346 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



island of Timor, such forests as are found in Borneo and 

 the Moluccas are quite unknown, and are only repre- 

 sented by dense thickets of thorny shrubs, scattered trees 

 of eucalyptus, euphorbia, casuarina, and sandalwood, and 

 patches of more luxuriant woods in some of the moister 

 ravines. The country, in fact, resembles Australia much 

 more than the Moluccas. Some of the purely volcanic 

 islands near Timor, of which Wetta is an example, are 

 bare in the extreme, reminding the traveller more of the 

 burnt hills of Aden than the luxuriant vegetation of the 

 Spice Islands. We can hardly err in tracing this 

 remarkable aridity to the vicinity of the heated interior 

 of Australia, directly to the south-east of the islands of 

 this group. It is well known that this arid continent 

 exercises a disturbing effect on the meteorology of all the 

 surrounding countries, diverting the monsoons from their 

 due course, and by its ascending currents of heated air 

 preventing the deposition of moisture that would other- 

 wise take place. 



The island of Bali is connected with Java by a very 

 shallow sea, and has no doubt once formed part of that 

 island, with which its vegetable and animal productions 

 closely correspond. The strait separating Bali I'rom 

 Lombok is, on the contrary, very deep ; and directly we 

 cross it we come among a new set of animals, and appear 

 to have left Asia for Australia. We at once meet with 

 those singular birds the mound-builders (Megajyodiidce), 

 brush-tongued lories, as well as friar-birds {Ti^opidorhyn- 

 chus) and other honeysuckers, cockatoos, and many other 

 groups found only in the Australian region ; while a 

 number of animals, found in the larger Asiatic islands, 

 suddenly disappear. We have no longer any elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, tapirs, or tigers ; none of the carnivora but 

 a common civet-cat ( Vivcrra) ; none of the insectivora but 



