IN TIMOR-LAUT. 307 



CHAPTER ly. 



SOJOURN IN TIMOR-LAUT — COntlnuect. 



m 



Tlie natives — Hair and coiffures — Tanity — Stature ami living; cLaracteriiitics 



Cranial chnracters — Clotliiiv^ — Tjikalele dance — Arms — Marriage 

 Artistic skill — Individual and moral character — Treatment of their 

 children — Games — Fine figures — Graves — Good btitterlly resorts. 



Many trying and vexatious delays — tlic laziness of the iiiif Ives, 

 quarrels in the village, and fear of attacks from our neigh- 

 bours, which are easier to look hack on from tlu^ midst of civili- 

 sation than to bear at tlie time, with equanimity — prevented oui 

 house, which taxed all our energies, from b^'ing finisliod till 



the nineteenth day after our arrival, and not till then was I 

 able to commence making any clo?!e study of the surrounding 

 country, or of its flora and fauna. But we had no useless time 

 on our hands, everything was so new to us. The people that 

 came about us to gaze, >vere all subjects deserving the clnsost 

 study. Their every gesture and every custom had to be 

 watched with microscoj^ic acuteness, if we wore to improre our 

 opportunities and not fail in deciphering the story — only thus 

 recorded and to be ere long blurred and bh^tted by foreign 

 contact — of their race, incessantlv beinjf unfolded before us 

 in their every unconscious word and commonest action. 



All the natives of the islands we saw wnr*' handsome-fojif ured 

 fellows, lithe, tall, erect, and with S2»lendidiy foruied bodies. 

 They dyed their hair of a rich golden colour by a proparation 

 made of cocoa-nut ash and lime, varying, liowever, in shade 

 witli the time, from a dirty grey through a red or russet colour, 

 till the second day, when the approved tint appeared. Seyeral 

 modes of arranging their hair were in vogue. It wa?* either 



carefully combed 



pal 



o 



