302 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



undertaken chiefly for trade purposes. Mr. Hartog has the 

 honour of being the first person to sail through the strait 

 separating the north and south islands which bears the name 

 of his vessel ; but Captain Owen Stanley was really the first 

 to indicate the existence of this strait ; for in his ' Notes of a 

 Cruise in the Eastern Archipelago in 1841-2,' which are to 

 be found in the Journal of the same Society for 1842 (vol. xii. 

 p. 263) he writes : " After leaving Eaber, Me made the island 

 of Sera, on the west coast of Timor-laut, and then stood across 

 for Australia. A good harbour is said to exist in the south 

 part of Timor-laut, which is separated from the north part hj 

 a deep channel. Indeed," he continues, " I feel sure that 

 when the island is properly examined, it will be found to 

 consist of several islands separated by narrow channels." 



As we drew nearer and nearer we carefully and anxiously 

 watched the growing features of our new home. I observed 

 that the much indented coast, a low and narrow foreshore 

 covered with a thick forest of cocoa-nut trees and dark-green 

 mangrove thickets, was fringed in most jDlaces with a precipi- 

 tous bluff, on which principally the villages, whose houses 

 glinted through the vegetation above them, were situated. At 

 midday we entered the narrow strait between the mainland 

 and the island of Larat, and anchored opposite the village of 

 Ritabel. As soon as we had made fast, several boats — the fore- 

 most of them rather timidly — put out from botli shores, and 

 in a few minutes we were surrounded by a little fleet, whose 

 occupants scrambled on board, talking and jabbering as only 

 Papuans can, affording us an opportunity of forming some 

 opinion of those who were to be our friends or foes for the 

 next three months. They were powerful athletic fellows, and 

 conducted themselves exceedingly well, apparently awed by 

 what they saw on board of the marvellous things of civilisa- 

 tion. Their solo request was for laru or gin, the most-prized 

 by them of all earthly commodities. 



After depositing our baggage, our three servants and our 

 two selves on the shore, the Amhoina at once hoisted her anchor 

 and bore away. We sat down on a chest and watched her 

 grow less and less and disappear over the horizon, with feelings 

 somewliat of desolation and not without some misgivings, left 

 there the sole Europeans among a race of the very worst 



