The Way In Which The Women Talk To Each Other And To The Men,
Their Loud Voices And Laughter, And General Character Of Self-
Assertion, Would Enable An Experienced Observer To Decide, Even
Without Seeing Them, That They Were Not Malays.
Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at
his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only
intended making a short visit.
We at first began speaking French, but
he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and we
afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and
philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose
deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words.
After a few walks in the neighbourhood of the town, I found such a
poverty of insects and birds that I determined to go for a few days to
the island of Semao at the western extremity of Timor, where I heard
that there was forest country with birds not found at Coupang. With
some difficulty I obtained a large dugout boat with outriggers, to
take me over a distance of about twenty miles. I found the country
pretty well wooded, but covered with shrubs and thorny bushes rather
than forest trees, and everywhere excessively parched and dried up by
the long-continued dry season. I stayed at the village of Oeassa,
remarkable for its soap springs. One of these is in the middle of the
village, bubbling out from a little cone of mud to which the ground
rises all round like a volcano in miniature.
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