IN TIMOIi. 439 



myself observe, though it is said to grow in Timor in abun- 

 dance. 



April 3.— From behind our rest-house, I got a good view of 

 the river below us, where its tributary, the Tahaolat, descending 

 a long steep gradient, and looking from my elevated station like 

 a narrow line of black fluid winding through the centre of its 

 wide, flat and stony channel, dashes down a noisy cataract into 

 but does not commingle for a long way after its union with 

 the paler water of the Wai Matang-Kaimauk, whose bod, 

 judging from the dwarfed appearance of the tall casnarinas 

 growing against the high shingle banks in the fork of their 



confluence, must be quite fifty feet lower. So broad is the 

 channel of this river that even the conjoint flood— on the way 

 to the sea at Mantutu — meanders like a narrow ribband 

 through it. The grandeur of these streams, if ever their vast 

 beds are filled from bank to bank with a roaring torrent, must 

 be left to' the imagination. Guided by the Dato, down the 

 steep and broken slopes to the river margin, 2000 feet above 

 the sea, I had a full view of the giant trihedral blocks down 

 to their bases in a side tributary of the Wai Matang- 

 ■Kaimauk, and estimated them at not less than 1000 feet in 

 height. The river itself, which looked so small from above, 

 was found to be wide, deep, and rapid, demanding our utmost 

 caution in fording on account of the number of large boulders 

 which were being constantly rolled down by it. I am told that 

 in the rainy season, travellers have often to camp on the bank 

 for weeks waiting for an opportunity to cross in safety ; and 

 that many a time horses and men, who in their impatience 

 attempt to force their way, are (tarried down and crushed by 



t^e rolling blocks. 



From the river it was a long weary climb of 1500 feet to the 

 snmmit of the opposite ridge, over a rough shingly ground, from 

 which the soil has been nearly all washed away, so that to 

 raise his little crop of maize the native here has had to build 

 ^P terraces of low walls in the more sheltered nooks to hold 

 tlie precious hoard of earth he has laboriously collected beliinrt 

 tj^em. On reaching the summit we were overtaken by a 

 ^ense drizzling mist, in which, amid the innumerable ravineicts 

 of the descent, each of which looked like the usual ditch-like 

 track of a road, we lost our way. Stumbling up against a 



