Timor

“ Except for a few half-breeds in the town, there are no native Christians in the island of Timor. The people retain their independence in a great measure, and both dislike and despise their would-be rulers, whether Portuguese or Dutch.
The Portuguese government in Timor is a most miserable one. Nobody seems to care the least about the improvement of the country, and at this time, after three hundred years of occupation, there has not been a mile of road made beyond the town, and there is not a solitary European resident anywhere in the interior. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The perils those underwent who reached the island of Timor, and whom nothing but the apparent interference of Divine Providence could have saved, fully justify my fears, and prove beyond a doubt that they rested on a solid foundation; for by staying in the ship, an opportunity might offer of escaping, but by going in the boat nothing but death appeared, either from the lingering torments of hunger and thirst, or from the murderous weapons of cruel savages, or being swallowed up by the deep. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We sailed from Malua and went to the South, and found the island of Timor, and we coasted the coast from east to west, on the north side of this island, which is in the latitude of 9°, and the nearest land on the north side, and this land will have 10 leagues journey, and this coast lies with Buro N.E. S.W.1⁄4 N.S., in longitude of 197° 45', and of this island of Timor we coasted all the coast from east to west, as far as the village of Manvai ”

“ Besides, my boat was on the east side of the Timor coast; for the other was, as I found afterwards, the Anabao shore; and the great opening I was now in was the strait between that island and Timor; towards which I now tacked and stood over. Taking up my boat therefore I ran under the Timor side, and at 3 o'clock anchored in 29 fathom, half a mile from the shore. That part of the south-west point of Timor where we anchored in the morning bore now south by west, distance 3 leagues: and another point of the island bore north-north-east, distance 2 leagues. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 multiplicity of languages, or dialects, spoken on the island Timor, has been noticed by most voyagers. Some have put the mutually unintelligible forms of speech as high as thirty. Unfortunately the details of this variety are not known. Such Timor vocabularies as we possess, represent the language of Koepang; the locality where the contact with the trading world both of the East and West, is greatest, i.e., with the Dutch and with the Malays. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To add to the misfortunes attending on Melville Island, the colonial brig Lady Nelson, which was stationed there, sailed to Timor for refreshments, and was never afterwards heard of. Whether she fell into the hands of pirates, or whether she was wrecked on some reef or sand-bank, (many of which abound in the Timor Sea,) is still, and may, perhaps, for ever remain, a matter of uncertainty.
At length, after a period of nearly four years, in consequence of the continued unfavourable reports transmitted to the Home Government, orders were given to abandon the settlement ”

“ 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. ”