Portuguese Timor: A Rough Island Story: 1515-1960
The easternmost and largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands has been the scene of Portuguese influence in Asia for more than 450 years.
Of all the obscure corners of the world which the Pacific War of 1941-45 dragged temporarily into the headlines, Portuguese Timor is probably even more unfamiliar to the average newspaper reader than, say, the Kuriles or the Marianas. Joseph Conrad’s admirers may recall his description of Timor-Dilli, but the agitated history of this isolated colony is seldom given even the most cursory coverage in the numerous recent books that deal with South-East Asia.
Now that Indonesian Ministers have laid claim to Portuguese Timor - as well as to Dutch New Guinea and British North Borneo, a brief outline of the Portuguese past in this island may be useful to some readers.
Timor is the easternmost and largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands, and the one nearest to Australia. It measures some three hundred miles in length and has a mean breadth of about sixty. The island has a much drier climate and a correspondingly poorer vegetation than the other Sunda islands, although during the rainy season the tropical vegetation that covers the hillsides affords scenes of great beauty.
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