Part 2

The voyagers named it the Angra de Santa Elena, and it may have been the bay which is now known as St. Helen's Bay. But it is worthy of note that the G. de Sta. Ellena of the Cantino Chart is laid down in a position which corresponds rather with that of Table Bay than with that of St. Helen's Bay.

The Portuguese came into contact with the inhabitants of the country adjacent to the anchorage. These people had tawny complexions, and carried wooden spears tipped with horn--assagais of a kind--and bows and arrows. They also used foxes' tails attached to short wooden handles. We are not informed for what purposes the foxes' tails were used. Were they used to brush flies away, or were they insignia of authority? The food of the natives was the flesh of whales, seals, and antelopes (gazellas), and the roots of certain plants. Crayfish or 'Cape lobsters' abounded near the anchorage.

The author of the roteiro affirms that the birds of the country resembled the birds in Portugal, and that amongst them were cormorants, larks, turtle-doves, and gulls. The gulls are called 'guayvotas,' but 'guayvotas' is probably another instance of the eccentric orthography of the author and equivalent to 'gaivotas.'

In December the squadron reached the Angra de São Bràs, which was either Mossel Bay or another bay in close proximity to Mossel Bay. Here penguins and seals were in great abundance. The author of the roteiro calls the penguins 'sotelycairos,' which is more correctly written 'sotilicarios' by subsequent writers. The word is probably related to the Spanish sotil and the Latin subtilis, and may contain an allusion to the supposed cunning of the penguins, which disappear by diving when an enemy approaches.

The sotilicarios, says the chronicler, could not fly because there were no quill-feathers in their wings; in size they were as large as drakes, and their cry resembled the braying of an ass. Castanheda, Goes, and Osorio also mention the sotilicario in their accounts of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama, and compare its flipper to the wing of a bat--a not wholly inept comparison, for the under-surface of the wings of penguins is wholly devoid of feathery covering. Manuel de Mesquita Perestrello, who visited the south coast of Africa in 1575, also describes the Cape penguin. From a manuscript of his Roteiro in the Oporto Library, one learns that the flippers of the sotilicario were covered with minute feathers, as indeed they are on the upper surface and that they dived after fish, upon which they fed, and on which they fed their young, which were hatched in nests constructed of fishbones. There is nothing to cavil at in these statements, unless it be that which asserts that the nests were constructed of fishbones, for this is not in accordance with the observations of contemporary naturalists, who tell us that the nests of the Cape Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) are constructed of stones, shells, and débris. It is, therefore, probable that the fishbones which Perestrello saw were the remains of repasts of seals.

Seals, says the roteiro, were in great number at the Angra de São Bràs. On one occasion the number was counted and was found to be three thousand. Some were as large as bears and their roaring was as the roaring of lions. Others, which were very small, bleated like kids. These differences in size and in voice may be explained by differences in the age and in the sex of the seals, for seals of different species do not usually resort to the same locality. The seal which formerly frequented the south coast of Africa--for it is, I believe, no longer a denizen of that region--was that which is known to naturalists as Arctocephalus delalandii, and, as adult males sometimes attain eight and a half feet in length, it may well be described as of the size of a bear. Cubs from six to eight months of age measure about two feet and a half in length. The Portuguese caught anchovies in the bay, which they salted to serve as provisions on the voyage. They anchored a second time in the Angra de São Bràs in March, 1499, on their homeward voyage.

Yet one more allusion to the penguins and seals of the Angra de São Bràs is of sufficient historical interest to be mentioned. The first Dutch expedition to Bantam weighed anchor on the 2nd of April, 1595, and on the 4th of August of the same year the vessels anchored in a harbour called 'Ague Sambras,' in eight or nine fathoms of water, on a sandy bottom. So many of the sailors were sick with scurvy--'thirty or thirty-three,' says the narrator, 'in one ship'--that it was necessary to find fresh fruit for them. 'In this bay,' runs the English translation of the narrative, 'lieth a small Island wherein are many birds called Pyncuins and sea Wolves, that are taken with men's hands.' In the original Dutch narrative by Willem Lodewyckszoon, published in Amsterdam in 1597, the name of the birds appears as 'Pinguijns.'

Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama. 2da edição. Lisboa, 1861. Pp. 14 and 105. Moseley, Notes by a Naturalist on the 'Challenger,' p. 155. Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum, by J. E. Gray. 2nd ed., p. 53.

THE BANDA ISLANDS AND THE BANDAN BIRDS

The islands of the Banda Sea, with the exception of Letti, Kisser, and Wetter, constitute the Ceram sub-group or the Moluccan group; the principal units are Buru, Amboyna, Great Banda, Ceram, Ceram Laut, Goram, Kur, Babar, and Dama. The Matabela Islands, the Tiandu Islands, the Ké Islands, and the Tenimber Islands also belong to the Ceram sub-group. We are only concerned with the Banda Islands, which are eight in number, and consist of four central islands in close proximity to one another, inclosing a little inland sea, and four outlying islets. The central islands are Lonthoir, or Great Banda, Banda Neira, Gounong Api, which is an active volcano, and Pisang. The remaining Banda Islands are Rozengain, which lies about ten miles distant to the south-east of Great Banda; Wai, at an equal distance to the west; Rhun, about eight miles west by south from Wai; and Suangi or Manukan, about seventeen miles north by east from Rhun.

The Banda Islands are well known as the principal centre of the cultivation of the nutmeg. When the Dutch East India Company became the possessors of the islands in the beginning of the seventeenth century, they destroyed the nutmeg trees in all the islands under their jurisdiction, with the exception of those in Amboyna and the Banda Islands. By doing so they hoped to maintain the high value of these natural products.

The Banda Islands may have been visited by Varthema, but our first reliable account of them connects the discovery of them with an expedition dispatched by order of Alfonso de Albuquerque from Malacca. Shortly after Albuquerque had defeated the Malays and taken possession of that city, he sent three vessels, under the command of Antonio de Abreu, to explore the Archipelago and to inaugurate a trade with the islanders. A junk, commanded by a native merchant captain, Ismael by name, preceded the other vessels for the purpose of announcing their approaching advent to the traders of the Archipelago, so that they might have their spices ready for shipment. With De Abreu went Francisco Serrão and Simão Affonso, in command of two of the vessels. The pilots were Luis Botim, Gonçalo de Oliveira, and Francisco Rodriguez or Roiz. Abreu left Malacca in November, 1511, at which season the westerly monsoon begins to blow. He steered a south-easterly course, passed through the Strait of Sabong, and having arrived at the coast of Java, he cast anchor at Agaçai, which Valentijn identifies with Gresik, near Sourabaya. At Agaçai, Javan pilots were engaged for the voyage thence to the Banda Islands. Banda was, however, not the first port of call. The course was first to Buru, and thence to Amboyna. Galvão relates that Abreu landed at Guli Guli, which is in Ceram. Barros, however, in his account of the voyage, makes no mention of Ceram. At Amboyna the ship commanded by Francisco Serrão, an Indian vessel which had been captured at Goa, was burnt, for, says Barros, 'she was old,' and the ship's company was divided between the two other ships, which then proceeded to Lutatão, which is perhaps identical with Ortattan, a trading station on the north coast of Great Banda. Here Abreu obtained a cargo of nutmegs and mace and of cloves, which had been brought hither from the Moluccas. At Lutatão Abreu erected a pillar in token of annexation to the dominions of the King of Portugal. He had done this at Agaçai and in Amboyna also.

The return voyage to Malacca was marked by disaster. A junk, which now was bought to replace the Indian vessel, was wrecked, and the crew, who had taken refuge on a small island, was attacked by pirates. The pirates, however, were worsted and their craft was captured. Serrão, who had been in command of the junk, sailed in the pirate vessel to Amboyna, and thence eventually reached Ternate, where he remained at the invitation of Boleife, the Sultan of that island. The junk, of which Ismael was the skipper, was also wrecked near Tuban, but the cargo, consisting of cloves, was recovered in 1513 from the Javans, who had taken possession of it.

Zoologically the Banda Islands lie within Wallace's Australian Region, and their avifauna has a great affinity with that of Australia. Wallace visited these islands in December 1857, May 1859, and April 1861, and collected eight species of birds, namely, Rhipidura squamata, a fan-tailed Flycatcher; Pachycephala phæonota, a thickhead; Myzomela boiei, a small scarlet-headed honey-eater; Zosterops chloris, a white-eye; Pitta vigorsi, one of the brightly-coloured ground thrushes of the Malayan region; Halcyon chloris, a kingfisher with a somewhat extensive range; Ptilopus xanthogaster, a fruit-eating pigeon, and the nutmeg pigeon, Carpophaga concinna. The islands were visited by the members of the Challenger expedition in September and October, 1874, but the only additional species then obtained was Monarcha cinerascens, also a Flycatcher.

These birds may be regarded as the resident birds of the Banda Islands, but there are others which are occasional visitants or migrants. Indeed, in seas so full of islands, it is inevitable that wanderers from other islands should occasionally visit the group.

To those which I have already mentioned there may therefore be added, as of less frequency, the accipitrine bird, Astur polionotus, the Hoary-backed Goshawk; the Passeres Edoliisoma dispar, a Caterpillar Shrike, the skin of a male of which from Great Banda is in the Leyden Museum, and Motacilla melanope, the Grey Wagtail. Of picarian birds there have been found Cuculus intermedius, the Oriental Cuckoo; Eudynamis cyanocephala sub-species everetti, a small form of the Koel, and Eurystomus australis, the Australian Roller. João de Barros, in his Asia, mentions the parrots of the Banda Islands, and we find accordingly that one of the Psittaci is recorded from Banda in modern times, namely, Eos rubra, a red, or rather a crimson lory. The ornithologist Müller saw many of these birds in Great Banda, on the Kanary trees. Additional pigeons are the seed-eating Chalcophaps chrysochlora and the fruit-eating Ptilonopus wallacei, and finally there is one gallinaceous bird which is probably resident, but the shy and retiring habits of which have enabled it to escape observation until recently. This is a Scrub Fowl (Megapodius duperreyi).

III. v. 6. 'Muitos papagayos & passaros diversos.'

THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME 'EMU'

The name 'emu' has an interesting history. It occurs in the forms 'emia' and 'eme' in Purchas his Pilgrimage, in 1613. 'In Banda and other islands,' says Purchas, 'the bird called emia or eme is admirable.' We should probably pronounce 'eme' in two syllables, as e-mé. This eme or emia was doubtless a cassowary--probably that of Ceram. The idea that it was a native of the Banda Group appears to have existed in some quarters at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the idea was assuredly an erroneous one. So large a struthious bird as the cassowary requires more extensive feeding-grounds and greater seclusion than was to be found in any island of the Banda Group, and, as at the present day so in the past, Ceram was the true home of the Malayan cassowary, which found and which finds in the extensive forests of that island the home adapted to its requirements. It is, however, equally certain that at an early date the Ceram cassowary was imported into Amboyna and probably into Banda also, and we know of an early instance of its being introduced into Java, and from Java into Europe. When the first Dutch expedition to Java had reached that island, and when the vessels of which it was composed were lying at anchor off Sindaya, some Javans brought a cassowary on board Schellenger's ship as a gift, saying that the bird was a rare one and that it swallowed fire. At least, so they were understood to say, but that they really did say so is somewhat doubtful. However, the sailors put the matter to the test by administering to the bird a dose of hollands; perhaps the hollands was ignited and administered in the form of liquid fire, but it is not expressly stated that this was the case. This cassowary was brought alive to Amsterdam in 1597, and was presented to the Estates of Holland at the Hague. A figure of it, under the name 'eme,' appears in the fourth and fifth German editions of the account of this voyage of the Dutch to Java, by Hulsius, published at Frankfort in 1606 and 1625. The figure is a fairly accurate representation of an immature cassowary.

Whence comes, let us ask, the name 'eme' and the later form, 'emu.' The New Historical English Dictionary suggests a derivation from a Portuguese word, 'ema,' signifying a crane. But no authority is quoted to prove that ema signifies, or ever signified, crane. On the other hand, various Portuguese dictionaries which have been consulted render 'ema' by 'casoar,' or state that the name 'ema' is applicable to several birds, of which the crane is not one. Pero de Magalhães de Gandavo, in his Historia da Provincia Sancta Cruz, published in 1576, uses the name 'hema' in writing of the rhea or nandu.

It is worthy of note that the Arabic name of the cassowary is 'neâma', and that there were many Arab traders in the Malayan Archipelago at the time when the Portuguese first navigated it. The Portuguese strangely distorted Malay and Arabic names, and it would not be surprising if they reproduced 'neâma' as 'uma ema.'

Salvadori, referring to Hist. Gen. de Voy. VIII. p. 112, states that the Cassowary which was brought alive to Europe by the Dutch in 1597 belonged first to Count Solms van Gravenhage, then to the Elector Ernest van Keulen, and finally to the Emperor Rudolph II. Ornit. della Papuasia e delle Molucche. III. p. 481.

AUSTRALIAN BIRDS IN 1697

In 1696 the Honourable Directors of the Dutch Chartered Company trading to the Dutch East Indies decided to send an expedition for the purpose of searching for missing vessels, especially for the Ridderschap van Hollandt, of which no news had been received for two years. The local Board of Directors of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company was charged to carry out this resolution, and it equipped three vessels which were placed under the command of Willem de Vlaming. The Commander was directed to search for missing vessels or for shipwrecked sailors at the Tristan da Cunha Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul in the Southern Ocean. Thence he was to proceed to the 'Onbekende Zuidland,' by which name, or by that of Eendragts Land, Australia was designated in whole or in part in the official dispatches of the Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth century.

On the 29th of December, 1696, the vessels under the command of De Vlaming lay at anchor between Rottnest Island and the mainland of Australia. The island was searched for wreckage with little result. One piece of timber was found which, it was conjectured, might have been deck timber, and a plank was found, three feet long and one span broad. The nails in the wreckage were very rusty. The search for shipwrecked sailors on the adjacent mainland was unsuccessful. On the 20th and on the 31st of December, and on the 1st of January, 1697, De Vlaming notes in his journal that odoriferous wood was found on the mainland. Portions of it were subsequently submitted to the Council of the Dutch East Indies at Batavia, and from these portions an essential oil was obtained by distillation. It may well be supposed that this experiment was the first in the manufacture of eucalyptus oil, which, however, in our day is obtained not from the wood but from the leaves of the tree. On the 13th of January De Vlaming records that a dark resinous gum resembling lac was seen exuding from trees.

In a narrative of the voyage published under the title Journaal wegens een Voyagie na het onbekende Zuid-land, we read that on the 11th of January nine or ten Black Swans were seen. In a letter from Willem van Oudhoorn, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, to the Managers of the East India Company at the Amsterdam Chamber, it is stated that three black swans were brought alive to Batavia, but died soon after their arrival.

Several boat expeditions were made, and Swan River was entered and ascended. During these expeditions the author of the Journaal mentions that the song of the 'Nachtegael' was heard. There are no nightingales in Australia, but the bird to which the writer of the Journaal alludes may have been the Long-billed Reed Warbler, the Australian representative of the Sedge Warbler and a denizen of the reed-beds of the Swan River. Two species of geese are also mentioned by the same writer under the names of European geese. It is somewhat difficult to determine to which geese the author of the Journaal alludes under the names 'Kropgans' and 'Rotgans.'

When English-speaking Dutch are asked to translate 'kropgans,' they do so by 'Christmas goose' or 'fat goose.' Dictionaries are silent respecting 'kropgans,' or render it by 'pelican.' I am inclined to think that this rendering arises from a confusion between 'kropgans' and the German word 'kropfgans,' and that 'kropgans' was formerly applied to domestic geese in general which were being fed for the market, and also, as in the present instance, to the wild goose from which they were derived, namely to the Grey Lag Goose (Anser ferus). If this be so, the Australian bird with which the kropgans is compared in the Journaal may be the Cape Barren Goose (Cereopsis novæ-hollandiæ), which is found sparingly in Western Australia. The 'Rotgans' is the Brent Goose (Branta bernicla) and the Australian bird which most resembles it is the Musk Duck (Biziura lobata), which also is found in the west of Australia, although more sparingly there than in the south of the island continent.