Timor-Leste

“ I did expect (as has been said) we might meet a great current setting to the south yesterday, because there is a constant current setting out from among those islands we passed through between Timor and the isles to the west of it, and it is probable, in all the other openings between the islands, even from the east end of Java to the end of all that range that runs from thence, both to the east and west of Timor ”

“ Timor (500) , the largest of the long chain of islands which stretches eastward from Java, of volcanic formation, mountainous, wooded, and possessing deposits of various metals, but mainly exports maize, sandal-wood, wax, tortoise-shell, &c.; population consists chiefly of Papuans, whose native chiefs are the real rulers of the island, which belongs, the W. portion of it to Holland and the E. to Portugal; E. of Timor lies a group of three low-lying islands of coral formation, known as Timor-Laut or Tenimber Islands (25) ; Dutch possession. ”

“ But, whereas I thought this was only an inlet or large sound that ran a great way into the island Timor, I found afterwards that it was a passage between the west end of Timor and another small island called Anamabao or Anabao: into which mistake I was led by my sea-chart, which represented both sides of the opening as parts of the same coast, and called all of it Timor: see all this rectified, and a view of the whole passage as I found it, in a small map I have made of it. Table 6 Number 1. ”

“ Timor is about three hundred miles long by sixty wide, and is partly occupied by the Dutch and partly by the Portuguese. The Dutch settlements are at the western end, and their principal town is Coupang; it has a mixed population of Malays, Chinese, and Dutch, in addition to the natives, who are closely allied to the natives of Papua, or New Guinea, and have very little affinity with the Malay race. They are of a dirty brown color, and have large noses and frizzled hair, so that they strongly resemble the negro. ”

“ Going over the vast distance of upwards of twelve hundred leagues, encountering every kind of weather, enduring dreadful sufferings, hunger, and thirst, these men at last reached the island of Timor, where was a Dutch settlement. Here they were shown the greatest hospitality and kindness by the governor. Leaving Timor, they went to Batavia, where Bligh and some of his officers took passage on a vessel bound for Europe. They eventually reached England in safety. ”

“ Timor itself is connected with the Malayan peninsula by a line of dark-coloured, rude, and fragmentary populations, to be found in Ombay and [127] Floris at the present moment, and inferred to have existed in Java and Sumatra before the development of the peculiar and encroaching civilization of the Mahometan Malays.
It is in the Malayan peninsula that another line of migration terminates. From New Caledonia to New Guinea a long line of islands—Tanna, Mallicollo, Solomon’s Isles, &c.—is occupied by a dark-skinned population of rude Papuas, with Tasmanian rather than Australian hair, i.e. ”

“ Having passed these islands of Java Major and Minor, forty-two leagues distant from Java Minor to the east south-east there are many other islands great and small, inhabited by Gentiles and by a few Moors, amongst which there is an island called Timor, [331] which has a Gentile king, and a language of its own. Much white sandal grows there, and those who go for it carry as goods to this island iron hatchets, large and small, knives and swords, stuffs from Cambay and Palecate, porcelain, small beads of all kinds, tin, quicksilver and lead. ”

“ Taking the mean between the longitude by my reckoning on our arrival at Coupang, and the longitude afterwards calculated from our run to Batavia, gives me for the longitude of Coupang 124 degrees 41 minutes east.
This settlement was formed in the year 1630 and is the only one the Dutch have on the island Timor. They have residents in different parts of the country. On the north side of Timor there is a Portuguese settlement. The produce of the island is chiefly sandalwood and beeswax: the former article is now scarce. Wax they have in great plenty. ”

“ It is carried to Timor and sold to the Chinese, who meet them there; and when all the proas are assembled, the fleet returns to Macassar. By Timor, seemed to be meant Timor-laoet; for when I inquired concerning the English, Dutch, and Portuguese there, Pobasso (the rajah in command) knew nothing of them: he had heard of Coepang, a Dutch settlement, but said it was upon another island.
"There are two kinds of trepang. The black, called baatoo, is sold to the Chinese for forty dollars the picol; the white, or gray, called koro, is worth no more than twenty. ”

“ I was in hopes, by the intervention of some canoe, to have opened a communication with the shore, and to have gained this so necessary information; but neither men nor habitation presented themselves in this quarter. I continued in the Straits all night, and in the morning sailed out to explore the northern coast of Timor. The weather had somewhat moderated when I quitted the shelter of the Straits. The land of Timor formed, I found, a deep bay to the northward, at the bottom of which, I suspected the settlement I was in search of existed. ”

“ You might have had, and may yet, if not too late, the west end of Timor (belonging to the Dutch,) for Bencoolen. Your having Sincapore, Malacca would have been deserted. Timor is of no value to the Portuguese, and may be of some consequence to us. Sincapore rendered Malacca of no value to any one. Bencoolen should have been given (if it was to be parted with,) for the west end of Timor. The port of Dilha on the N.E. side of Timor, a most excellent harbour, easy of access, may be fortified at a trifling expense, and defended from any surprise by a small force. ”

“ I met at Timor with most of the fruits that are described in Captain Cook's first voyage as natives of Batavia, except the mangosteen. The breadfruit tree, called by the Malays soccoom, likewise grows here with great luxuriance and appears to be as much a native of this island as it is of Otaheite. The fruit is exactly of the same kind but not so good. A breadfruit of Timor weighs half as much more as one of equal size at Otaheite. ”

“ A palm branch stuck across an open door, showing that the house is tabooed, is a more effectual guard against robbery than any amount of locks and bars. The houses in Timor are different from those of most of the other islands; they seem all roof, the thatch overhanging the low walls and reaching the ground, except where it is cut away for an entrance. In some parts of the west end of Timor, and on the little island of Semau, the houses more resemble those of the Hottentots, being egg-shaped, very small, and with a door only about three feet high. ”

“ The women of this island disfigure their ears by enormously extended apertures. They are frank and cheerful in their manners, and enjoy a degree of consideration which seems remarkable where polygamy prevails.
The women of Timor have very delicate and graceful forms, dark brown complexions, pleasing features, and black eyes full of vivacity. They consider corpulence a very great defect.
When a new king begins his reign they sacrifice a young female slave, adorned with jewels and flowers, by exposing her on the water’s edge until the crocodiles come and devour her. ”

“ It is scarcely needful to continue a detail of projects so distant, having already carved out for myself a work which I should be proud to perform, and which is already as extended as the chances of human life and human resolves will warrant. The continuation of the voyage would lead me to take the Royalist to Timor or Port Essington, thence making excursions to the Arru Isles, Timor Laut, and the southern shores of New Guinea. That part of the coast contiguous to Torres Straits I am particularly desirous of visiting ”

“ The island Timor, as I have said in my Voyage round the World, is about seventy leagues long and fourteen or sixteen broad. It lies nearly north-east and south-west. The middle of it lies in about 9 degrees south latitude. It has no navigable rivers nor many harbours; but abundance of bays for ships to ride in at some seasons of the year. The shore is very bold, free from rocks, shoals or islands, excepting a few which are visible and therefore easily avoided. On the south side there is a shoal laid down in our charts about thirty leagues from the south-west end ”

“ The Rajahs of the western portion of Timor receive their appointment from the Resident at Coepang; and their installation I am told is rather a grand affair. Nearly all the Timorees speak Malay, a soft pleasant-sounding tongue, apparently easy to be acquired; but there were few of the Coepang people that spoke the native language. Some of the Timor customs are singular: if a woman, for example, dies in childbirth, she is buried on the spot where she breathes her last. ”

“ There is no anchorage between Pantar and Ombaye; but on the south side of Timor, at the mouth of the Naminie River, and twenty-five miles further eastward, and also at the east point, inside the small island of Pulo Jackie, there are good anchorages in from 10 to 15 fathoms. The southern coast of Timor is washed by heavy surf in either monsoon. Arrangements were immediately made for watering the ship, by having the barecas filled and carried to the boats by persons from the shore, thereby saving our crew from exposure in this, I believe at all times, unhealthy climate. ”

“ In the islands west of Timor, as far as Flores and Sandalwood Island, a very similar race is found, which also extends eastward to Timor-laut, where the true Papuan race begins to appear. The small islands of Savu and Rotti, however, to the west of Timor, are very remarkable in possessing a different and, in some respects, peculiar race. These people are very handsome, with good features, resembling in many characteristics the race produced by the mixture of the Hindoo or Arab with the Malay. ”

“ The isle of Rotte has not so lofty and mountainous an appearance as Timor, though it is agreeably diversified by hill and valley: On the north side, there are many sandy beaches, near which grew some trees of the fan-palm, but the far greater part was covered with a kind of brushy wood, that was without leaves. The appearance of Semau was nearly the same with that of Timor, but not quite so high. ”

“ In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species, also characteristic of Australia, with sandalwood, acacia, and other sorts in less abundance. These are scattered over the country more or less thickly, but, never so as to deserve the name of a forest. Coarse and scanty grasses grow beneath them on the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in the moister localities. In the islands between Timor and Java there is often a more thickly wooded country abounding in thorny and prickly trees. ”

“ In the western district of the island of Timor, when men or women are making long and tiring journeys, they fan themselves with leafy branches, which they afterwards throw away on particular spots where their forefathers did the same before them. ”

“ Not far distant to the westward of Port Essington is the large and fertile island of Timor, a portion of which there is no doubt the Government of Portugal would cede willingly for the smallest equivalent, as it has been long virtually abandoned, and is utterly useless to the mother country. ”

“ Owing to the prevalent dry easterly winds from the arid plains of north Australia, Timor, like Ombay, Flores and other neighbouring islands, has a much drier climate, and a poorer vegetation, than islands further west, and has few perennial streams and no considerable rivers. Hence, apart from almost untouched mineral wealth, such as iron, copper and gold, the island is poor in natural resources. ”

“ This is all that we need ask to account for the very scanty and fragmentary group of Mammalia which now inhabit the large island of Timor. The deer may very probably have been introduced by man, for the Malays often keep tame fawns; and it may not require a thousand, or even five hundred years, to establish new characters in an animal removed to a country so different in climate and vegetation as is Timor from the Moluccas. I have not mentioned horses, which are often thought to be wild in Timor, because there are no grounds whatever for such a belief. ”

“ Far south of the Moluccas lies the island of Timor, inhabited by tribes much nearer to the true Papuan than those of the Moluccas.
The Timorese of the interior are dusky brown or blackish, with bushy frizzled hair, and the long Papuan nose. They are of medium height, and rather slender figures. The universal dress is a long cloth twisted round the waist, the fringed ends of which hang below the knee. The people are said to be great thieves, and the tribes are always at war with each other, but they are not very courageous or bloodthirsty. ”

“ Being now clear of the Islands we steer'd a West course all night until 6 a.m., when we unexpectedly saw an Island* (* Savu. An island about twenty miles in length. It is but little visited or known by others than the Dutch to this day.) bearing West-South-West, for by most of the Maps we had on board we were to the Southward of all the Islands that lay between Timor and Java; at least there were none laid down so near Timor in this Latitude by almost one half, which made me at first think it a new discovery ”

“ We sounded several times, with thirty fathoms of line; but found no bottom.
About four o'clock P.M. we saw the Island of Batou, bearing south-east, distant about 10,000 toises. It is separated from Timor, only by an interval of 2,500 toises.
26th. Calms being frequent on the coast of Timor, we stood off shore this afternoon, by help of a breeze from the south, and steered towards the west; but without finding a steadier wind. Those calms appear to be caused by the heats, which at that season of the year are the more violent, as the sun darts his rays almost perpendicularly. ”