IN TIMOR. 481 



which I passed westward at a steady pace, under a thermometer 

 marking 110" in the snn and 92^" in the shade, between low 

 unduhiting hills clothed with a shrubbery of Zizyplms Ju- 

 juba, and entirely composed of horizontal beds of shingly 

 detritus, till at four o'clock I struck off to the right up an 

 abrupt rise of 1500 feet by a path studded with crystalline 

 calcareous rocks and boulders with a flinty clink, rounded 

 by attrition and perforated with holes and crevices like coral 

 blocks, bored by moUusca and sponges, which had been raised 

 up out of the sea. Strange to say, on the descent of the 

 northern slope, not a single calcareous block or stone was to 

 be seen anywhere. 



As we commenced this descent, which was quite steep and 

 precipitous, in the fair way of the path we came on a. little 

 mound which they called Matu, round both sides of which the 

 road diverged. Each native with me gathered some leaves or 

 a twig from a tree and laid it on the mound, "to ensure a 

 safe descent." On the trees near by were hung up various 

 articles — cigarettes^^ cois, little cigarette cases, and leaves in 

 which rice had been carried, and stumps of Indian corn heads. 

 I have recorded above almost the same custom in Sumatra, 

 where, on a large block of stone by the side of a forest path 

 something was oifered by every passer-by for " luck." A 

 parallel * exists at this day in Dauphine, where every passer- 

 by throws into a certain chasm a little stone as an offering 

 to the mountain spirit ; and I believe the custom is not 

 unknown in our own country. 



Reaching Metinaru long after sunset I halted to rest 

 my horse, for the first time since starting. Resuming the 

 march after two hours, I pushed on westward along the sea- 

 shore, through a long stretch of salt-marshes, which in the 

 starlight looked like snow-fields. Near Hera the flat shore- 

 lands are barred by the spurs of the hills which run out into 

 the sea there to form that high headland ; and, looking back on 

 that dark night's ride, it seems marvellous how we surmounted 

 without accident their rocky spurs, where the path was 

 often interrupted by perpendicular steps many feet in height, 

 down which, followed by my horse, I scrambled, more by 

 the sense of touch than by that of sight. At daybreak I 



* Waitz, 'Anthropology,' p. 321. 



