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VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF SOUTHERN I.ANDS.

\ft. The Inhabitants of Timor .

The large ifland Timor , too little known to Europeans, and efpecially to naturalifts,is, in every refpeCt, one of the moft fertile the world can boaft. Without digreffinginto a difplay of its vegetable and animal productions, it may be fufficient I ihouldobferve that every kind of fruit peculiar to the climate of India is found here in pro-fufion, without requiring of man any other labour than to gather it: rice is of fuperiorquality ; the moft. valuable roots, potatoes, ignames, manioc, and many others unknownto me, are in greateft plenty; in fine, the vegetable kingdom exhaufts here all itsftores.

In the animal region nature is equally profufe. Round the cabin of the indolentMalay are conftantly feen immenfe {warms of poultry, ducks, pigs, goats, Iheep, buffa-loes, horfes, he. AH the neighbouring forefts abound in flocks and herds of thefeanimals, again become wild and wanderers. To thefe add numerous legions of mon-kies and enormous bats, the flelh of which is held a luxury by the Malays, and istruly tender and delicate; and it muft be granted that here the inhabitants havenothing left to wifh for. I fay nothing of birds, however various their genera andfpecies, fince amid fuch profufion they are altogether difregarded. The rivers yieldabundance of excellent fifh ; but nothing can compare for fecundity with the fea-ffioreof Timor , as all the naturalifts of Paris may conjecture from the prodigious quantity ofcruftaceous and teftaceous animals, fifh, mollufcas, zoophytes, &c. which M. Lefueurand myfelf have tranfmitted. Thefe are obtained at pleafure, and without the flighteftlabour; all that is required being to go down to the fea-fhore at low water and feleCtwith the hand any of thefe animals, found in fhoals in fmall hollows among the madre-pores, where they have been left by the tide, the water filtering through the madrepores,and leaving the fmall pits dry.

With refpeCt to aliment, therefore, no people was ever more amply fupplied, normore kindly dealt with by nature : excellence, abundance, and variety await merelyfelection; in point, therefore, of fufficiency of nutriment nothing is wanting for theproduction of ftrength in man.

Unhappily this facility of fatisfying the wants of life, this fuperfluity afforded with-out either care or labour, have generated a univerfal apathy, an indifference, nay, anaverfion for toil fo great among this people, that the very thought of it is fufficient torender them melancholy. Part of the day as well as the night, the inhabitant of Timor is feen feated on his heels, beneath the fhade of a tamarind or palm-tree, a bananin ora mangle, inceffantly chewing his betel and drinking caloo; twice or thrice in the dayhe takes a flender meal; now diverts himfelf with a kind of guitar made of thebamboo and a leaf of the latanier ; now weaves fome little mats or other trifling worksof no exertion ; and now again fpends hours in bathing, combing his hair, and rubbinghimfelf with oil of cocoa, fleeping at intervals of both day and night. As for flaves,they are fo numerous in every houfe, fuch little work is exacted of them, and this isdone with fuch deliberation, that they live a life as idle almoft as their mafters. Fromthis pifture of their habitude this people muft be regarded as funk into a permanentftate of inaCtion and reft. Does not a mode of living fuch as here deferibed appearfufficient to account for that weaknefs denoted by the dynanometer, and which indeedis not lefs evident from their conformation ? In faCt, without being fo weak in theirlimbs as the people of Diemen’s Land and New Holland, the Malays of Timor in thefeparts are defective of ftrength and but little mufcular; in confequence they poffefs aroundnefs and grace much fuperior to what is obfervable in Europeans, and naked, asthey commonly are, appear with Angular elegance. '

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