CHAPTER I. 



SOJOURN AT FATUNABA. 



Arrival at Dilly — Dreadful efifects of fever — Search for a site for a house — 

 The town of Billy an ethnographical studio — Patunaba — Our residence — 

 The enchanting view thence — Interesting birds and plants — Difficulty 

 with servants — Preparations for departure into the interior — Dialects. 



Sailing on the 15th of December from Amboina, we spent a 

 couple of days in our favourite strolling-ground of Banda, and 

 sighted Timor early on the 19th, anchoring at noon in the 

 harbour of Dilly, where we were heartily welcomed by our 

 old friends the Governor, Major da Franpa, and his family. 

 We were above measure saddened to see their terribly 

 emaciated countenances, which proclaimed more forcibly than 

 words, the pestiferous nature of th« climate. One of their 

 number — the youngest — already slept under the shade of the 

 Santa Cruz ; in all of them the notorious Dilly t«ver had 

 killed down the cheerful vivacity, buoyancy of spirit and 

 bright eye with which they had stepped ashore in the month 

 of May. With the utmost kindness commodious apartments 

 were offered us in the Palace, but it was perfectly evident 

 that if I wished to accomplish any successful work in Timor, 

 it could not be from Dilly as a centre, constantly exposed to 

 the pestilence that nightly rises from the marshes surrounding 

 the town. 



On proposing to make our residence somewhere on the hills, 

 the Governor suggested to me the neighbourhood of the 

 convent of Lahaiii, situated a few miles behind the town in a 

 picturesque valley. Though more salubrious than any part of 

 the town itself, . the locality was still too much within the 

 fever zone to tempt us to court a renewed ^attack of the 

 malaria, whose dire effects we had sufficiently experienced in 

 Timor-laut. 



