Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XIII
Timor
(
COUPANG
, 1857—1859.
DELLI
, 1861)
The island of Timor is about three hundred miles long and sixty wide, and seems to form the
termination of the great range of volcanic islands which begins with Sumatra more than two
thousand miles to the west. It differs however very remarkably from all the other islands of
the chain in not possessing any active volcanoes, with the one exception of Timor Peak near
the centre of the island, which was formerly active, but was blown up during an eruption in
1638 and has since been quiescent. In no other part of Timor do there appear to be any recent
igneous rocks, so that it can hardly be classed as a volcanic island. Indeed its position is just
outside of the great volcanic belt, which extends from Flores through Ombay and Wetter to
Banda.
I first visited Timor in 1857, staying a day at Coupang, the chief Dutch town at the west
end of the island; and again in May 1859, when I stayed a fortnight in the same neighbour-
hood. In the spring of 1861 I spent four months at Delli, the capital of the Portuguese posses-
sions in the eastern part of the island.
The whole neighbourhood of Coupang appears to have been elevated at a recent epoch,
consisting of a rugged surface of coral rock, which rises in a vertical wall between the beach
and the town, whose low white red-tiled houses give it an appearance very similar to other
Dutch settlements in the East. The vegetation is everywhere scanty and scrubby. Plants of the
families Apocynaceæ and Euphorbiaceæ abound; but there is nothing that can be called a
forest, and the whole country has a parched and desolate appearance, contrasting strongly
with the lofty forest trees and perennial verdure of the Moluccas or of Singapore. The most
conspicuous feature of the vegetation was the abundance of fine fan-leaved palms (Borassus
flabelliformis), from the leaves of which are constructed the strong and durable water-buckets
in general use, and which are much superior to those formed from any other species of palm.
From the same tree, palm-wine and sugar are made, and the common thatch for houses
