and cultivates coffee on an estate at the foot of the hills. With him
I was introduced to Mr. Geach, a mining-engineer who had been for two
years endeavouring to discover copper in sufficient quantity to be worth
working.
Delli is a most miserable place compared with even the poorest of the
Dutch towns. The houses are all of mud and thatch; the fort is only a
mud enclosure; and the custom-house and church are built of the same
mean materials, with no attempt at decoration or even neatness. The
whole aspect of the place is that of a poor native town, and there is no
sign of cultivation or civilization round about it. His Excellency
the Governor's house is the only one that makes any pretensions to
appearance, and that is merely a low whitewashed cottage or bungalow.
Yet there is one thing in which civilization exhibits itself--officials
in black and white European costume, and officers in gorgeous uniforms
abound in a degree quite disproportionate to the size or appearance of
the place.
The town being surrounded for some distance by swamps and mudflats is
very unhealthy, and a single night often gives a fever to newcomers
which not unfrequently proves fatal. To avoid this malaria, Captain Hart
always slept at his plantation, on a slight elevation about two miles
from the town, where Mr. Geach also had a small house, which he kindly
invited me to share. We rode there in the evening; and in the course of
two days my baggage was brought up, and I was able to look about me and
see if I could do any collecting.
For the first few weeks I was very unwell and could not go far from the
house. The country was covered with low spiny shrubs and acacias, except
in a little valley where a stream came down from the hills, where some
fine trees and bushes shaded the water and formed a very pleasant place
to ramble up. There were plenty of birds about, and of a tolerable
variety of species; but very few of them were gaily coloured. Indeed,
with one or two exceptions, the birds of this tropical island were
hardly so ornamental as those of Great Britain. Beetles were so scarce
that a collector might fairly say there were none, as the few obscure
or uninteresting species would not repay him for the search. The only
insects at all remarkable or interesting were the butterflies, which,
though comparatively few in species, were sufficiently abundant, and
comprised a large proportion of new or rare sorts. The banks of the
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