The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-utan, and the Bird of Paradise, Volume 2

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Harper & Brothers, 1869 - 638 pages
 

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Page 637 - With a full View of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction of the Spanish Armada. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, LL.D., DCL Portraits.
Page 595 - I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all are nearly equal.
Page 595 - It is not too much to say that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it.
Page 467 - The whole bird is then overshadowed by them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald-green throat forming but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which waves above. When seen in this attitude, the bird of paradise really deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful of living things.
Page 60 - The man who was in front tried to run his spear through the animal's body; but the orang seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man's arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would have been...
Page 27 - Nowhere does the ancient doctrine that differences or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to corresponding physical differences or similarities in the countries themselves, meet with so direct and palpable a contradiction. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two distinct countries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder ; while Australia, with its dry winds, its open plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces...
Page 245 - I have done so frequently, and the result of these examinations has convinced me that the bright colours of flowers have a much greater influence on the general aspect of nature in temperate than in tropical climates. During twelve years spent amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen nothing comparable to the effect produced on our landscapes by gorse, broom, heather, wild hyacinths, hawthorns, purple orchises, and buttercups.
Page 27 - closely resembles New Guinea, not only in its vast size and freedom from volcanoes, but in its variety of geological structure, its uniformity of climate, and the general aspect of the forest vegetation that clothes its surface. The Moluccas are the counterpart of the Philippines in their volcanic structure, their extreme fertility, their luxuriant forests, and their frequent earthquakes ; and Bali, with the east end of Java, has a climate almost as arid as that of Timor. Yet between these corresponding...
Page 586 - ... and protuberant. He is impulsive and demonstrative in speech and action ; his emotions and passions express themselves in shouts and laughter, in yells and frantic leapings.
Page 85 - The fruit is round or slightly oval, about the size of a large cocoanut, of a green colour, and covered all over with short stout spines the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently somewhat hexagonal, while the points are very strong and sharp.

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