292 TIMOR. [chap. xiii. 



ferent from any I have seen elsewhere. They are of an 

 oval figure, and the walls are made of sticks about four feet 

 high placed close together. From this rises a high conical 

 roof thatched with grass. The only opening is a, door 

 about three feet high. The people are like the Timorese 

 with frizzly or wavy hair and of a coppery brown colour. 

 The better class appear to have a mixture of some superior 

 race which has much improved their features. I saw in 

 Con pang some chiefs from the island of Savu further west, 

 who presented characters very distinct from either the 

 Malay or Papuan races. They most resembled Hindoos, 

 having: fine well-formed features and straight thin noses 

 with clear brown complexions. As the Brahminical 

 religion once spread over all Java, and even now exists in 

 Bali and Lombock, it is not at all improbable that some 

 natives of India should have reached this island, either 

 by accident or to escape persecution, and formed a per- 

 manent settlement there. 



I stayed at Oeassa four days, when, not finding any 

 insects and very few new birds, I returned to Coupang to 

 await the next mail steamer. On the way I had a narrow 

 escape of being swamped. The deep coffin-like boat was 

 filled up with my baggage, and with vegetables cocoa-nuts 

 and other fruit for Coupang market, and when we had got 

 some way across into a rather rough sea, we found that a 

 quantity of water was coming in which we had no means 



