476 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



clump, which perhaps might not be Luli, and, like a drowning 

 man catching at his last opportunity, I gathered with a will, 

 unhindered for a long time ; and it was not till I had another 

 great pile heaped up on the ground that their excitement and 

 superstitious fears became too marked to be longer disregarded. 

 Luckily, the thick mist which had been resting on the moun- 

 tain-tops all the morning came down in a heavy shower of rain, 

 and gave me a good excuse to return to quarters, with my 

 trophies a five-men's load, without appearing, to have recog- 

 nised that I had been oifending. It was useless to attempt to 

 force an ascent to the top ; there would have been an outbreak, 

 for the crest of the mountain was evidently one of their most 

 sacred spots. What I had already done excited them greatly. 



The rain that fell cleared off with it the mist, and revealed 

 from our high vantage-ground a magnificent view of the 

 country, both to the south and to the north — especially to the 

 north, as far as the islands of Kambing, Wetter and AUor,— ^ 

 which was of itself worth the long climb from Samoro's guarda. 



The careful arranging and packing of each species in 

 separate bundles of cool banana-leaves, convenient for the 

 seven or eight porters to transport, took a long time, so that it 

 was late in the afternoon when we mounted for our return 

 journey. If our ascent in broad daylight round the face of the 

 Buarahu valley was eerie, it was foolhardy when, by the time 

 we retraced our steps, it was so dark that we could not see a 

 single foot of the way. I threw my horse's reins on its neck 

 and trusted to my general good-fortune; and it was really 

 with no affected thankfulness that I embraced the neck of my 

 sure-footed black steed, when I leaped down safely on the 

 little flat plateau of Manulu homestead. Here after a deal of 

 boisterous shouting to the inhabitants to awake — they seemed 

 to sleep with the soundness of the dead — on the part of the 

 Eajah's son, in whose harangue the most intelligible word to 

 me was the vigorous use of Bidbo, an old man the only male 

 in the place, made his appearance. Finding the quality of 

 his guests, he was at once all alacrity as far as it was possible 

 for a Timorese to be, and proceeded to rouse the womankind to 

 prepare for us something to eat, and a place to pass the night 

 in. A kid and some Indian corn supplied the first, and for 

 sleeping- quarters we were actuaELy installed in., a Luli hn^ 



