IN TIMOIt. 



447 



a new Ltdi house, every male in tlie kiDgdom must contribute 

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

 killed to consecrate the butldingf. When this has been properly- 

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

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

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

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

 the rest of the people in their gayest dresses and omaiuents 

 take part, 



I toiik advantiige of my enforced st^y here to increase my 

 herbarium with many of the interesting plants I had seen on 

 onr way up from the Mauknda river, obtaining some very rare 

 species, snch as Hifpoxis hifijromdricaj Wvlhstonia aspeiTttna, 

 and an Ophiof^hssum fern. 



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

 visit, I hail hoped to find the Rajahs of the iuterior hedged 

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

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

 guish him from those aljout him except that he wore a IHalayan 

 sarong, and that his Tdis^ or native-made tog a- like robe, was 

 oniamented aud fringed with silk, an insignia of royalty. He 

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

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

 not yet amassed sufficient cattle and pigs fnv a royal sopultnre. 

 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 jwismatic 

 compass that I showed him, he exhibited an amount of 

 intelligence that rather surprised me. Whp the magnetic 

 needle turned always to the same jK>int puzzled him beyond 

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

 it so, was not altogether satisfaot^jry to him. 



Like most of the Rajahs, 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 LuU temple, a lone and nncompre- 

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

 neglected bamboo edifice representing a chapel of its worship, 



