infrequent and harmless that the chief houses are built of stone.
The inhabitants of Coupang consist of Malays, Chinese, and Dutch, besides
the natives, so that there are many strange and complicated mixtures among the
population. There is one resident English merchant, and whalers as well as
Australian ships often come here for stores and water. The 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 to the