While I Was There It Was Generally
Asserted And Believed In The Place, That Two Officers Had Poisoned The
Husbands Of Women With Whom They Were Carrying On Intrigues, And With
Whom They Immediately Cohabited On The Death Of Their Rivals.
Yet no
one ever thought for a moment of showing disapprobation of the crime,
or even of considering it a crime at all, the husbands in question
being low half-castes, who of course ought to make way for the
pleasures of their superiors.
Judging from what I saw myself and by the descriptions of Mr. Geach,
the indigenous vegetation of Timor is poor and monotonous. The lower
ranges of the hills are everywhere covered with scrubby Eucalypti,
which only occasionally grow into lofty forest trees. Mingled with
these in smaller quantities are acacias and the fragrant sandalwood,
while the higher mountains, which rise to about six or seven thousand
feet, are either covered with coarse grass or are altogether barren.
In the lower grounds are a variety of weedy bushes, and open waste
places are covered everywhere with a nettle-like wild mint. Here is
found the beautiful crown lily, Gloriosa superba, winding among the
bushes, and displaying its magnificent blossoms in great profusion. A
wild vine also occurs, bearing great irregular bunches of hairy grapes
of a coarse but very luscious flavour. In some of the valleys where
the vegetation is richer, thorny shrubs and climbers are so abundant
as to make the thickets quite impenetrable.
The soil seems very poor, consisting chiefly of decomposing clayey
shales; and the bare earth and rock is almost everywhere visible. The
drought of the hot season is so severe that most of the streams dry up
in the plains before they reach the sea; everything becomes burned up,
and the leaves of the larger trees fall as completely as in our
winter. On the mountains from two to four thousand feet elevation
there is a much moister atmosphere, so that potatoes and other
European products can be grown all the year round. Besides ponies,
almost the only exports of Timor are sandalwood and beeswax. The
sandalwood (Santalum sp.) is the produce of a small tree, which grows
sparingly in the mountains of Timor and many of the other islands in
the far East. The wood is of a fine yellow colour, and possesses a
well-known delightful fragrance which is wonderfully permanent. It is
brought down to Delli in small logs, and is chiefly exported to China,
where it is largely used to burn in the temples, and in the houses of
the wealthy.
The beeswax is a still more important and valuable product, formed
by the wild bees (Apis dorsata), which build huge honeycombs,
suspended in the open air from the underside of the lofty branches of
the highest trees. These are of a semicircular form, and often three
or four feet in diameter. I once saw the natives take a bees' nest,
and a very interesting sight it was. In the valley where I used to
collect insects, I one day saw three or four Timorese men and boys
under a high tree, and, looking up, saw on a very lofty horizontal
branch three large bees' combs. The tree was straight and smooth-
barked and without a branch, until at seventy or eighty feet from the
ground it gave out the limb which the bees had chosen for their home.
As the men were evidently looking after the bees, I waited to watch
their operations. One of them first produced a long piece of wood
apparently the stem of a small tree or creeper, which he had brought
with him, and began splitting it through in several directions, which
showed that it was very tough and stringy. He then wrapped it in palm-
leaves, which were secured by twisting a slender creeper round them.
He then fastened his cloth tightly round his loins, and producing
another cloth wrapped it around his head, neck, and body, and tied it
firmly around his neck, leaving his face, arms, and legs completely
bare. Slung to his girdle he carried a long thin coil of cord; and
while he had been making these preparations, one of his companions had
cut a strong creeper or bush-rope eight or ten yards long, to one end
of which the wood-torch was fastened, and lighted at the bottom,
emitting a steady stream of smoke. Just above the torch a chopping-
knife was fastened by a short cord.
The bee-hunter now took hold of the bush-rope just above the torch and
passed the other end around the trunk of the tree, holding one end in
each hand. Jerking it up the tree a little above his head he set his
foot against the trunk, and leaning back began walking up it. It was
wonderful to see the skill with which he took advantage of the
slightest irregularities of the bark or obliquity of the stem to aid
his ascent, jerking the stiff creeper a few feet higher when he had
found a firm hold for his bare foot. It almost made me giddy to look
at him as he rapidly got up - thirty, forty, fifty feet above the
ground; and I kept wondering how he could possibly mount the next few
feet of straight smooth trunk. Still, however, he kept on with as much
coolness and apparent certainty as if he were going up a ladder, until
he got within ten or fifteen feet of the bees. Then he stopped a
moment, and took care to swing the torch (which hung just at his feet)
a little towards these dangerous insects, so as to send up the stream
of smoke between him and them. Still going on, in a minute more he
brought himself under the limb, and, in a manner quite unintelligible
to me, seeing that both hands were occupied in supporting himself by
the creeper, managed to get upon it.
By this time the bees began to be alarmed, and formed a dense buzzing
swarm just over him, but he brought the torch up closer to him, and
coolly brushed away those that settled on his arms or legs.
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