JN TIMOIL 433 



Lebetiitu, over a blealv, stony, almost grassless coiintiT. No 

 sooner had we reached the crest than we began to descend 

 once more — but less abruptly—into the wide valley of the 

 \Vai"3Iatani>;-Ivaimauk. The chans-e to a new set of muscles 

 was at first very agreeable, but ere long I found myself wish- 

 ing that we were going up, the very reverse of what I was 

 praying for just before we came over the ridge above us. 

 There was no improvement in the road, which as hitherto 

 wound along in an interminable drain, barely wide enough 

 for single file, worn in some places so deep and narrow 

 as to admit only with difficulty our baggage-laden ponies, 

 which, startled by the grating of their burdens on the sides of 

 the defile, were constantly bolting— crashing along headlong, 

 till their panniers were left behind, or themselves jammed 

 fast utterly blocking the way, as the towering mass of the 

 mountain on the one hand, and the precipitous cliffs on the 

 other, or precipitous cliffs on both hands, prevented all passage 

 forwards or backwards. It seems to me impossible for a proper 

 road ever to be made across the island, for, from the moun- 

 tainous character of the country and the unstable nature of 

 the soil, the best constructed way must inevitably disappear 

 each rainy season. "The land of Timor is always falling," is 

 the natives' own account of the country. 



Looking down into this valley, the scenery was of a most 

 singular and striking description. The river was itself the 

 most prominent feature, like a livid blue-black band^ drawn 

 athwart the landscape, clouding rather than enlivening it ; 

 on the further side the mountains, sculptured into peaks and 

 crags, rose so precipitously as to seem insurmountable, while 

 their slopes were disfigured by perpendicular livid blue escarp- 

 ments tllro^^ n down by landslips into the valley ; on our owii 

 side of the river several giant, wildly picturesque triiicdral 

 pillars of rock, all of them of nearly equal height, roared their 

 crags above the level of the mountain slope for some oOO teut. 

 Between two of these great pillars the homestead of the Uato 

 of the Suku of Sauo, was most romantically and eiiticingly 

 situated, and as it was already late in the afternotm, I decided 

 to claim his hospitality for the night. 



Before reachino- his homestead I noted at a scented lemon 

 strub the first butterfly-a Ta:pmo -I had seen since leaving 



