or even more, and its metallic green back shot with bronze, and a curious tawny patch upon the nurpie, render it conspicuously handsome. The lower mandible of birds of this genus is capable of being expanded laterally to an enormous extent,--a special adaptation to enable them to feed on the various large fruits of the forest-trees. The size of those they manage to swallow is astonishing. I have found fruits nearly as large as a small Tangerine orange in their crops. The only other bird of interest that we met with on the island was a Glossy Starling (Calornis neglecta), a genus supposed by Mr. Wallace to be absent from Celebes. Mr. Iiijkschroeff told us that there were but few Maleos upon the island, so after a couple of days' stay we left for Likoupang, a village on the mainland about ten miles to the south. Our host accompanied us, together with a native who was supposed to have a good knowledge of the coast, and who, when a child of six, had been rescued from the pirates of Illanun. We found the anchorage a tolerably good one, though with many surrounding reefs and sandbanks, a...
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