A powerful Rajah, commonly called the Emperor of Timor, visited Coepang during our stay there.  Unfortunately we all missed seeing him.  He was attended by a large and well-armed guard, and appeared to be on very good terms with the merchants of the place, who made him several presents, no doubt through interested motives; probably he supplies them with slaves.  His character is notoriously bad; it was only the other day that he had one of his wives cut to pieces, for some very trifling offence.

A SHOOTING EXCURSION.

On taking my leave of the Resident, I fixed the day for our shooting excursion.  We were to go to a place called Pritie, on the northern shore of Babao Bay, and distant some fifteen miles from the ship, which rendered it necessary therefore to make an early start.

Daylight on Monday morning accordingly found us on the northern shore of the bay, but we soon ascertained that our guide knew very little about the matter; and what was still worse, there was no getting near the shore, a bank of soft mud fronting it for some distance, at this time of tide, and particularly in the vague direction our guide gave us of Pritie.  The day was fast advancing; so we made our way back to a cliffy projection we had passed before light, where, after some difficulty, we got on shore.  Whilst the breakfast was cooking, I made a sketch of the bay, and took a round of angles, all the charts and plans I had seen being very erroneous.

Our guide appeared to take our not going to Pritie greatly to heart; but we made the best of our way to some clear spots on the side of the high land seen from the boat.  We met a few natives, who all agreed there were plenty of deer close by, which we believed, for we saw numbers of very recent tracks.  But the jungle was impenetrable; so, after rambling for an hour or two, at the expense of nearly tearing the clothes off our backs, and emulating the folly of the wise man of Thessaly, we again determined to make for Pritie, or at least to try and find it.  The tide too now served, and after a pull of some hours, carefully examining every creek and bight, we spied at length two canoes hauled up among a patch of mangroves.  Landing, we soon found some houses, and a person to show us the road to Pritie; for we had still a walk of three miles across a well watered flat piece of country.  We were highly pleased with this, to us, novel sight; and our enjoyment was heightened by beholding the tricks and grimaces of some impudent monkeys perched on the tops of the lofty trees, out of shot range, and too nimble to be hit with a ball.

VALE OF PRITIE.

We at last reached our destination, on the eastern side of a beautiful stream.  Immediately to the northward some lofty peaks reared their rugged summits in an amphitheatre round the rich and picturesque vale of Pritie, which lay at the feet of their varied slopes, one mass of tropical vegetation.  Trees of enormous height shot up by the waterside, and between them, as we approached, the little sharp-roofed houses of the village of Pritie could be seen scattered here and there amidst their gardens.