When our Coral Expeditions cruise arrived in the town of Tobelo on the northwestern arm of the island of Halmahera in October 2018, the Dukono volcano was erupting ash. This should not have been a surprise since research shows that the volcano has been erupting almost continuously since 1978.
The Dukono volcano as seen from the Coral Discoverer
A rift in the earth’s mantle has caused a sea floor spreading zone between the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahere, causing subduction and related volcanic activity along the edge of both islands. There are sixteen volcanoes on the Halmahera volcanic arc, many of which are still active, and an equal number along the Sangihe volcanic arc.
This seafloor map shows the central ridge, like the larger mid-Atlantic ridge, formed by the intrusion of oceanic magma. This intrusion causes spreading of the sea floor and the related subduction zones are shown by the seafloor trenches developed on each side of the central ridge . The water filled sediments that are subducted into the earths interior then become superheated, melt the surrounding rocks, and cause the volcanic activity.
The related volcanoes can be best seen on this topographical map of Halmahera which shows a line of volcanoes formed along the western side of the island, including the clove islands of Ternate, Tidore, Moti and Makian which are offshore.
The Dukono volcano is only 10 km from the town of Tobelo. While we were there it was continuously erupting ash, but fortunately the wind was blowing to the northeast and away from the town.
The Dukono volcano as seen from the town of Tobelo
The Federated Malay States were a group of four States on the Malay Peninsula, including Selangor, Perak, Negri Sembilan and Pahang that were united by the British Government in 1895.
The Federation ended in 1946 to become part of the Malayan Union.
Which became the Federation of Malaya in 1948.
And travel by train from Singapore to visit a romantic beach at Batu Ferringhi in Penang.
The Federation of Malaya gained their independence from Britain in 1957,and formed Malaysia in 1963.
I love these old retro travel posters. Images are from the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore
This is a fascinating exhibition that I was able to visit at the Museum Branly in Paris. From the forests of New Guinea to the paintings of the great masters of the Northern School, it is a fascinating journey in the footsteps of the birds of paradise, flamboyant creatures that have captivated the world for five centuries.
Bringing together nearly 190 works – adornments, paintings, stuffed specimens, fashion pieces and accessories, art objects and illustrated books – the exhibition crosses the views of natural history, art, ethnology, fashion and ecology. It sheds light on the way in which these birds were collected, represented, admired or transformed over time, in Oceania, Asia and Europe.
Used as wearable Art in New Guinea
This exhibition traces the circulation of feathers and representations of birds of paradise, enchanting birds-artists native to the lush forests of New Guinea. An object of desire, contemplation and inspiration, these spectacular beings have crossed eras and continents.
The National Flag of Papua New GuineaLe Paradis Rouge – Jacques Barraband
It was Alfred Russel Wallace, who, in 1856, based on his observations of the bird life and animal life in Eastern Indonesia, realised that the Lombok Strait represents the biogeographical boundary between the fauna of Asia and Australia. On the Asian side are elephants, tigers, monkeys and on the Australian side are marsupials such as possums and tree kangaroos. Consequently, he concluded that Australia had collided with Asia before there was any understanding of Continental Drift or Plate Tectonics.
His observations also led him to co-discover, in 1858, the concept of the Origin of Species, which forced Charles Darwin to publish his work that same year.
In March 1854, Alfred Russel Wallace sailed to Singapore to begin his Asian collecting expeditions. Singapore was the regional entrepot for all the trade coming from China and across the archipelago, and in its streets and around its harbour, he found the Chinese, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Javanese and Sumatrans who traded in the islands’ products, as well as the English and Dutch colonialists who ruled these lands. The energetic Chinese were busy cutting down the jungle in the central part of the island for timber to build the expanding colony and to clear space for plantations of pepper, nutmeg and gambir for export. He found accommodation on the outskirts of the settlement in a Jesuit mission near Bukit Timah (Tin Hill) and began collecting all the insects and beetles that were thriving in the piles of bark and sawdust left by the woodcutters. Today, there is a Wallace Trail in this area, which includes some of the last remaining jungle preserved in Singapore.
Wallace describes the daily routine of himself and his assistant, Charles Allen:
Get up at half-past five, bath, and coffee. Sit down to arrange my insects of the day before, and set them in a safe place to dry. Charles mends our insect nets, fills our pin-cushions, and gets ready for the day. Breakfast at eight; out to the jungle at nine. We have to walk up a steep hill to reach it, and arrive dripping with perspiration. Then we wander about in the delightful shade along paths made by the Chinese woodcutters till two or three in the afternoon, generally returning with fifty or sixty beetles, some very rare or beautiful, and perhaps a few butterflies. Change clothes to sit down to kill and pin insects, Charles doing the flies, wasps and bugs; I do not trust him yet with the beetles. Dinner at four, then at work again until six. Then read or talk, or, if insects are very numerous, work again till eight or nine. Then to bed.
The Wallace Trail
I had a unique experience when I could smell the pervasive and pungent odour of durian long before I saw this sign on the side of the trail. Looking around, there was no sign of durian on the ground or in the trees, but the smell was unmistakable.
Wallace and his assistant collected as many as 700 species of beetles, but as many collectors had been here before him, few were rarities. It is hard for anyone visiting modern-day Singapore to comprehend that just 150 years ago, man-eating tigers roamed the jungles of this City State. Wallace mentions that tigers killed an average of one person every day, principally those working in the plantations, and from their residence at the Jesuit mission they would hear tigers roar once or twice in the evenings.
Fortunately, I did not encounter any tigers, but I did reach the Wallace Education Centre, which is there to inform Singaporeans of the work he did in the Malay Archipelago and his contribution to the understanding of the Origin of Species.
You can read all about Alfred Russel Wallace, his adventures collecting natural history specimens in the Malay Archipelago, his discovery of the Wallace Line, and his famous paper on the Origin of Species, in my book ‘The Wallace Line’.
David Rosenberg has recently passed away after a lifetime spent in publishing.
At David Rosenberg’s Memorial Service
He founded Kangaroo Press in 1981, which he and his wife Scilla managed for 20 years until it was sold to Simon and Schuster. He then founded Rosenberg Publishing in 2002, which specialized in non-fiction and his range of titles is enormous
David was able to use his knowledge of desktop publishing and IT skills to produce non-fiction books, with full colour images, at a cost which the major publishers could not match. I owe my career as a writer to David’s recognition of the worth of my first book, Spice Islands back in 2010, and along with most of my other titles it went into multiple print runs. Altogether, David published five of my books:
Spice Islands – The history, romance and adventure of the spice trade over 2000 years, in 2010.
East Indies – The 200 year struggle between the Portuguese Crown, the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company for Supremacy in the Eastern Seas, in 2013.
Archipelago – A Journey Across Indonesia, in 2015.
Where Australia Collides with Asia – The Voyages of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and the Origin of On the Origin of Species, 2017
The Tasman Map, the Biography of a Map – Abel Tasman, the Dutch East India Company and the first Dutch discoveries of Australia, in 2019
Unfortunately, David had been ill for a number of years, but he was very proud to be awarded an Order of Australia – For Service to Publishing in 2021
David and Scilla Rosenberg at the Australia Day Awards Ceremony.
David Rosenberg’s, Order of Australia medal and badges.
Thankyou David for your service to publishing and your service to the many non-fiction writers whose work you brought into the world.
The Otago was a three-masted iron barque of 348 tons built in Glasgow in 1869 for Captain Angus Cameron, who sailed her to Port Chalmers, Otago, New Zealand in 1871. This was her maiden voyage, and she reached Port Chalmers in 88 days, which was something of a record. Captain Cameron was frustrated by the weather conditions while trying to enter Port Chalmers and had to ask for tugboat assistance, so he was unable to complete the voyage under sail.
The Otago sailed to Australia, where she was purchased in 1872 by three Adelaide businessmen. From 1872 until 1888 the Otago traded between Australia/New Zealand and Great Britain.
In 1888, the Otago was chartered to transport a cargo of coal from Newcastle (NSW) to Haiphong in Vietnam. She then sailed to Hong Kong and to Bangkok to collect a cargo of teak logs for Sydney. The captain died enroute to Bangkok. According to the First Mate, he had spent the last few weeks of his life in his cabin, not paying the least attention to his ship, playing his violin day and night. One evening, feeling very ill, he had thrown his violin overboard, died, and the following day was buried at sea. The Mate then sailed the Otago for Bangkok to report the events. It was unlikely that there would be a new master sitting in Bangkok, and no doubt the mate had hoped that the owners would simply confirm his acting command for the voyage back to Australia.
The Sailors’ Home is the building to the left and in front of St.Andrews Cathedral
However, Joseph Conrad had his Masters ticket and was in Singapore waiting for a berth back to England. A message reached him at the Sailor’s Home that the Harbour Master would like to see him urgently. Konrad knew the message must relate to a ship and as he made his way along the waterfront he scanned the Singapore Roads looking for which ship it might be. The Harbour Master explained that the master of a British ship had died enroute to Bangkok and the Consul-General there had cabled to him a request for a competent man to be sent to take command. He gave Konrad an agreement which read: This is to inform you that you are required to proceed in the S.S. Melita to Bangkok and you will report your arrival to the British Consul and produce this memorandum which will show that I have engaged you to be the Master of the Otago.
To be offered the command of his first ship was a source of intense excitement and is lyrically evoked in Conrad’s writing: A ship! My ship! She was mine, more absolutely mine for possession and care than anything in the world; an object of responsibility and devotion. She was there waiting for me, spell-bound, unable to move, to live, to get out into the world (till I came), like an enchanted princess. Her call had come to me as if from the clouds. I had never suspected her existence. I didn’t know how she looked, I had barely heard her name, and yet we were indissolubly united for a certain portion of our future, to sink or swim together! Conrad wrote of his first experiences as captain of the Otago in his books ‘The Shadow Line’ and ‘The Secret Sharer’.
The Otago by R.HerdPort Louis in Mauritius
In 1888-1889, Conrad sailed the Otago from Bangkok to Sydney with its cargo of teak logs, then from Sydney to Mauritius via the Torres Strait for a cargo of sugar, and then left the Otago in Adelaide to return to Britain.
The Otago sailing the southern ocean by Mark Myers
Sailing the ‘Roaring Forties’ in the Otago was challenging, yet Conrad describes it as an invigorating experience with the wind roaring and the spray flying: It was a hard, long gale, grey clouds and green sea, heavy weather undoubtedly, but still what a sailor would call manageable. Under two lower topsails and a reefed foresail the barque seemed to race with a long steady sea that did not becalm her in the troughs. The solemn thundering combers caught up with her from astern, passed with a fierce boiling up of foam level with the bulwarks, swept on ahead with a swish and a roar; and the little vessel, dipping her jib-boom into the tumbling froth, would go running in a smooth glassy hollow, a deep valley between two ridges of sea, hiding the horizon ahead and astern.
In 1903, Otago’s sailing life was over and she suffered the ignominy of being stripped and used as a coal hulk in Hobart. In 1931, she was sold for scrap, but not before various items of historic interest were saved for museums around the world. The ship’s wheel was presented to ‘The Company of Master Mariners’ in London. The stern was removed and sent to the Maritime Museum in San Francisco. The companionway hatch is in the Maritime Museum in Hobart, and the ship’s bell was gifted to Geelong College.
The Otago hulk by Richard Kirk
The remains of the barque Otago still rests on the banks of the Derwent River in what is now known as Otago Bay.
On 20 February 1894, the Dutch colonial government in Batavia saw the indigenous Sasak rebellion on the island of Lombok against their Balinese masters as an opportunity to extend their control in the East Indies. The Sasak had requested their support and the Dutch began to disrupt the importation of weapons and supplies by the Balinese. This blockade proved insufficient, and the Dutch demand for Balinese submission was rejected.
Map of Lombok Island showing the capital Mataram
In July 1894, the Dutch sent a military expedition to topple the Balinese ruler on Lombok. Three ships were sent from Batavia, transporting 107 officers, 1,320 Dutch soldiers, 948 local soldiers, and 386 horses to Mataram, where they established a military camp near the Mayura Palace in Cakranegara. In August 1894, the Balinese made a surprise nighttime attack on the Dutch army camp, killing more than 500 soldiers, sailors and coolies. Included among the dead was General van Ham, commander of the expedition.
On 8 November 1894, the Dutch returned with reinforcements and made systematic artillery bombardments on the Balinese positions. After a protracted war, marked by dogged Balinese resistance and heavy casualties, the King’s Palace at Cakranegara was captured on 19 November 1894. There followed a massive act of colonial looting, in which the victorious troops ransacked almost a quarter of a tonne of gold, over seven tonnes of silver, and innumerable precious jewels from the Palace. These valuable artifacts were taken to the Netherlands, and stored in the collections of the Rijksmuseum, the Museum Volkenkunde Leiden and the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.
Items from the Lombok TreasureJewel studded Kris handles from the Lombok Treasure
The Lombok royal treasure, seized by the Dutch, included 230 kg of gold, 7,000 kg of silver, and many items of jewellery, the most famous being a 75-carat diamond. This 21 x 19mm diamond is set in a case decorated with flower and leaf motifs, and has been described by Dutch historian Iwald Vanvugt as the largest sparkling stone in the world.
The 75-carat diamond brooch
Following numerous requests from the government of Indonesia for the return of cultural objects, a 2020 report by an advisory committee urged the Dutch government to return looted cultural artefacts if requested by their countries of origin. “This is a historic moment,” said Gunay Uslu, the Dutch state secretary for culture and media in 2022. “It’s the first time we’re following recommendations of the committee to give back objects that should never have been brought to the Netherlands.”
The Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta
After being partly destroyed by fire, the National Museum of Indonesia reopened to the public in 2024 with an exhibition of looted heritage, including the cache of jewels known as the “Lombok treasure”, which was returned by the Netherlands in July 2023. The exhibition titled Repatriation Exhibition allows “the community to reunite with the inheritance of our ancestors and receive the treasure of their knowledge.”
A view of part of the new interior layout of the National Museum.
In 1856, Alfred Russel Wallace sailed from Singapore to Bali and then to Lombok. He wrote in his book ‘The Malay Archipelago’:
During the few days which I stayed on the north coast of Bali, on my way to Lombok, I saw several birds highly characteristic of Javanese ornithology … On crossing over to Lombok, seperated from Bali by a Strait less than twenty miles wide, I naturally expected to meet with these same birds again; but during a stay of three months, I never saw one of them, but found a totally different species, most of which were entirely unknown not only in Java, but also in Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca. For example the commonest birds in Lombok were white cockatoos and honeysuckers, belonging to family groups which are entirely absent from the western region of the Archipelago.
The Lombok Strait represents the boundary between the fauna of Asia and that of Australia, a boundary which Thomas Huxley later named the Wallace Line. We only have to look at a seafloor map to realise that this line represents the edge of the Asian continental shelf.
NASA map showing land elevation and sea floor bathymetry
As the Australian/Papuan tectonic plate moved north it collided with the Pacific Plate which is moving west. As a consequence the Indonesian island arc was turned back upon itself and large chunks of Australia were sliced off and inserted into Eastern Indonesia including the eastern part of Sulawesi.
By his observations of the relationship between zoology and geography, Alfred Russel Wallace had founded the science of biogeography. As he describes these two divisions of the earth as differing in animal life as Europe does from America. Also, before there were concepts of Continental Drift or Plate Tectonics, he had decided that Australia had collided with Asia.
Ian Burnet has updated his 2017 book ‘Where Australia Collides with Asia’ in a new edition, now titled ‘The Wallace Line’.
The ‘Wallace Line’ is now available as a paperback or an ebook, on order from your favourite bookstore or the usual online retailers.
June 3rd is Mabo Day, when we celebrate Eddy Koiko Mabo, the man who changed Australian history
Mer and Dauer Islands
The Mabo Case was a significant legal case in Australia that recognised the land rights of the Meriam people, traditional owners of the Murray Islands (which include the islands of Mer, Dauer and Waier) in the Torres Strait.
The Mabo Case was successful in overturning the myth that at the time of colonisation Australia was ‘terra nullius’ or land belonging to no one.
The High Court recognised the fact that Indigenous peoples had lived in Australia for thousands of years and enjoyed rights to their land according to their own laws and customs. Twelve months later the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) was passed
The five Meriam people who mounted the case were Eddie Koiki Mabo, Reverend David Passi, Sam Passi, James Rice and one Meriam women, Celuia Mapo Sale. Eddie Koiki Mabo was the first named plaintiff and the case became known as the Mabo Case.
Eddie Koiki Mabo on Mer, 1999
A turning point in Koiki’s life happened while he was working on campus as a gardener at James Cook University. University historians Noel Loos and Henry Reynolds recall:
‘…we were having lunch one day when Koiki was just speaking about his land back on Mer, or Murray Island. Henry and I realised that in his mind he thought he owned that land, so we sort of glanced at each other, and then had the difficult responsibility of telling him that he didn’t own that land, and that it was Crown land. Koiki was surprised, shocked… he said and I remember him saying, ‘No way, it’s not theirs, it’s ours!’
The shaded areas show the location of Eddy Mabo’s family properties on Mer Island
Eddy Mabo and his son indicating the extent of his property on Mer
On 20 May 1982, Eddy Koiki Mabo and fellow Mer Islanders, Reverend David Passi, Celuia Mapo Salee, Sam Passi and James Rice began their legal claim in the High Court of Australia for ownership of their lands on the island of Mer. With Eddy Koiki Mabo as the first named plaintiff, the case became known as the ‘Mabo Case’.
The team: Greg McIntyre, Ron Castan, Eddie Mabo and Bryan Keon-Cohen at the High Court in 1991.
On 21 January 1992, nearly ten years after beginning their legal claim in the High Court of Australia, Eddie Koiki Mabo passed away from cancer aged fifty-six.
On 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia decided in favour of Eddie Koiki Mabo and his fellow plaintiffs. The ruling on this landmark case recognised in Australian law for the first time the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to their lands based on their traditional connection to and occupation of their Country; a decision that countered the claim by the British that Australia was ‘terra nullius’ (land belonging to no-one).
The following year the Parliament of Australia passed the Native Title Act 1993 to create a system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to make a native title claim over their lands.
Eddie Koiki Mabo has been rightfully recognised for his landmark work. Unfortunately this recognition only occurred after his death.
1992: awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal along with his fellow plaintiffs ‘in recognition of their long and determined battle to gain justice for their people’.
1993: voted as Australian of the Year 1992 by the Australian newspaper (not to be confused with the Australian Government’s Australian of the Year Awards).
2008: James Cook University library was named in his honour.
2012: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired Mabo: the movie, a documentary drama based on his life.
Mabo day: Celebrated on 3 June each year to commemorate his courageous efforts to overturn the fiction of terra nullius.
Mabo lecture: An annual lecture held as part of the AIATSIS National Native Title Conference.
Tony Abbott as the Australian Prime Minister, makes a pilgrimage to the grave of Eddy Mabo on the island of Mer
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