IN TIMOR. 463 



wonderful power and accuracy — at each other. Most of the 

 men had round the waist ammunition pouches of thick buffalo- 

 hide, in form much like European cartridge-belts, with com- 

 partments for the small bamboo cylinders in which they keep 

 gunpowder, shot, flints, balls of lead or of ruby crystals 

 gathered out of the river beds ; here and there a man from 

 the western kingdoms of the Portuguese territory could be 

 told by the excellence of the construction of these accoutre- 

 ments, and the elegant way in which they were studded with 

 large tin-headed nails, or with rows of Dutch silver coins, 

 and occasionally with an English sovereign among them 

 transfixed by a nail through its centre. 



The women wear very few ornaments — a few arm-bands of 

 silver or horn, and occasionally earrings, and, transfixing the 

 knot in which their hair was gathered behind, a high semi- 

 circular comb, elaborately carved in beautiful and complex 

 patterns. These are said -to be given by the youths to their 

 sweethearts, and possibly represent a sort of engagement 

 token. Their dress was a simple tunic, the taisfeta, hung 

 from the waist or from the armpits to the knees. 



The women did all the selling and buying, while the men 

 strutted about exchanging with each other drinks of palm- 

 wine — to which they are inordinately given. Besides the 

 different food stuffs, there were exposed for sale on the ground, 

 piles of those beautiful cloths, entirely spun and woven by 

 themselves, in which both between 

 themselves and among the surround- 

 ing islands a large trade is done, and 

 cigarette and tobacco holders ex- 

 quisitely woven out of thin shreds of 

 palm-leaf, on which are worked in 

 additional fibres most artistic coloured 

 designs in yellow, red, and black, of 

 dyes made also by themselves ; tlie 

 red out of the nut of the Morinda 

 citrifolia, the yellow from the epi- jg 

 dermis of an epidendric orchid called ohnamektation on small 

 svAXtk, and the black (or ,dark blue) "^^^bo"- 



from the indigo. The favourite and typical carved ornamenta- 

 tion that I observed ou their weapons and accoutrements, and 



