124 A COLLECTING TRIP 
S. 8S. Both, January 31, 1907. 
Dear Mother : 
We have had a perfect trip so far and every one 
is well and flourishing. I have seen Makassar (on the 
Island of Celebes) thoroughly, since I wrote Dod. It 
is a very interesting place with a great many differ- 
ent kind of people living there, the Chinamen being 
far and away the richest. I went into one shop and 
purchased all kinds of trade things for the natives in 
New Guinea, beautiful beads, yards of red cloth, 
bracelets and a kind of English made tobacco in tin 
cans with blue paper around them. In a week from 
now we shall be out there trading. Mr. Shearing went 
into a Chinese shop and saw seven hundred birds of 
paradise being shipped to Paris. The chief officer told 
me that they export over seventy thousand skins a 
year from New Guinea. The houses in Makassar are 
of bamboo and are built up on high poles ten or 
twelve feet from the ground. The people are very 
fierce looking and carry huge knives. Tom and I went 
to the fish market and laid in a supply of fish, we 
have very good specimens; we also did a good deal 
of collecting. You will enjoy seeing the butterflies 
we have; they are magnificent, some of them at least, 
and you have no idea how wonderful they iook flying 
about. Yesterday was frightfully hot, positively not a 
breath of air stirring and the humidity 100. Every 
one lounged around on deck and slept and perspired. 
At night it did get a bit cooler and we saw a fine 
three-fourths eclipse of the moon. Today it is over- 
east with a good breeze. It is curious where the mos- 
quitoes come from, but we are all terribly bitten by 
them. 
