During the first watch we beat up the bay, and at midnight anchored; the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, and the tolling of bells assuring us that we were once again in the vicinity of civilization.  In the morning we found ourselves off the town of Coepang, when we shifted our berth farther in; the flagstaff of Fort Concordia bearing south a quarter of a mile.

SWAN RIVER NATIVE.

Our Swan River native came up to me after we had anchored, dressed in his best, shoes polished, and buttoned up to the chin in an old uniform jacket.  “Look,” said he, pointing to some Malay lads alongside in a canoe, “trousers no got ’um.”  A toss of the head supplied what was wanting to the completeness of this speech, and said as plainly as words could have done, “poor wretches!” I tried in vain to point out their superiority, by saying, “Malay boy, work, have house; Swan River boy, no work, bush walk.”  I then drew his attention to the country, the delicious fruits and other good things to eat (knowing that the surest road to an Australian’s heart is through his mouth) but all was in vain! my simple friend shook his head, saying, “No good, stone, rock big fella, too much, can’t walk.”  Home, after all, is home all the world over, and the dull arid shores of Australia were more beautiful in the eyes of this savage than the romantic scenery of Timor, which excited in him wonder not delight.  It was amusing to see how frightened he was on going ashore the first time.  With difficulty could he be kept from treading on our heels, always, I suppose, being in the habit, in his own country, of finding strangers to be enemies.  He was instantly recognised by the Malays, who had occasionally seen natives of Australia returning with the Macassar proas from the north coast, as a marega,* much to his annoyance.

(Footnote.  I have never been able to learn the meaning of this word.  They told us at Coepang it signified man-eater; which explains the native’s annoyance; and may serve as a clue to the discovery that the aborigines of the northern part of the continent occasionally eat human bodies as they do in the south.)

LAND AT COEPANG.

Being anxious to make the acquaintance of the Resident, who bore the reputation of being a most intelligent person, a party of us paid him a visit the second day after our arrival.  The narrow streets, lined with Chinese shops and pedlars of every description, from the long-tailed Chinaman to the thick, crisp-haired, athletic Timoree, were soon passed.  We then entered a rich green valley, with some fine houses on the left:  the sight was strange and new to us in every way.  What we most enjoyed was the vegetation—­a feast for our eyes, after the dull arid shores of North-western Australia:  and we gazed with intense pleasure on the rich green spreading leaf of the banana and other tropical fruit-trees, above which towered, the graceful coconut.  Is it possible, thought I, that Timor and Australia, so different in the character of their scenery, can be such near neighbours, that these luxuriant valleys, nestling among the roots of these gigantic hills, are only separated by a narrow expanse of sea from those shores over which nature has strewed, with so niggard a hand, a soil capable of bearing the productions characteristic of the latitudes within which they lie?