The Water Has A Soapy
Feel And Produces A Strong Lather When Any Greasy Substance Is Washed
In It.
It contains alkali and iodine, in such quantities as to destroy
all vegetation for some distance around.
Close by the village is one of
the finest springs I have ever seen, contained in several rocky basins
communicating by narrow channels. These have been neatly walled where
required and partly levelled, and form fine natural baths. The water
is well tasted and clear as crystal, and the basins are surrounded by
a grove of lofty many-stemmed banyan-trees, which keep them always
cool and shady, and add greatly to the picturesque beauty of the
scene.
The village consists of curious little houses very different from any
I have seen elsewhere. They are of an oval figure, and the walls are
made of sticks about four feet high placed close together. From this
rises a high conical roof thatched with grass. The only opening is a
door about three feet high. The people are like the Timorese with
frizzly or wavy hair and of a coppery brown colour. The better class
appear to have a mixture of some superior race which has much improved
their features. I saw in Coupang some chiefs from the island of Savu
further west, who presented characters very distinct from either the
Malay or Papuan races. They most resembled Hindus, having fine well-
formed features and straight thin noses with clear brown complexions.
As the Brahminical religion once spread over all Java, and even now
exists in Bali and Lombock, it is not at all improbable that some
natives of India should have reached this island, either by accident
or to escape persecution, and formed a permanent settlement there.
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