THE SECRET OF BACAN

What or who is Bacan. Till last night I had absolutely no idea but would have that it was probably a town inland Columbia. As it turned out Bacan was in my backyard. An American teacher, with a name I never heard before Imogen,wrote me that it was the prettiest island of the Maluku bunch of islands.

The island's main town is backed by a huge mass of flat topped Mount Sibela nearly 2220 meters high.It is almost always shrouded by clouds. A lake it is said, Imogen never found out,to fill a crater with a small island protruding from it.King sized butterflies,flush with 12 colours live around here.I readup the British naturalist Sir Alfred Wallace caugt one with a wing span of half a meter.Thereupon he had a headache for the rest of the day so great was the excitement.

But what Imogen thought would interest me most was the what seemed to be on a small island, a large number of cocoa plantations. It seems that small plantations line the roads. On the roadsides, almost in front of most homes, families dry the cocoa beans on mats. Their is a vinegary smell all around.They are regretfully not fermented.

Chinese traders come along on motorbikes and buy up the beans and they finally end up with buyers in Sulawesi.

The hills of Bacan it are rumored hold small deposits of gold, copper and precious stones of many colors. But the coast there are small pearl industries.Another industry on this busy is tuna freezing to export to Japan.

I gather there is much mystic here to grandly surround adventurous chocolatiers.