On the Amboyna side of the isthmus there is a small river which has been continued by a shallow canal to within thirty yards of high-water mark on the other side.

Across this small space, which is sandy and but slightly elevated, all small boats and praus can be easily dragged, and all the smaller traffic from Ceram and the islands of Saparua and Haruka, passes through Paso.

The canal is not continued quite through, merely because every spring-tide would throw up just such a sand-bank as now exists.
I had been informed that the fine butterfly Ornithoptera priamus was plentiful here, as well as the racquet-tailed kingfisher and the ring-necked lory.

I found, however, that I had missed the time for the former, and birds of all kinds were very scarce, although I obtained a few good ones, including one or two of the above-mentioned rarities.
I was much pleased to get here the fine long-armed chafer, Euchirus longimanus.

This extraordinary insect is rarely or never captured except when it comes to drink the sap of the sugar palms, where it is found by the natives when they go early in the morning to take away the bamboos which have been filled during the night.