native Timorese preponderate, and a very little examination
serves to show that they have nothing in common with Malays, but are
much more closely allied to the true Papuans of the Aru Islands and New
Guinea. They are tall, have pronounced features, large somewhat aquiline
noses, and frizzly hair, and are generally of a dusky brown colour. The
way in which the women talk to each other and to the men, their loud
voices and laughter, and general character of self-assertion, would
enable an experienced observer to decide, even without seeing them, that
they were not Malays.

Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at
his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only
intended making a short visit. We at first began speaking French, but
he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and
we afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and
philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose
deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words.

After a few walks in the neighbourhood of the town, I found such a
poverty of insects and birds that I determined to go for a few days to
the island of Semao at the western extremity of Timor, where I heard
that there was forest country with birds not found at Coupang. With some
difficulty I obtained a large dugout boat with outriggers, to take me
over a distance of about twenty miles. I found the country pretty well
wooded, but covered with shrubs and thorny bushes rather than
forest trees, and everywhere excessively parched and dried up by the
long-continued dry season. I stayed at the village of Oeassa, remarkable
for its soap springs. One of these is in the middle of the village,
bubbling out from a little cone of mud to which the ground rises all
round like a volcano in miniature. The water has a soapy feel and
produces a strong lather when any greasy substance is washed in it.
It contains alkali and iodine, in such quantities as to destroy all
vegetation for some distance around. Close by the village is one of
the finest springs I have ever seen, contained in several rocky basins
communicating by narrow channels. These have been neatly walled where
required and partly levelled, and form fine natural baths. The water
is well tasted and clear as crystal, and the basins are surrounded by
a grove of lofty many-stemmed banyan-trees, which keep them always cool
and shady, and add greatly t