IN TIMOR. 447 



a new Imli house, every male in the Idngdom must contribute 

 a share of the labour and cost. When it is finished a buffalo is 

 killed to consecrate the building. When this has been properly 

 done, the vestments, the sacred stone and utensils are then 

 carried in, and a second buffalo is sacrificed and portions of its 

 flesh laid on the Luli stone. A great feast follows with music 

 and dancing, in which the Bato-Luli in his sacred attire, and 

 the rest of the people in their gayest dresses and ornaments 

 take part. 



I took advantage of my enforced stay here to increase my 

 herbarium with many of the interesting plants I had seen on 

 our way up from the Maukuda river, obtaining some very rare 

 species, such as Hypoxis liygrometriea, WoUastonia asperrima, 

 and an Ophioglossum fern. 



In the evening the Leorei at last arrived to pay his official 

 visit. I had hoped to find the Eajahs of the interior hedged 

 round with some state. I was quite disappointed, for although 

 not without some dignity of bearing, there' was little to distin- 

 guish him from those about him except that he wore a Malayan 

 sarong, and that his Tdis, or native-made toga-like robe, was 

 ornamented and fringed with silk, an insignia of royalty. He 

 was not yet de facto ruler, for his father was " sleeping " (the 

 long sleep) " in his house," and not yet buried, as there were 

 not yet amassed sufficient cattle and pigs for a royal sepulture. 

 He spoke and read Portuguese with some fluency, and by the 

 questions he asked about the objects of my journey, and in 

 the quickness with which he comprehended my description of 

 the working of an aneroid, a thermometer and a prismatic 

 compass that I showed him, he exhibited an amount of 

 intelligence that rather surprised me. Why the magnetic 

 needle turned always to the same point puzzled him beyond 

 measure, and I could see that my reply, that Maromak made 

 it so, was not altogether satisfactory to him. 



Like most of the Eajahs, who in their periodical visits to 

 Dilly have been brought into contact with, and influenced by 

 the Catholic priests, my royal friend was a professor of their 

 faith, as well as a follower of the pagan rites of his own people ; 

 and to see over against the Luli temple, a lone and uncompre- 

 hended symbol of the Christian faith in front of a small, 

 neglected bamboo edifice representing a chapel of its worship, 



