• The neighbouring islands of Sebrao, Pantar or Alao, Ombay, and Wetter are inhabited by the same race as the mountaineers of Solor, are said to be cannibals (Moor, p. 11), constantly on the watch to surprise the unwary.
Timor is the most southerly and the largest of the Molucca Islands, extending from lat. 8° 21' to 10° 23' S., and long. 123° 80' to 127° 15' E. ; it is about 300 miles long and GO broad, and has high undulating mountains in the interior. Timor seems to form the N.E. end of the great range of volcanic islands, which extends N.B. and S.W. from Timor to Sumatra. It has only one active volcano, Timor Peak, near the centre of the island, which was blown up during an eruption in 1638, and has since been quiescent. Earthquakes occasionally recur. Timor means the cast. The Portuguese settlement of Dieli or Diely is in lat. 8° 34' S., and long. 125° 40' E., and on the north side of the island. Koopang or Coupang, in the west end of the island, is the chief Dutch town. These two nations claim between them the entire sovereignty of the island. The coast is largely occupied by Malays and Chinese,- but in the interior are tribes much nearer to the true Papuan than those of the Moluccas. The Timorese are dusky-brown or blackish, with bushy frizzled hair, and the long Papuan nose. They are of medium height and of rather slender figures, are constantly at war with each other, but they are not very courageous or bloodthirsty. In their excitable disposition, loud voices, and fearless demeanour, the Timorese closely resemble the Papuan people of New Guinea. In the islands west of Timor, as far as Sumba or Sandal-wood Island and Flores, a very similar race is found, which also extends east ward to Timor Laut, where the true Papuan race begins to appear. The inhabitants of the south western part of Timor, in the neighbourhood of Coupaug, arc an exceedingly dark, coarse-haired people, and travellers have found difficulty in coming to a conclusion as to whether they belong to Malayan or Papuan races, so equally balanced are their characteristics. The anonymous author of an excellent Account of Timor, Rotti, Savu, Solor, etc., in Moor's Notices of the Indian Archipelago, says the natives are generally of a very dark colour, with frizzled, bushy hair, but less inclining to the Papuans than the natives of Ende (on the island of Flores). They are below
the middle size, and rather slight in figure. In countenance they more nearly resemble the South Sea islanders than any of the Malay tribes. The S.E. coast of Timor near Mount Alias is, accord ing to Bikmore, occupied by the Papuan race with frizzled hair in tufts on the head. Mr. Earl says that the short tufted hair of the mountain Papuan is found in Timor, and it is possible that the races are there mixing, as its position is next to Papua. There are Malays and Chinese, but the native Timorese preponderate ; they have nothing in common with .the Malaya, and are closely allied to the true Papuans of the Aru Islands and New Guinea. The women talk to each other and to the men with loud voices, and with a self-assertion quite different from Malay women. The mountaineers of Timor are of Papuan type, have rather slender forms, bushy frizzled hair, the skin of a dusky-brown colour, and have a long, somewhat aquiline nose, with the overhanging apex, which is so characteristic of the Papuan, and so absolutely unknown among races of Malayan origin on the coast. There has been an admixturcof Malay, and thecoast occupants have wavy, not frizzled hair, a lower stature, with less prominent features, and the houses are built from the ground. The houses of the Papuan mountaineers are raised on posts. The dead of the Papuan Timorese are laid on a stage six or eight feet above the ground, sometimes open, sometimes covered, and are retained there till money for a feast can be obtained, when they are burned. The Pornali,' exactly resembling the taboo of the Pacific, is in full operation here, and a few palm leaves stuck outside of a garden will preserve it from any thief.
The land mammals in Timor are only seven in number,—Macacus cynornolgus, common all over the Indo -Malayan Archipelago ; Paradoxurus fasciatus, a civet cat ; Fells megalotis, a tiger cat; Cervus Timorensis ; Soma teals; and Cuscus orientalis.