Having completed our survey of the harbour and obtained such supplies as we could, which, from the traders only bringing with them enough for their own consumption, did not amount to much, we sailed for the Ki Islands; a group sixty miles to the eastward of Arru, consisting of two large islands called the greater and lesser Ki, and a number of small islands lying to the westward of the latter.

The great Ki is about sixty miles long, high, and mountainous; the lesser Ki and the small islands are low, few parts of the group attaining an elevation of more than fifty feet.

Owing to the light airs and unsettled weather attendant on the change of the monsoon, it was not till the 3rd that we arrived off the village of Ki Illi, situated on the north-east end of the great Ki, and finding no anchorage, the brig stood on and off, while we landed in the boats at the village which is built close down on the beach and surrounded by a wall, but not so strongly protected by its position as the villages in Timor Laut.  The houses, like those at Oliliet, were raised on piles above the ground, but were not surmounted by the carved gables which seem to be peculiar to the Tenimber group.

In the centre of the village we noticed a large building, evidently a place of worship, surrounded by a grass plot, on which a number of stones were ranged in a circle with some taller ones in the middle.  Ki Illi is celebrated for its manufacture of pottery, of which we saw many specimens, formed with great taste, of a coarse porous material, which being unglazed is well adapted for cooling by evaporation, in the manner so much used in the east.

BOAT-BUILDING AT KI ILLI.

We had also an opportunity of seeing the boats, which are built in great numbers from the excellent timber with which all the islands of this group abound.  They are much used by the traders frequenting the Arru Islands, and were highly spoken of for their durability and speed.  The boats we saw, though they varied considerably in size, were all built on the same plan, having a considerable beam, a clean entrance and run, a flat floor, and the stem and stern post projecting considerably above the gunwales.  They were all built of planks cut out of solid timber to the form required, dowelled together by wooden pegs, as a cooper fastens the head of a cask, and the whole afterwards strengthened by timbers, lashed with split rattan to solid cleats left for the purpose in each plank, during the process of hewing it into shape.

Four of the smallest of these boats were purchased for the use of the colony, for about 2 1/2 dollars each, and were found to answer very well.

After leaving Ki Illi we sailed to the southward, along the eastern side of the great Ki, which is well wooded to the summit of the hills, and cleared away for cultivation in many places.  There is no anchorage off this side of the island, which is so steep to, that on one occasion we could get no bottom with ninety fathoms, two ships’ lengths from the beach.