Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; with an Account of the Coasts and Rivers; Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in The; Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners; Of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits; To the Islands in the Arafura SeaStokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; with an Account of the Coasts and Rivers; Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in The; Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners; Of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits; To the Islands in the Arafura Sea
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
The deer were all brought up to the commandant, who begged our acceptance
of them. We thanked him, and took the two smallest. By the time we
reached Pritie they were skinned and hung up, ready to be put into the
boats. The persons who had shot them had received their stone bolts again
very little injured; the hole they make is enormous. We rewarded these
people; but to the commandant we were really at a loss how to express our
obligations. At length we thought of giving him some powder and shot,
which was a present he seemed right glad to receive. I afterwards learnt
the history of this excellent old Javanese, and was surprised and grieved
to hear that a person so universally esteemed had been banished from Java
and his family for some trifling political offence. His property was sold
to purchase his freedom, and the proceeds were entrusted to the captain
of a ship, who ran off with the whole, thus at once ruining a most worthy
family, and reducing my good friend the commandant to the necessity of
remaining in exile. I was glad to hear, on my second visit to Timor, that
he was still alive and well, though without any prospect of an
alleviation to his condition.
Wishing him farewell, we left Pritie with some regret. By dark we had
crossed Babao Bay, and reached the ship at half-past eight. It may be as
well to mention that, looking from Coepang, the valley of Pritie is
situated immediately under Timor Peak, the highest over the northern
shore of Babao Bay. A small hut, on a projecting shingle point, close to
the westward, marks the landing place, where several canoes are generally
to be seen hauled up. At high tide a boat can get in; but, as we have
already said, there is a long mud flat at low-water.
THE TIMOREES.
The Timorees do not bear the character of being very industrious; the
small portion of land they cultivate is turned up in the following
manner: a slight fence is placed round the part required for the purposes
of agriculture and a drove of bullocks is driven furiously backwards and
forwards over it; which very much resembles the mode adopted for
thrashing corn in some parts of South America.
The Rajahs of the western portion of Timor receive their appointment from
the Resident at Coepang; and their installation I am told is rather a
grand affair. Nearly all the Timorees speak Malay, a soft
pleasant-sounding tongue, apparently easy to be acquired; but there were
few of the Coepang people that spoke the native language. Some of the
Timor customs are singular: if a woman, for example, dies in childbirth,
she is buried on the spot where she breathes her last.
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN NEW GUINEA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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