It is not everyday one has the opportunity to travel to the site of an event of such importance in the history of biological thought that the living world could never be looked at in the same way again.
The bicentenary of Alfred Russel Wallace’s birth was on 8 January. We were ahead of that anniversary in November in sailing through the Moluccas.
It was from the small volcanic island of Ternate in the Moluccas that Wallace wrote to Charles Darwin describing his ‘sudden flash of insight’ on the origin of species by natural selection. That letter, triggered Darwin to finally write up his own insights in evolution and resulted in a joint publication that gave equal prominence to both Wallace and Darwin. The idea had come to Wallace while he was in a feverish state during what is generally reckoned to be a bout of malaria. His letter to Darwin in 1858 was headed and posted from Ternate, an important hub in the spice trade, off the coast of a much larger island then known as Gilolo, now Halmahera. That address has led to the general supposition that it was on Ternate that Wallace had his ‘sudden flash of insight’. Recently, however, that view has been challenged by George Beccaloni of the Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project and the Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund. He argues that it is much more likely, given the evidence, that Wallace’s insight came while he was on Halmahera staying in the small village of Dodinga or Dojinga, suffering from fever and trying to collect specimens.
Wallace and his small team arrived on Halmahera after three hours sailing and rowing at Sedingole (now Sidangoli) but:
…I saw at once that it was no place for me. For many miles extends a plain covered with coarse high grass, thickly dotted here and there with trees, the forest country only commencing at the hills a good way in the interior. Such a place would produce few birds and no insects, and we therefore arranged to stay only two days, and then go on to Dodinga, at the narrow central isthmus of Gilolo…Luckily I succeeded in hiring a small boat, which took me there the same night, with my two men and my baggage.
Wallace must have landed in virtually the same spot as we did only now there is a jetty which seems to be a stopping place for commuter boat traffic. The jetty is connected to the village itself by a track, now tarmacadamed. It was along that road we had a gentle evening birding stroll, past a few houses and farms. The next morning we drove along the track to reach the main road and then turned north towards Sidangoli.
Although the hut where Wallace stayed in 1858 has long gone its approximate location has been deduced and a video of George Beccaloni in the village in 2018 can be found here.
After a successful morning with the local bird guide we were taken by speedboat the ten miles to rejoin our vessel lying off Ternate. Again, the house where Wallace stayed is long gone but George Beccaloni described its location in this video.
Our two unfeverish nights lying off Dodinga and Ternate in a comfortable bed and after an excellent dinner, produced no startling insights. However, Ternate turned up trumps with a remarkable opportunity for people watching. Before dawn as we climbed into our taxis at the dock to head for the airport, huge bands of youths clutching large flags were forming motor cycle convoys in the streets. As we drove, crowds were gathering to watch them and even more convoys were seen coming in from the surrounding villages. Some major national event? No, they were out celebrating a win by Argentina in some early round of the football (soccer to those reading this in the USA) World Cup. The puzzled looks on our faces at this extraordinary display of human behaviour had to be seen to be believed, as we reminded ourselves that we were in Indonesia who were not even taking part. What happened on the streets of Ternate when Argentine actually won can only be imagined.
That happening diverted our attention from the pre-dawn town but at least we had seen the places that he described which made Wallace’s name and in which he would have moved with some excitement in his eagerness to get a letter off to Darwin. We had also seen some of the birds he and/or his assistants saw and collected.
Wallace wrote of Dodinga:
The distance across the isthmus at this place is only two miles, and there is a good path, along which rice and sago are brought from the eastern villages. The whole isthmus is very rugged, though not high, being a succession of little abrupt hills and valleys, with angular masses of limestone rock everywhere projecting, and often almost blocking up the pathway. Most of it is virgin forest, very luxuriant and picturesque, and at this time having abundance of large scarlet Ixoras in flower, which made it exceptionally gay. I got some very nice insects here, though, owing to illness most of the time, my collection was a small one; and my boy Ali shot me a pair of one of the most beautiful birds of the East, Pitta gigas, a large ground-thrush, whose plumage of velvety black above is relieved by a breast of pure white, shoulders of azure blue, and belly of vivid crimson. It has very long and strong legs, and hops about with such activity in the dense tangled forest, bristling with rocks, as to make it very difficult to shoot.
Our encounter with the pitta, see here, now known as the Ivory-breasted Pitta, was considerably less traumatic for the birds.
 |
| Sunset from the jetty at Dodinga (Dojinga) with Ternate in the background and our boat hying at anchor |
 |
| View from the track linking the village of Dodinga to the jetty |
 |
| The track from Dodinga to the jetty |
 |
| Red-cheeked Parrot (Geoffroyus geoffroyi) in the trees above the track |
 |
| The volcano, Jailolo, from the road from Dodinga to Sidangoli |
 |
| The a plain covered with coarse high grass which caused Wallace to quickly move on can still be seen around Sidangoli |
Beccaloni, G. 2019. Dodinga: birthplace of Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of evolution by natural selection. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16649.29289/1
Wallace AR. 1869. The Malay Archipelago. London: Macmillan.
No comments:
Post a Comment