TIMOR. 
179 
Sumbawa ; and a portion of the ti-oopa sometimes consists 
of negroes from Elmina, on the west coast of Africa, In- 
deed the island of Timor contains within itself materials 
which may^ possibly enable the scientific ethnologist to 
decide whether the variety of complexion met with in the 
Indian Archipelago has resulted from a mixture of races, 
or from natural developments connected with the mode 
of life adopted by different tribes. On the table-lands 
above Bilhf a Portuguese settlement on the north-west 
coast of the island^ some of the villagers have opaque 
yellow complexions, the exposed parts of the skin 
being covered with light brown spots or freckles, and the 
hair is straight, fine, and of a reddish or dark auburn 
colour.* Every intermediate variety of hair and com- 
plexion, between this and the black or deep chocolate 
* A specimen of this description of hair, with sereml locks tbat 
had been cut from the heads of other brown races, Papimjis, or 
Anstr&liiuis, was deposited by the writer, in ISiS, m the United 
Service Museum. As some of the tribes of the Serwatty Islands 
dye the hair with iime and other substances^ I was particularly 
carcfid in ascertiuniiig; that this auburn colour was mturai, and not 
the result of m artificial process. The person from whose bead 
the specimen of hair was cut with my own ban<la, was a girl who 
liad been in the service ot the family of Colonel Cabrera, the 
Governor of Dilli, for several years ; and hod any artificiid process 
been employed tc colour the hair, the fact must have come under 
the notice of the members of liis faniiiy. I met with several others, 
both male and femide, in Dilli and the neighbourhood, who had the 
same peculiarity. They were aU natives of tbe uplands, and Colonel 
Cabrera assured me that he had nsited villages in the interior, in 
which nearly eve^^ inhabitant bad this peculiar hair and complexion. 
