THE ISLAND OF TIMOR.

Kumara Times, Issue 2809, 22 September 1885, Page 2

THE ISLAND OF TIMOR.

The island of Timor, where, a cablegram states, the Asiatic cholera has become epidemic, is the most important of the chain of islands which stretch eastward from Java in the Arafura Sea. It lies between 8° 16' and 10° 25' S. lat., and 125° 25' and 127° 10' E. long., has an area of 8820 square miles, and a population of about 400,000. Magnetic iron, porphyry, syenite, gold, copper, malachite, (containing 22 per cent, of pure copper), sulphur, and naphtha are found there. The rivers are numerous, but small, and most of them, according to a good authority, are said to yield gold. Three-fourths of Timor, on the southwest is subject to the Dutch, whose chief settlement is Koepang (pronounced Kupang) ; the remaining part in the north-east belongs to the Portuguese, who have a town called Dilly on the north coast, with a safe roadstead, and a fort, which was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1857. Timor is divided into small kingdoms, ruled by rajahs under Dutch or Portuguese control. Koepang, where the cholera is reported to have first broken out, is the capital of the Netherlands’ residency or Government of Timor, which includes the islands of Samao, Rotte, Savu, Sandal-wood, Sumbawa, Flores, Adenara, Solor, Lomblem, Pantar, Ombay, and all the other small islands belonging to the chain. The town of Koepang lies at the base of a semicircle of wooded hills, on a beautiful bay in the south-vvest of the island of Timor. It is irregularly built, the principal buildings being the Governor’s bouse and the Protestant Church. There is a Mahoramedan and a Chinese temple, and one Dutch and two Malay schools. The population is about 3500, including 100 Europeans and 500 Chinese. Whalers and trading-ships from Australia and Tasmania call there for provisions on their way to or from Java and Singapore. Koepang is about 500 miles, or about two days’ steam, from Port Darwin. The exports of these islands are sandal-wood, horses, wax, tortoise-shell edible nests, &c. Pearls are found on a bank thirty miles south-east from Koepang. The natives are partly Oceanian negroes, and partly of the Malay race; they worship a supreme being called “ Lord of the Sun.” The fathers dispose of their daughters for gold and buffaloes, and polygamy prevails among the rich.