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

XIII.] TIMOR. 143not found at Coupang. With some difficulty I obtained a largedug-out boat with out-riggers, to take me over, a distance ofabout twenty miles. I found the country pretty well wooded,but covered with shrubs and thorny bushes rather than foresttrees, and everywhere excessively parched and dried up by thelong-continued dry season. I stayed at the village of Oeassa,remarkable for its soap springs. One of these is in the middleof the village bubbling out from a little cone of mud to Avhichthe ground rises all round like a volcano in miniature. Thewater has a soapy feel and produces a strong lather when anygreasy substance is washed in it. It contains alkali and iodine,in such quantities as to destroy all vegetation for some distanceround. Close by the A'illage is one of the finest springs I haveever seen, contained in several rocky basins communicating bynarrow channels. These have been neatly walled where requiredand partly levelled, and form fine natural baths. The water iswell tasted and clear as crystal, and the basins are surroundedby a grove of lofty many-stemmed banyan-trees, which keepthem always cool and shady, and add greatly to the picturesquebeauty of the scene.The village consists of curious little houses very different fromany I have seen elsewhere. They are of an oval figure, and thewalls are made of sticks about four feet high placed closetogether. From this rises a high conical roof thatched withgrass. The only opening is a door about three feet high. Thepeople are like the.Timot=ese with frizzly or wavy hair and of acoppery brown colour. \ TJie^ better class appear to have amixture of some superioi*Tkce which has much improved theirfeatures. I saw in Coupang some chiefs from the island of iSavufui'ther west, who presented characters very distinct from eitherthe Malay or Papuan races. They most resembled Hindoos,having fine well-formed features and straight thin noses withclear bi'own complexions. As the Brahminical religion oncespread over all Java, and even now exists in Bali and Lombock,it is not at all improbable that some natives of India shouldhave reached this island, either by accident or to escape persecution,and formed a permanent settlement there."!I stayed at Oeassa four days, when, not tindirrg any insectsand very few new birds, I returned to Coupang to await thenext mail steamer. On the way I had a narrow escape of beingswamped. The deep coffin-like boat was filled up with mybaggage, and with vegetables, cocoa-nuts and other fruit forCoupang market, and when we had got some way across into arather rough sea, we found that a quantity of water was comingin which we had no means of baling out. This caused us to ^inkdeeper in the water, and then we shipped seas over our sides,and the rowers who had before declared it was nothing nowbecame alarmed, and turned the boat round to get back to thecoast of Semao, %vhich was not far oft". By clearing away someof the baggage a Little of the water could be baled out, but