Products — Exports. 207 



great irregular bunches of hairy grapes, of a coarse but very 

 luscious flavor. h\ some of the valleys where the vegetation is 

 richer, thorny shrubs and climbers are so abundant as to make 

 the thickets quite impenetrable. 



The soil seems very poor, consisting chiefly of decomposing 

 clayey shales, and the bare earth and rock is almost every- 

 where visible. The drought of the hot season is so severe 

 that most of the streams dry up in the plains before they 

 reach the sea ; every thing becomes burnt up, and the leaves 

 of the larger trees fall as completely as in our winter. On the 

 mountains from two to four thousand feet elevation there is a 

 much moister atmosphere, so that potatoes and other European 

 products can be grown all the year round. Besides ponies, 

 almost the only exports of Timor are sandal-wood and bees- 

 wax. The sandal-wood (Santaium sp.) is the produce of a 

 small tree, which grows sparingly in the mountains of Timor 

 and many of the other islands in the far East. The wood is 

 of a fine yellow color, and possesses a well-known delightful 

 fragrance which is wonderfully permanent. It is brought 

 down to Delli in small logs, and is chiefly exported to China, 

 where it is largely used to burn in the temples, and in the 

 houses of the wealthy. 



The bees-wax is a still more important and valuable prod- 

 uct, formed by the wild bees (Apis dorsata), which build 

 huge honey-combs, suspended in the open air from the under 

 side of the lofty branches of the highest ti'ees. These are of 

 a semicircular form, and often three or four feet in diameter. 

 I once saw the natives take a bees' nest, and a very interesting 

 sight it was. In the valley where I used to collect insects I 

 one day saw three or four Timorese men and boys under a 

 high tree, and, looking up, saw on a very lofty horizontal 

 branch three large bees' combs. The tree was straight and 

 smooth-barked and without a branch, till at seventy or eighty 

 feet from the ground it gave out the limb which the bees had 

 chosen for their home. As the men were evidently looking 

 after the bees, I waited to watch their operations. One of 

 them first produced a long piece of wood, apparently the stem 

 of a small tree or creeper, which he had brought with him, 

 and began splitting it through in several directions, which 

 showed that it was very tough and stringy. He then wrapped 



