ferent from any I have seen elsewhere. They are of an
oval figure, and the walls are made of sticks about four feet
high placed close together. From this rises a high conical
roof thatched with grass. The only opening is a door
about three feet high. The people are like the Timorese
with frizzly or wavy hair and of a coppery brown colour.
The better class appear to have a mixture of some superior
race which has much improved their features. I saw in
Coupang some chiefs from the island of Savu further west,
who presented characters very distinct from either the
Malay or Papuan races. They most resembled Hindoos,
having fine well-formed features and straight thin noses
with clear brown complexions. As the Brahminical
religion once spread over all Java, and even now exists in
Bali and Lombock, it is not at all improbable that some
natives of India should have reached this island, either
by accident or to escape persecution, and formed a permanent
settlement there.
I stayed at Oeassa four days, when, not finding any
insects and very few new birds, I returned to Coupang to
await the next mail steamer. On the way I had a narrow
escape of being swamped. The deep coffin-like boat was
filled up with my baggage, and with vegetables cocoa-nuts
and other fruit for Coupang market, and when we had got
some way across into a rather rough sea, we found that a
quantity of water was coming in which we had no means
of baling out. This caused us to sink deeper in the water,
and then we shipped seas over our sides, and the rowers
who had before declared it was nothing now became alarmed,
and turned the boat round to get back to the coast of
Semao, which was not far off. By clearing away some of
the baggage a little of the water could be baled out, but
hardly so fast as it came in, and when we neared the coast
we found nothing but vertical walls of rock against which
the sea was violently beating. We coasted along some
distance till we found a little cove, into which we ran the
boat, hauled it on shore, and emptying it found a large
hole in the bottom, which had been temporarily stopped
up with a plug of cocoa-nut which had come out. Had we
been a quarter of a mile further off before we discovered
the leak, we should certainly have been obliged to throw
most of our baggage overboard, and might easily have lost
our lives. After we had put all straight and secure we
again started, and when we were half-way across got into
such a strong current and high cross sea that we were very
nearly being swamped a second time, which made me vow
never to trust myself again in such small and miserable
vessels.
The mail steamer did not arrive for a week, and I
occupied myself in getting as many of the birds as I could,
and found some which were very interesting. Among
these were five species of pigeons, of as many distinct