of a quarter of a mile from the coast. The land on both sides is exceedingly high, and as there is generally a dense haze near the surface of the sea during the heat of the day, its outline is often more clearly distinguishable during the night.

(1,553 m. Northern Track

PULO JAKI 1,583 m. Southern Track is low and level with a fringing reef. The strait between the island and the East Point of Timor, is narrow, but safe, with anchorage under the Timor shore. Some Bugis prahus are generally to be seen here during the westerly monsoon, as it is a small trading station, and the vessels employed in the Tripang fishery on the north coast of Australia generally call here to fill up their fresh water. This spot will probably be selected as a depot for fuel when establishments of this description come to be formed in convenient situations throughout the Archipelago, which must happen when steam communication becomes more extended. It is within the Portuguese territory, although no establishment has ever been formed there, nor do the traders from Delli extend their voyages so far along the coast. A nation possessed of a greater spirit of commercial enterprise would not have allowed a position so admirably adapted for a trading station to remain long unoccupied.*

Pulo Jaki is uninhabited, the natives preferring the uplands of the adjacent island of Timor, where the population is considerable, and is chiefly employed in cultivation. The island derives its name from the troops of monkeys with which it is over-run, Jaki being the term for monkey in the Malayan dialect of the Moluccas. It is also appropriate, as this is the eastern limit of their migration, no variety of the tribe existing in a wild state among the islands to the eastward.

Kissa, (the channel between which and the east end of Timor is 18 miles wide) is 16 miles in circumference and thickly inhabited, the population in 1838 amounting to about 8,000, nearly a third of whom were Christians of the Dutch Reformed Church. Letti, which lies 25 miles to the north eastward of Pulo Jaki, is more extensive but less densely peopled. Refreshments are to be obtained at both these islands, but more especially at Kissa, where the inhabitants have long held intercourse with the whale ships frequenting these seas, which they supply with large quantities of pigs, poultry, yams and sweet potatoes.

After leaving Timor, no land will be seen until Torres Strait is

* Intelligence has been received from Timor in the course of the present month that Senior Lopes de Lima, a distinguished officer who was formerly Governor General of Portuguese India, had recently arrived at Dilli with full powers to reorganize the establishments in that quarter. The Government has already issued invitations to Steam Companies to make Dilli a depot on the route between Singapore and Australia, and offers the following advantages:-Exemption from Harbour Dues and Pilotage Fees, and from Export Duties on supplies required by the steamers; and the government engages to house the coals and furnish cargo boats free of charge for supplying the steamers with fuel and fresh water.

reached, unless it be deemed advisable to make Cape Wessel, a precaution by no means necessary, as the soundings decrease gradually as the Strait is approached, thus affording sufficient warning to the navigator; while the latitude can always be obtained at least once in the twenty four hours, for it has been generally remarked that during the westerly monsoon, (the only season in which the sun is likely to be obscured,) when the day has been overcast, the night has invarially been clear, or vice versa. For the first 200 miles after leaving Timor the sea continues unfathomable, but soon after attaining this distance, soundings will be struck in 130 to 150 fathoms on the Great Australian Bank, which decrease gradually to 9 fathoms near the entrance of Endeavour Strait. There are several coral patches to the south of the track, about the parallel of 10 degrees, but none of these have less than 7 fathoms water upon them, with the exception of the Money Bank, which was discovered by the ship "William Money" in 1841, and was afterwards passed over by several of the ships employed in conveying H. Majesty's 80th Regiment to India in 1844. The least depth on the bank is 4 fathoms. Victoria Rock, the only danger north of the track until Torres Strait is approached, was discovered by a steamer of that name while on her voyage from Sydney to Singapore in 1843. The boat was sent to examine it, and only 6 feet water was found on the shallowest part. On approaching Torres Strait, it will be well to get at once into the parallel of the western entrance of Endeavour Strait (10 45' to 10 50' S.) in order to avoid some dangers said to exist to the eastward of Booby Island, called the Aurora and Proudfoot shoals. These are laid down respectively in Long. 141 07' and 141 33' E. in the parallel of 1033' S.; but on what authority is not distinctly known.

2,463 m. Northern Track

RED WALLIS 2,493 m. Southern Track one of the land marks for the western entrance of Endeavour Strait, is a rocky island, about a mile in circumference, and very scantily clothed with vegetation, the red stone and earth of which it consists giving it the appearance from which it derives its name. Woody Wallis, which lies about a mile and a half to the south, is somewhat larger, and is covered with stunted trees. These islands are visible from a ship's deck at a distance of 15 miles. As a description of this entrance is given in the sketch of the Steam Route through Torres Strait, it will be unnecessary to enter into further details. From Red Wallis to the site of the proposed depot for fuel at Port Albany, the distance is 37 miles, which will make the entire distance from Singapore to Cape York 2,500 miles by the northern track through the Strait of Salayer, and 2,530 miles by the southern track along the islands east of Java.

G. W. E.

As has often before happened, I was indebted to the friendship of an individual for the opportunity of travelling in a country seldom visited and very slightly known.

Mr Stein Parve, sent as a Commissioner to the Lampongs, not only most willingly granted my request to be allowed to accompany him there, but obtained the permission of government for that purpose. On the 13th February, 1845, we stepped at Batavia on board the gun-boat No. 1, which, on the whole, is not uncomfortably furnished, is a good sailer, and of which an able juragon had the command. The winds at the commencement of the voyage were unfavorable: but after we had tacked near Anjer, and could sail towards the north we proceeded more rapidly, and

Translated for this Journal from the Tijdschrift voor Neerlands Indie, 9th year, 1st vol., 1847.

VOL. V. NOVEMBER, 1851.

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