Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The soil seems very poor, consisting chiefly of decomposing clayey shales; and the bare
earth and rock is almost everywhere visible. The drought of the hot season is so severe that
most of the streams dry up in the plains before they reach the sea; everything becomes burnt
up, and the leaves of the larger trees fall as completely as in our winter. On the mountains
from two to four thousand feet elevation there is a much moister atmosphere, so that pota-
toes and other European products can be grown all the year round. Besides ponies, almost
the only exports of Timor are sandal-wood and bees'-wax. The sandal-wood (Santalum sp.)
is the produce of a small tree, which grows sparingly in the mountains of Timor and many
of the other islands in the far East. The wood is of a fine yellow colour, and possesses a
well-known delightful fragrance which is wonderfully permanent. It is brought down to
Delli in small logs, and is chiefly exported to China, where it is largely used to burn in the
temples, and in the houses of the wealthy.
The bees'-wax is a still more important and valuable product, formed by the wild bees
(Apis dorsata), which build huge honeycombs, suspended in the open air from the under-
side of the lofty branches of the highest trees. These are of a semicircular form, and often
three or four feet in diameter. I once saw the natives take a bees' nest, and a very interesting
sight it was. In the valley where I used to collect insects, I one day saw three or four
Timorese men and boys under a high tree, and, looking up, saw on a very lofty horizontal
branch three large bees' combs. The tree was straight and smooth-barked and without a
branch, till at seventy or eighty feet from the ground it gave out the limb which the bees had
chosen for their home. As the men were evidently looking after the bees, I waited to watch
their operations. One of them first produced a long piece of wood apparently the stem of a
small tree or creeper, which he had brought with him, and began splitting it through in sev-
eral directions, which showed that it was very tough and stringy. He then wrapped it in
palm-leaves, which were secured by twisting a slender creeper round them. He then fastened
his cloth tightly round his loins, and producing another cloth wrapped it round his head,
neck, and body, and tied it firmly round his neck, leaving his face, arms, and legs com-
pletely bare. Slung to his girdle he carried a long thin coil of cord; and while he had been
making these preparations one of his companions had cut a strong creeper or bush-rope
eight or ten yards long, to one end of which the wood-torch was fastened, and lighted at the
bottom, emitting a steady stream of smoke. Just above the torch a chopping-knife was
fastened by a short cord.
The bee-hunter now took hold of the bush-rope just above the torch and passed the other
end round the trunk of the tree, holding one end in each hand. Jerking it up the tree a little
above his head he set his foot against the trunk, and leaning back began walking up it. It was
