The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

XIII.] TIMOK. 141"The needles which you sent from your village were manymore than came from such-a-one's village, yet your tribute isless than liis ;go back and see who it is that has not paid thetax." And the next year the i^roduce of the tax increasedgreatly, for they feared that the Rajah might justly kill thosewho a second time kept back the right tribute. And so theRajah became very rich, and increased _the number of hissoldiers, and gave golden jewels to his wives, and bought fineblack horses from the white-skinned Hollanders, and madegreat feasts when his children were born or were married ; andnone of the Rajahs or Sultans among the Malays were so greator so powerful as the Rajah of Lombock.And the twelve sacred krisses had great virtue. And whenany sickness ajipeared in a village one of them was sent for ;and sometimes the sickness went aAvay, and then the sacredkris was taken back again with great honour, and the headmen of the village came to tell the Rajah of its miraculouspower, and to thank him. And sometimes the sickness wouldnot go away ;and then everybody was convinced that therehad been a mistake in the number of needles sent from thatvillage, and tlierefore the sacred kris had no effect, and had tobe taken back again by the head men with heavy hearts, butstill with all honour,—for was not the fault their own ?CHAPTER XIII.TIMOK.(couPANG, 1857-1859. delli, 1861.)The island of Timor is about three hundred miles long andsixty wide, and seems to form the termination of the greatrange of volcanic islands which begins with Sumatra more thantwo thousand miles to the west. It differs however veryremarkably from all the other islands of the chain in notpossessing any active volcanoes, with the one exception ofTimor Peak near the centre of the island, which was formerlyactive, but was blown up during an eruption in 1638 and hassince been quiescent. In no other part of Timor do thereappear to be any recent igneous rocks, so that it can hardly beclassed as a volcanic island. Indeed its position is just outsideof the great volcanic belt, which extends from Flores throughOmbay and Wetter to Banda.1 first visited Timor in 1857, staying a day at Coupang, thechief Dutch town at the west end of the island ; and again inMay 1859, when I stayed a fortnight in the same neighbourhood.In the spring of 1861 I spent four months at Delli, the