We Had A Sheep Killed Every Other Day, And Ate Our Mutton With
Much Appetite In The Cool Climate, Which Rendered A Fire Always
Agreeable.
Although one-half the European residents in Delli are continually ill
from fever, and the Portuguese have occupied the
Place for three
centuries, no one has yet built a house on these fine hills, which, if
a tolerable road were made, would be only an hour's ride from the
town; and almost equally good situations might be found on a lower
level at half an hour's distance. The fact that potatoes and wheat of
excellent quality are grown in abundance at from 3,000 to 3,500 feet
elevation, shows what the climate and soil are capable of if properly
cultivated. From one to two thousand feet high, coffee would thrive;
and there are hundreds of square miles of country over which all the
varied products which require climates between those of coffee and
wheat would flourish; but no attempt has yet been made to form a
single mile of road, or a single acre of plantation!
There must be something very unusual in the climate of Timor to permit
wheat being grown at so moderate an elevation. The grain is of
excellent quality, the bread made from it being equal to any I have
ever tasted, and it is universally acknowledged to be unsurpassed by
any made from imported European or American flour. The fact that the
natives have (quite of their own accord) taken to cultivating such
foreign articles as wheat and potatoes, which they bring in small
quantities on the backs of ponies by the most horrible mountain
tracks, and sell very cheaply at the seaside, sufficiently indicates
what might be done if good roads were made, and if the people were
taught, encouraged, and protected. Sheep also do well on the
mountains; and a breed of hardy ponies in much repute all over the
Archipelago, runs half-wild, so that it appears as if this island, so
barren-looking and devoid of the usual features of tropical
vegetation, were yet especially adapted to supply a variety of
products essential to Europeans, which the other islands will not
produce, and which they accordingly import from the other side of the
globe.
On the 24th of February my friend Mr. Geach left Timor, having finally
reported that no minerals worth working were to be found. The
Portuguese were very much annoyed, having made up their minds that
copper is abundant, and still believing it to be so. It appears that
from time immemorial pure native copper has been found at a place on
the coast about thirty miles east of Delli.
The natives say they find it in the bed of a ravine, and many years
ago a captain of a vessel is said to have got some hundreds-weight of
it. Now, however, it is evidently very scarce, as during the two years
Mr. Geach resided in the country, none was found.
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