•i08 Macassar to the Aru Islands 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



MACASSAR TO THE AEU ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU. 



DECEMBER, 1856. 



It was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at 

 Macassar had just set in. For nearly three months I had be- 

 held the sun rise daily above the palm-groves, mount to the 

 zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into the ocean, unob- 

 scured for a single moment of his course. Now dark leaden 

 clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and seemed to 

 have rendered him permanently invisible. The strong east 

 winds, warm and dry and dust-laden, which had hitherto blown 

 as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by varia- 

 ble gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three 

 days and nights together ; and the parched and fissured rice 

 stubbles, which during the dry weather had extended in every 

 direction for miles around the town, were already so flooded 

 as to be only passable by boats, or by means of a labyrinth 

 of paths on the top of the narrow banks which divided the 

 separate properties. 



Five months of this kind of weather might be expected in 

 Southern Celebes, and I therefore determined to seek some 

 more favorable climate for collecting in during that period, 

 and to return in the next diy season to complete my explora- 

 tion of the district. Fortunately for me, I was in one of the 

 great emporiums of the native trade of the Archipelago. Rat- 

 tans from Borneo, sandal-wood and bees-wax from Flores and 

 Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, cajeput-oil from 

 Bouru, wild nutmegs and mussoi-bai*k from New Guinea, are 

 all to be found in the stores of the Chinese and Bugis mer- 

 chants of Macassar, along with the rice and coffee which are 

 the chief products of the surrounding country. Moi'e impor- 

 tant than all these, however, is the trade to Aru, a group of 

 islands situated on the south-M'^est coast of New Guinea, and 

 of which almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in na- 



