m TIMOR. 



439 



myself observe, though it is said to grow in Timor in abnii' 

 dance. 



April 3- — From belund our rest-house, I got a good view of 

 the river below ua, where its tributary, the TahaoJat, descending 

 a long steep gradient, iiml looking from my elevated station like 

 a narrow lino of black fluid winding through the centre of its 

 wide, flat and stony channeb dashes down a noisy cataract into 

 but does not commingle for a long way after its union with 

 the paler water of the Wai Matang-Eairaank, whose bed, 

 judging iVom the dwarfed appearance of the tall casuarinas 

 growing against the high shingle banks in the fork of their 

 confluence, must be quite fifty feet lower. St>-b!*ertd- is the 

 channel oi' this river that even the coujoint flood — on the way 

 to the sea at Mantutu — meanders like a narrow ribband 

 through it. The grandeur of these streams, if ever their vast 

 beds are tilled frtvm hank to bank with a roarinjr torrent, must 

 be left to the imagination. Guided by the Dato, down the 

 steep and broken slopes to the river margin, 200U feet above 

 the sea, I had a full view of the giant trihedral blocks down 

 to their bases in a side tributary of the Wai Jilatang- 

 Kaimank, and estimated them at not less than 1000 feet in 

 height. The river itself, which looked so small from above, 

 was found to be wide, deep, and rapid, demanding our utmost 

 caution in fording on account of the number of large boulders 

 which were being constantly rolled down by it, I am t<jld that 

 in the rainy season, travellers have often to ctunp on the bank 

 for weeks waiting for an opjjortunity to cross in safety ; and 

 that many a time horses and men, who in their impatience 

 attempt to force their way, are carried down and cruslied by 

 the rolling blocks. 



From tiie river it was a long weary climb of 1500 feet to the 

 summit of the opposite ridge, over a rough shingly grouml, from 

 which tho soil has Iwen nearly aU washed aivay, so that to 

 raise his little crop of maize the native here has had to build 

 up terraces of low walls in the more sheltered nooks to hold 

 the precious hoard of earth he has laboriously collected behind 

 thera. On reachiug the summit we were overtaken by a 

 dense drizzling mist, in which, amid tho innumerable ravinelets 

 of the descent, each of which looked like the usual ditch-like 

 track of a road, we lost our nay. Stumbling up against a 



