Page:Essays on Early Ornithology and Kindred Subjects.djvu/29

 HE 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,