You sent from your village were many more than came
from such-a-one's village, yet your tribute is less than his; go
back and see who it is that has not paid the tax." And the next
year the produce of the tax increased greatly, for they feared
that the Rajah might justly kill those who a second time kept
back the right tribute. And so the Rajah became very rich, and
increased the number of his soldiers, and gave golden jewels to
his wives, and bought fine black horses from the white-skinned
Hollanders, and made great feasts when his children were born or
were married; and none of the Rajahs or Sultans among the Malays
were so great or powerful as the Rajah of Lombock.
And the twelve sacred krisses had great virtue. And, when any
sickness appeared in a village one of them was sent for; and
sometimes the sickness went away, and then the sacred kris was
taken back again with great Honour, and the head men of the
village came to tell the Rajah of its miraculous power, and to
thank him. And sometimes the sickness would not go away; and then
everybody was convinced that there had been a mistake in the
number of needles sent from that village, and therefore the
sacred kris had no effect, and had to be taken back again by the
head men with heavy hearts, but still, with all honour - for was
not the fault their own?
CHAPTER XIII.
TIMOR.
(COUPANG, 1857-1869. 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 neighbourhood. In the spring of 1861
I spent four months at Delli, the capital of the Portuguese
possessions 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.
