IN TEE MOLUCCAS. 



285 



flowing by the arrival of our steamer, as if it was a matter 

 in which they had absolutely no interest or concern. They 

 wore little clothing beyond a loin-cloth, and a fringed plaid 

 — that simplest and most primitive garb of man — about their 

 shoulders; a little bag, heavily ornamented with gold and 

 beads, suspended in front by a string round the hips, con- 

 tained their betel nut and siri leaves, and tastefully carved 

 bamboo tubes full of tobacco. A Borassus palm leaf for an 

 umbrella completed their costume and accoutrements, except 

 their hats, which, made out of the 

 pure white spathe of the Borassus 

 palm, really exhibit artistic taste 

 of a very high order. Somewhat 

 of the shape of the "Devonshire 

 Hat," so much worn a few years ago, 

 but narrower in proportion, they 

 were elaborately ornamented with a 

 mass of flowers and plumes really 

 wonderfully modelled out of little 

 chips of the spathe. Held in the 

 hand they were singularly graceful 

 ornaments ; but atop of the natives' 

 curly mops they had rather a gro- 

 tesque appearance. The indigenes 



rarely came down from their own mountain homes to the 

 town, so that very few of the natives I saw crowding the streets 

 of Cupang were true Timorese, Mr. Drysdale told me : most 

 of them were men from the little island of Solor, and are the 

 servants and coolies of the place. 



Trade is carried on by barter, the most prized article of 

 exchange being a species of bead, by no means plentiful, called 

 by them lahkai, of an ochreous red colour, evidently some sort of 

 soft stone. Whence these beads come is quite unknown, and 

 no imitation yet made in Birmingham or elsewhere has been 

 sufficiently exact to deceive the native to give the price of the 

 true article for its counterfeit — a small string of eight or nine 

 inches long costing over £12. 



Another night's sail brought us to Dilly, the capital of the 

 Portuguese territory in the east half of the island. Here we 

 lost our genial companions, the Governor and his family, who 

 20 



80L0B OIINAMENTATION. 



