346 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
island of Timor, such forests as are found in Borneo and 
the Moluccas are quite unknown, and are only repre¬ 
sented by dense thickets of thorny shrubs, scattered trees 
of eucalyptus, euphorbia, casuarina, and sandalwood, and 
patches of more luxuriant woods in some of the moister 
ravines. The country, in fact, resembles Australia much 
more than the Moluccas. Some of the purely volcanic 
islands near Timor, of which Wetta is an example, are 
bare in the extreme, reminding the traveller more of the 
burnt hills of Aden than the luxuriant vegetation of the 
Spice Islands. We can hardly err in tracing this 
remarkable aridity to the vicinity of the heated interior 
of Australia, directly to the south-east of the islands of 
this group. It is well known that this arid continent 
exercises a disturbing effect on the meteorology of all the 
surrounding countries, diverting the monsoons from their 
due course, and by its ascending currents of heated air 
preventing the deposition of moisture that would other¬ 
wise take place. 
The island of Bali is connected with Java by a very 
shallow sea, and has no doubt once formed part of that 
island, with which its vegetable and animal productions 
closely correspond. The strait separating Bali from 
Lombok is, on the contrary, very deep; and directly we 
cross it we come among a new set of animals, and appear 
to have left Asia for Australia. We at once meet with 
those singular birds the mound-builders (. Megapodiidce ), 
brush-tongued lories, as well as friar-birds ( Tropidorhyn - 
chus ) and other honeysuckers, cockatoos, and many other 
groups found only in the Australian region; while a 
number of animals, found in the larger Asiatic islands, 
suddenly disappear. We have no longer any elephants, 
rhinoceroses, tapirs, or tigers; none of the carnivora but 
a common civet-cat ( Viverrct ); none of the insectivora but 
