They are tall and well-made, with Papuan features, and curly hair; they are bearded and hairy-limbed, but quite as light in colour as the Malays.
They are an industrious and enterprising race, cultivating rice and vegetables, and indefatigable in their search after game, fish, tripang, pearls, and tortoiseshell.
In the great island of Ceram there is also an indigenous race very similar to that of Northern Gilolo.

Bourn seems to contain two distinct races,--a shorter, round-faced people, with a Malay physiognomy, who may probably have come from Celebes by way of the Sula islands; and a taller bearded race, resembling that of Ceram.
Far south of the Moluccas lies the island of Timor, inhabited by tribes much nearer to the true Papuan than those of the Moluccas.
The Timorese of the interior are dusky brown or blackish, with bushy frizzled hair, and the long Papuan nose.

They are of medium height, and rather slender figures.

The universal dress is a long cloth twisted round the waist, the fringed ends of which hang below the knee.

The people are said to be great thieves, and the tribes are always at war with each other, but they are not very courageous or bloodthirsty.