picturesque beauty of the scene.
The village consists of curious little houses very different from any I have
seen elsewhere. They are of an oval figure, and the walls are made of sticks
about four feet high placed close together. From this rises a high conical roof
thatched with grass. The only opening is a door about three feet high. The people
are like the Timorese with frizzly or wavy hair and of a coppery brown colour.
The better class appear to have a mixture of some superior race which has much
improved their features. I saw in Coupang some chiefs from the island of Savu
further west, who presented characters very distinct from either the Malay or
Papuan races. They most resembled Hindus, having fine well-formed features
and straight thin noses with clear brown complexions. As the Brahminical
religion once spread over all Java, and even now exists in Bali and Lombock, it
is not at all improbable that some natives of India should have reached this
island, either by accident or to escape persecution, and formed a permanent
settlement there.
I stayed at Oeassa four days, when, not finding any insects and very few new
birds, I returned to Coupang to await the next mail steamer. On the way I had a
narrow escape of being swamped. The deep coffin-like boat was filled up with
my baggage, and with vegetables, cocoa-nut and other fruit for Coupang market,
and when we had got some way across into a rather rough sea, we found that a
quantity of water was coming in which we had no means of baling out. This
caused us to sink deeper in the water, and then we shipped seas over our sides,
and the rowers, who had before declared it was nothing, now became alarmed
and turned the boat round to get back to the coast of Semao, which was not far
off. By clearing away some of the baggage a little of the water could be baled
out, but hardly so fast as it came in, and when we neared the coast we found
nothing but vertical walls of rock against which the sea was violently beating.
We coasted along some distance until we found a little cove, into which we ran
the boat, hauled it on shore, and emptying it found a large hole in the bottom,
which had been temporarily stopped up with a plug of cocoa-nut which had
come out. Had we been a quarter of a mile further off before we discovered the
leak, we should certainly have been obliged to throw most of our baggage
overboard, and might easily have lost our lives. After we had put all straight and
secure we again started, and when we were halfway across got into such a strong
current and high cross sea that we were very nearly being swamped a second
time, which made me vow never to trust myself again in such small and
miserable vessels.
The mail steamer did not arrive for a week, and I occupied myself in getting