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Updated: April 30, 2025
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.
This led to the examination of his bills of lading and other papers, when it was found, that the children had been regularly shipped and manifested as slaves. I gave the admiral on the China station full particulars of this event; and hope that he will cause a sharp look-out to be kept on the Portuguese vessels returning from Timor next autumn.
"You must know that while I was in Timor, I was engaged in purchasing such merchandise as I thought would suit the taste of the people of this country. To obtain a passage back, I went to the Dutch settlement of Coupang. One day, having just transacted some affairs with a merchant, I was walking along the quay by the water's side, when I observed a young Javanese lad following me.
One only of the party, who appeared to be the chief, had his face painted with white pigment, to make him look more fierce. In vain search was made for the huts of the natives. Some animals were seen resembling wolves, lean as skeletons, probably dingoes. At last some brackish water was found, and the Roebuck proceeded to Timor.
Never have such vast masses of widely scattered and hitherto utterly disconnected facts been combined into a system, and brought to bear upon the establishment of such a grand and new and simple philosophy!... In haste, yours faithfully, Delli, Timor. March 15, 1861
The actual number of peculiar species in each island I do not suppose to be at all accurately determined, since the rapidly increasing numbers evidently depend upon the more extensive collections made in Timor than in Flores, and in Flores than in Lombock; but what we can depend more upon, and what is of more special interest, is the greatly increased proportion of Australian forms and decreased proportion of Indian forms, as we go from west to east.
According to the Dutch charts it is in 121 degrees 51 minutes east longitude. Taking the mean between the longitude by my reckoning on our arrival at Coupang, and the longitude afterwards calculated from our run to Batavia, gives me for the longitude of Coupang 124 degrees 41 minutes east. This settlement was formed in the year 1630 and is the only one the Dutch have on the island Timor.
It was, therefore, Captain Bligh's good seamanship, his strict discipline and fairness in the method of giving food and wine to those who were sick, that enabled them to land at Timor with the whole of their number alive, with the exception of the one man who was stoned to death by the savages at Tofoa.
We were now well assured that this was part of the Island of Timor, in consequence of which the last Island we saw must have been Timor land, the South part of which lies in the Latitude of 8 degrees 15 minutes South, Longitude 228 degrees 10 minutes, whereas in the Charts the South Point is laid down in Latitude 9 degrees 30 minutes.
This occupied him three months: at the end of this period he was obliged, by the sickness of his crew, to sail for Timor, which he reached on the 31st of March, 1803. As the Investigator was no longer fit for service, she was condemned.
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