re liable to insults from the natives, over whom the
governor had no power.

We were occupied nearly a week in completing our water, which was brought
on board in Malay boats, and in obtaining and stowing away the
provisions. [SUNDAY 3 APRIL 1803] The governor, with captain Johnson and
two other gentlemen were entertained on board the Investigator, and
received under a salute; and the day before we proposed to sail [THURSDAY
7 APRIL 1803], I went with some of my principal officers and gentlemen to
dine with the governor, the fort firing a salute on our landing; and it
is but justice to Mr. Giesler and the orders under which he acted, to
say, that he conducted himself throughout with that polite and respectful
attention, which the representative of one friendly nation owes to that
of another.

A part of the ship's company was permitted to go on shore so soon as our
work was completed; and two men, my Malay cook and a youth from Port
Jackson, being absent in the evening, the town was searched for them, but
in vain. We got under way early next morning [FRIDAY 8 APRIL 1803],
before the sea breeze set in, and stood off and on until lieutenant
Fowler again went after the men. On his return without success, we
stretched out of the bay; but the wind being light, and the governor
having promised to send off the men, if found before the ship was out of
sight, I still entertained a hope of receiving my deserters.

Timor is well known to be one of the southernmost and largest of the
Molucca Islands. Its extent is more considerable than the charts usually
represent it, being little less than 250 miles in a north-eastern
direction, by from thirty to sixty in breadth. The interior part is a
chain of mountains, some of which nearly equal the peak of Teneriffe in
elevation; whilst the shores on the south-east side are represented to be
exceedingly low, and over-run with mangroves. Gold is said to be
contained in the mountains, and to be washed down the streams; but the
natives are so jealous of Europeans gaining any knowledge of it, that at
a former period, when forty men were sent by the Dutch to make search,
they were cut off. In the vicinity of Coepang, the upper stone is mostly
calcareous; but the basis is very different, and appeared to me to be
argillaceous.

The original inhabitants of Timor, who are black but whose hair is not
woolly, inhabit the mountainous parts, to which they appear to have been
driven by the Malays, who