IN TIMOE. 



465 



together, they were not shunned by their noighboiirs, who even 

 intermarried with them. The oflspring of these luiions took 

 sometimes after the one, sometimes after the other parent. 



In looking eagerly at their faces T saw more than their 

 features only ; their presence there wsis an excerpt out of a 

 loDg history. In imagination I siiw past them down the dim 

 ATenues of Time — a far far cry— to their early progenitors, 

 and pictured their weary retreat, full of strange and romantic 

 vicissitudes from a more northern clime till forced off the 

 mainland by superior might, into exile in this remote isle, 

 where as a surviving remnant amid its central heights, they 



SATIVE3 OF BtnigrfF. 



are Hving united but not incorporated with the surrounding 

 race whose pedigree has no link in common with their own. 



What the pedigree of the Timorese is I have not sufficient 

 evidence for forming any decided opinion ; but that they are 

 a race in which many elements commingle seems certain. I 

 saw no one with what I can with perfect truth designate 

 m "black skin"* such as seen among the Aru islanders. 

 Till I. well-proportioned men, with friiszly hair, and of a rich 

 yeUowtsh brown or of a chocolate colour, I saw in abundance, 

 m well as short, stumpy men, with straight hair on the head 

 and with no lack of beard and moustaches. Mr, Earl * has 

 also noticed the *' great diflerences exhibited by the peoples 

 of the tableland above Dilly. Some of the natives have a 

 dull yellow colour; the parts exposed to the snn are covered 



* *Tbe Native Races of the Indian ArcTiijieb^o/ 1853, p, 179. 



2 H 



