232 Celebes. 



cipal supports of straight posts, to have two or three of them 

 chosen as crooked as possible. I had often noticed these 

 crooked posts in houses, but imputed it to the- scarcity of 

 good straight timber, till one day I met some men carrying 

 home a post shaped something like a dog's hind leg, and in- 

 quired of my native boy what they were going to do with 

 such a piece of wood. " To make a post for a house," said 

 he. " But why don't they get a straight one, there are plenty 

 here ?" said I. " Oh," replied he, " they prefer some like that 

 in a house, because then it won't fall," evidently imputing 

 the effect to some occult property of crooked timber, A lit- 

 tle consideration and a diagram will, however, show that the 

 effect imputed to the crooked post may be really produced 

 by it. A true square changes its figure readily into a rhom- 

 boid or oblique figure ; but when one or two of the uprights 

 are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each other, 

 the effect of a strut is produced, though in a rude and clumsy 

 manner. 



Just before I had left Mamajam the people had sown a 

 considerable quantity of maize, which appears above ground 

 in two or three days, and in favorable seasons ripens in less 

 than two months. Owing to a week's prematiire rains the 

 ground was all flooded when I returned, and the plants just 

 coming into ear, were yellow and dead. Not a grain would 

 be obtamed by the whole village, but luckily it is only a 

 luxury, not a necessary of life. The rain was the signal for 

 l^lowing to begin, in order to sow rice on all the flat lands 

 between us and the town. The plow used is a rude wooden 

 instrument with a very short single handle, a tolerably well- 

 shaped coulter, and the point formed of a piece of hard ijalm- 

 wood fastened in with wedges. One or two buffaloes draw 

 it at a very slow pace. The seed is sown broadcast, and a 

 rude wooden harrow is used to smooth the surface. 



By the beginning of December the regular wet season had 

 set in. Westerly winds and driving rains sometimes con- 

 tinued for days together; the fields for miles around were 

 under water, and the ducks and buffaloes enjoyed themselves 

 amazingly. All along the road to Macassar plowing Avas 

 daily going on in the mud and water, through which the 

 wooden plow easily makes its way, the plowman holding 



