CHAPTER XIII. TIMOR.
(COUPANG, 1857-1869. DELLI, 1861.)
THE island of Timor is about three hundred miles long and sixty wide,
and seems to form the termination of the great range of volcanic islands
which begins with Sumatra more than two thousand miles to the west. It
differs however very remarkably from all the other islands of the chain
in not possessing any active volcanoes, with the one exception of Timor
Peak near the centre of the island, which was formerly active, but was
blown up during an eruption in 1638 and has since been quiescent. In no
other part of Timor do there appear to be any recent igneous rocks, so
that it can hardly be classed as a volcanic island. Indeed its position
is just outside of the great volcanic belt, which extends from Flores
through Ombay and Wetter to Banda.
I first visited Timor in 1857, staying a day at Coupang, the chief Dutch
town at the west end of the island; and again in May 1859, when I stayed
a fortnight in the same neighbourhood. In the spring of 1861 I spent
four months at Delli, the capital of the Portuguese possessions in the
eastern part of the island.
The whole neighbourhood of Coupang appears to have been elevated at a
recent epoch, consisting of a rugged surface of coral rock, which rises
in a vertical wall between the beach and the town, whose low, white,
red-tiled houses give it an appearance very similar to other Dutch
settlements in the East. The vegetation is everywhere scanty and
scrubby. Plants of the families Apocynaceae and Euphorbiaceae, abound;
but there is nothing that can be called a forest, and the whole country
has a parched and desolate appearance, contrasting strongly with
the lofty forest trees and perennial verdure of the Moluccas or of
Singapore. The most conspicuous feature of the vegetation was the
abundance of fine fan-leaved palms (Borassus flabelliformis), from the
leaves of which are constructed the strong and durable water-buckets in
general use, and which are much superior to those formed from any other
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