Scanty Vegetation. 193 



CHAPTER XIII. 



TIMOR. 

 COUPANG, 1857-1859. 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 former- 

 ly 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 jDOsition 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 staid a fortnight in the same neighbor- 

 hood. In the spring of 1861 I spent four months atDelli, the 

 capital of the Portuguese possessions in the eastern part of 

 the island. 



The whole neighborhood 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 ap- 

 pearance very similar to other Dutch settlements in the East. 

 The vegetation is everywhere scanty and scrubby. Plants 

 of the families Apocynacese and Euphorbiaceae aboimd ; 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 conspiciious feature 

 of the vegetation Avas the abundance of fine fan-leaved palms 



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