IN TIMOR. 431 



tudinal planks and logs of trees intertwined with growing 

 bamboos and thorny shrubs. The gateway was closed by a 

 door of a broad solid slab of wood, swung on its lintels by the 

 two pivots left projecting at the upper and lower corners, 

 and secured by a bar of a slender tree. Just inside the gate 

 stood a little shed, occupied every night by a sentinel on 

 guard, and where I observed a " dummy " head on the top of 

 a pole as a warning to thieves and robbers of the reception 

 that awaited them. Within the enclosure were stockaded 

 wallowing-pools for the owner's buffaloes, and stalls for his 

 goats and ponies in times of alarm, while the ubiquitous pig, 

 his most treasured possession, had its usual quarters beneath 

 the dwelling. The houses were of bamboo, the walls — in 

 which there were uo windows — being of several layers of 

 wicker-work matting, raised several feet off the ground on 

 strong pillars. The floor projected some feet beyond the walls 

 all round, forming the platform under the eaves, on which we 

 camped. Their dwellings are not divided into apartments, 

 but there are stall-like divisions, which can be closed by 

 curtains, and are used for sleeping in. A spot is always railed 

 off for the sacred (Ivli) spear, knife and gun, before which 

 the head of the house makes a propitiatory offering to speed 

 his particular undertakings. Outside the enclosure, in the 

 tops of the taller of the gum-trees, were curious miniature 

 huts, which I at first thought, from the absence of any 

 ladder, might be pigeon-houses ; but they turned out to be 

 their granaries — reached by climbing the trees — and the 

 depositories of the more valuable portion of their house- 

 hold effects, such as plates, bowls of European make, and 

 cloths. They are invariably placed in high trees whose 

 trunk was divided into four divaricating arms, on which 

 two diagonal planks can be fixed to support a firm floor. 

 They are said to be little subject to the depredations of 

 rats ; but they seemed most tempting objects to every prowl- 

 ing thief. It may be, however, that they are protected by the 

 sanctity of the taboo — or, in their own language, are lull. 



Next day, descending by the usual ditch-like paths and 

 zig-zagging down land-slipped gorges we reached, at 300O 

 feet above the sea, the bed of the river Komai, a wide channel 

 several hundred yards in breadth, paved with soft blue-black 



