COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
335 
our arrival had brought down to see us, naked to 
the hips, which alone supported a petticoat or 
wrapper of blue cotton stuff that exposed their 
knees. 
The beach was lined with the areca, or fan- 
palm tree, from which the well-known liquor 
called toddy is procured. During our conference 
with these people, they were all busily employed 
in eating the fruit spike of the piper betle ■*, which 
they first thickly covered with shell-lime ; after 
chewing it for some time, they spit it out into the 
hand of the attendant slave, who completes the 
exhaustion of this luxurious morgeau , by convey- 
ing it to his own mouth. 
They have a small-sized breed of horses at 
Savu, similar to that of Rottee; and pigs, sheep, 
and poultry appeared to be very plentiful. No ob- 
servations were taken during our stay in Zeba 
Bay. The tides were scarcely perceptible, and 
their rise and fall uncertain from the steep bank 
on which we had anchored. 
After quitting the bay, we made every pos- 
sible progress towards Timor; and, as long as 
* Persoon, in his description of areca catechu, makes the 
following- observation E fructu ab extima pellicula libero, simul 
cum foliis piperis betle, adclito pauxillo calcis ex ostreis, fit mas- 
ticator! urn, quod Indiani continue volvunt in ore, ut malus anhelitus 
corrigatur, et dentes ac stomachus roborentur.— Persoon, Syu. 
Plant . pars. 2. 577. 
1819. 
Oct. 25. 
