CELEBES BORNEO 



77 



most blood loses also his case. Sometimes judgment is sought by testing the size of the gall 

 of a hen which has been roasted to death. 



The proverbs of a nation are always interesting, and those of the Malays exhibit a good 

 deal of mother-wit. We say, "Out of the frying-pan into the fire"; the Malay equivalent is, 

 "Escaping the jaws of the alligator to fall into the fangs of the tiger." Having no pots and 

 kettles, they say, "The net calls the basket a coarse piece of work." Other examples are as 

 follows: "What use is it for the peacock to swagger in the jungle?" "Can the ground turn 

 itself into iron?" "The turtle lays a thousand eggs and no one knows; a hen lays one and 

 tells all the world." "Even the fish which lives at the bottom of the sea conies to the net 

 at last." A coward is called "a duck with spurs." 



CELEBES. 



THE Island of Celebes is the home of many distinct and separate tribes of the Malay race, 

 all in different stages of civilisation. We may conveniently divide them into two groups: 

 the Mohammedans, who are to some extent civilised, and the Pagans, who are little better 

 than savages, wearing bark-cloth garments and unable to weave or to work in metal. The 

 Mohammedans, on the other hand, can 

 read and write, have fixed forms of 

 government, and have made no small 

 progress both in agriculture and in arts. 

 Among these people the more important 

 are the Bugis, the Mandars, and the 

 Makassars. The Bugis are good traders 

 and settlers, and navigate their ships, of 

 fifty or sixty tons' burden, from the 

 farthest point of Sumatra to Xew Guinea. 

 The Mandars by the Strait of Makassar 

 have a language of their own and are 

 good fishermen. The Makassars also have 

 a distinct language. Some of the re- 

 maining tribes are head-hunters and 

 cannibals, and either are or were very 

 similar to the Dyas of Borneo. In the 

 Moluccas we find Malays, Papuans, and 

 Indonesians (or pre-Malays) all very much 

 mixed up. 



BORNEO. 



THE Island of Borneo is divided for 



political purposes into four territories: 



North British Borneo (or Saba) in the 



north, and the Raj of Sarawak in the 



north-west; between these lies the small 



state of the Sultan of Brunei; all the 



rest of the island is Dutch. It is not 



thickly inhabited, the population being 



roughly estimated at 2,000,000. 



Numerous ruins of Hindu temples, 



scattered over this great island, prove 



that Indonesians (or pre-Malays) once p/ioio by Xegnta & zambra] (London. 



came here perhaps from Java. Then A MAN OF JAVA. 



