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BOURU.
MAY AND JUNE 1861.
I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due west of Ceram, and of which scarcely anything appeared to be known to naturalists, except that it contained a babirusa very like that of Celebes.

I therefore made arrangements for staying there two months after leaving Timor Delli in 1861.

This I could conveniently do by means of the Dutch mail-steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas.
We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired, the Commandant of the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive the post-packet, and took me and my baggage on shore, the steamer going off again without coming to an anchor.

We went to the horse of the Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna--Bouru being too poor a place to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major.