Retracing Wallace's spicy adventure<\/p>\n
The Spice Islands Voyage: In Search of Wallace;
\nBy Tim Severin;
\nLittle, Brown and Co 1997;
\nHardback A$35;
\n267 pp<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The idea of circumnavigating the remote Spice
\nIslands appeals to our sense of romance and adventure. Its
\nallure lies in the chance discovery of a paradise of pristine
\nsandy coves in deep clear waters, home to diverse and little-
\nknown cultures.<\/p>\n
Imagine a streamlined wooden perahu slicing through the water,
\nrectangular canvas sails strained taut by wind and glowing orange
\nin late afternoon shadows. The vast deep blues of sea and sky
\nare broken by an island looming dark in the distance.<\/p>\n
This image adorns the cover of Tim Severin's new book, The
\nSpice Islands Voyage: In Search of Wallace. The prau has been
\nchristened the Alfred Wallace and transports Severin's team of
\nexplorers during their expedition around the Spice Islands.<\/p>\n
The Spice Islands Voyage is not just another travel book. It
\nis a tale of adventure on the high seas. Instead of a Spanish
\ngalleon or the famous Bugis prau pinisi, Severin's crew of seven
\nset sail from the Kai islands in Southeast Maluku in a custom-
\nmade 14-meter traditional wooden prau kalulis.<\/p>\n
It is also the story of a quest to retrace the journey through
\nMaluku of intrepid English scientist-explorer Alfred Russel
\nWallace.<\/p>\n
In 1858, during a malaria-inspired delirium, Wallace conceived
\na theory about the origin of species based on the revolutionary
\nidea of survival of the fittest. After penning an essay in a
\npalm-thatched house on Ternate island in Halmahera, Wallace sent
\nthe package by mail steamer to England addressed to Charles
\nDarwin.<\/p>\n
By the end of the following year, Darwin published his theory
\nof evolution by natural selection to great international acclaim.
\nWallace's Ternate-composed breakthrough -- arrived at
\nindependently in a remote corner at the end of the world -- was
\nimmediately and forever after overshadowed in the public memory.<\/p>\n
In The Spice Islands Voyage, Severin, a champion of the modest
\nand bookish Wallace, makes the controversial accusation that
\nDarwin used Wallace's work to advance his own theories without
\nproviding adequate public acknowledgment. Wallace himself never
\naccused Darwin of anything so underhand but, as Severin says,
\n\"stepped into Darwin's shadow, deliberately and courteously\".<\/p>\n
Severin's expedition sets out to restore Wallace's memory to
\nits proper place in history. Wallace was, Severin says, \"someone
\nso genuine and so humane that he should not be forgotten\". So,
\nalmost 140 years later, Severin orders and oversees the
\nconstruction by Kai islanders of a replica vessel of the kind
\nthat Wallace sailed on during his four-year voyage around the
\nIndonesian archipelago.<\/p>\n
Aboard the tapered perahu, the crew -- including a
\nphotographer, an artist, an environmentalist, and an
\nornithologist -- enjoys cramped living quarters and swift but
\nsometimes precarious passage.<\/p>\n
Severin, himself a veteran explorer, uses Wallace's The Malay
\nArchipelago as a navigational tool. With this excellent guide in
\nhand, he goes in search of the Red Birds of Paradise, the Wallace
\nStandard Wing and the Bird-Winged Butterflies.<\/p>\n
During his pursuit, he sails from Kai, around the Banda and
\nSeram Seas to Irian Jaya, Halmahera and on to Manado on the
\nnorthernmost tip of Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
It was Sulawesi's unique and bizarre animal life -- its
\nbabirusa and anoa -- which inspired Wallace's theory about the
\ncorrelation between zoology and geography. He identified a
\nboundary between land animals, birds and insects which, he
\nhypothesized, had spread from the Asian mainland and those which
\noriginated from Australia. This boundary is now known as the
\nWallace line.<\/p>\n
Through Severin's deft narration, the reader appreciates the
\ndiversity of the flora and fauna of equatorial Indonesia. We also
\ncatch glimpses of the lives and livelihoods of its inhabitants as
\nwell as some of the traditional methods of resource management
\nstill in practice.<\/p>\n
On a more somber note, Severin discovers that some nature
\nareas have not remained unspoiled. On the small island of Enue,
\npart of the South-East Aru Marine Reserve, every nest along a
\nstretch of beach favored by female green sea turtles had been
\nplundered.<\/p>\n
What had at first appeared to be an archetypal small South Sea
\nisland was, on landing, an \"empty desolate landscape\" that
\n\"looked like a casualty of war\".<\/p>\n
Severin writes: \"The nest robbers had been coming methodically
\nand staying to strip every single nest along the beach, not just
\nto dig up a single nest as passing fishermen might do.\"<\/p>\n
He guesses that the eggs may have been exported as delicacies
\nto Jakarta or Singapore if not sold for local consumption. The
\nmidnight observation of the exhausting labors of a female turtle
\nto lay and protect her eggs renders this vandalism even more
\ntragic.<\/p>\n
With both happy and sad tidings, The Spice Islands Voyage is a
\ngood yarn for the armchair explorer as well as biography, history
\nand ecology woven into one.<\/p>\n
-- Indrawati<\/p>\n
The reviewer is a postgraduate student at Monash University
\nin Australia.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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