gaged a Malay guide to conduct me to a village near
tlie shore, a mile westward toward Semao. Our
road was a bridle-path, a few large stones having
been removed, but the ragged coral rock everywhere
projects so completely through the thin soil, that it
was a constant wonder to me how the natives could
travel barefoot with such apparent ease. We soon
came to half a dozen circular huts, enclosed by a low
stone wall. They were the most wretched abodes
for human beings that I saw in all my journeys over
the archipelago. The walls, instead of being made
of boards or flattened bamboos, as in the other
islands, are composed of small sticks about three feet
high, driven into the ground. These supported a
conical roof, thatched with palm-leaves. Ugly-
looking pigs, with long bristles on their backs, were
rooting about these detestable hovels. Soon after,
we passed a burial-place. A low wall enclosed a
small irregular plat, that was filled with earth. This
contained one or more graves, each of which had for
its foot and head stones small square pyramidal
blocks of wood, with the apex fixed in the ground.
The next village we entered contained only a dozen
huts. A pack of wolf-like dogs saluted us with a
fierce yelping and barking, and my attendant, after
much shouting and bustle, roused the inmates of one
of these miserable dwellings. The men were gone
to fish, but the women and children came out to gaze
at us, and when their dull apprehensions finally
allowed them to realize that we had come to purchase
shells, and had a good supply of small copper
coins, they briskly hunted about, and soon brought
me a large number of nautilus-shells of enormous size.
The children were nearly all entirely naked, and the
women only wore a sarong, fastened at the waist and
descending to the knees. This scanty clothing they
supplied by coyly folding their arms across their
breasts as they approached to sell their shells. Those
, of the nautilus, they all agreed in saying, did not
■come from their own shores, but from R o tti; and a
|gentleman, who had been along all the neighboring
shores, assured me that .he had seen the natives there
dive for them, in about two fathoms at low tide, and
bring them up alive, and that in this way great num-
■bers are gathered for food.
The latter part of the western monsoon, or the
f changing of the monsoons, was recommended to me
las the most favorable time to collect these rare
[animals. Besides the nautilus, I obtained many
species of Pteroc&ras, S'trombus, and many beautiful
■ cones and cyprseas.
The coral rocks on the hills that we crossed con-
[tained specimens apparently of living species, at a
height which I judge was five hundred feet above
the level of the sea. I marked the whole in my note-
I book as merely a coral reef of very recent elevation,
i Since returning, and comparing this observation with
I the careful description of that region given by Mr.
I Jukes,* in his voyage of the Fly, I find he expresses
* Mr. Jukes remarks, and I believe, most correctly, that “ if the term
| ‘jura kalk’ is applied lithologically to these tertiary rocks, it is to a
» certain extent applicable, as they have a concretionary and oolitic
■structure. If, however, it is meant to have a chronological meaning, it
Bis either incorrectly applied, or the formation is incorrectly extended on
I the map to the neighborhood of Kupang.”