222 Celebes. 



the territories of Goa, bvit the Rajah desired that, should I 

 wish to stay any time at a place, 1 would first give him no- 

 tice, in order that he might send some one to see that no in- 

 jury was done me. Some wine was then brought us, and 

 afterward some detestable coffee and wretched sweetmeats, 

 for it is a fact that I have never tasted good coffee where 

 people grow it themselves. 



Although this was the height of the dry season, and there 

 was a fine wind all day, it was by no means a healthy time 

 of year. My boy Ali had hardly been a day on shore when 

 he was attacked by fever, which put me to great inconven- 

 ience, as at the house where I was staying nothing could be 

 obtained but at meal-times. After having cured Ali, and 

 with much difliculty got another servant to cook for me, I 

 was no sooner settled at my country abode than the latter 

 was attacked with the same disease, and, having a wife in 

 the town, left me. Hardly was he gone than I fell ill my- 

 self, with strong intermittent fever every other day. In 

 about a week I got over it by a liberal use of quinine, when 

 scarcely was I on my legs than Ali again became worse than 

 ever. His fever attacked him daily, but early in the morn- 

 ing he was pretty well, and then managed to cook me enough 

 for the day. In a week I cured him, and also succeeded in 

 getting another boy who could cook and shoot, and had no 

 objection to go into the interior. His name was Baderoon ; 

 and as he was unmarried and had been used to a roving life, 

 having been several voyages to North Australia to catch 

 trepang or " beche de mer," I was in hopes of being able to 

 keep him. I also got hold of a little impudent rascal of 

 twelve or fourteen, who could speak some Malay, to carry 

 ray gun or insect-net and make himself generally useful. Ali 

 had by this time become a pretty good bird-skinner, so that 

 I was fairly supplied with servants. 



I made many excursions into the country in search of a 

 good station for collecting birds and insects. Some of the 

 villages a few miles inland are scattered about in woody 

 ground which has once been virgin forest, but of which the 

 constitiient trees have been for the most part replaced by 

 fruit-trees, and particularly by the large palm (Arenga sac- 

 charifera), from which wine and sugar are made, and which 



