98 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



consist of many islands, and tliis belief appears to 

 have given it a name in a plural form. It consists of 

 a small, iiTegular, central area and four long limbs or 

 peninsulas, and De Canto * very aptly describes it as 

 " resembling in form a huge grasshopper." Two of 

 these peninsulas extend to the south, and are sepa- 

 rated from each other by the Gulf of Boni: one 

 takes an easterly direction, and the other stretches 

 away six degrees to the north and northeast. In the 

 southwest peninsula, which is the only one that has 

 been comj^letely explored, two languages are spoken 

 — the Mansckasara, in the native tong;ue, or Mans:- 

 kasa, in the Malay (of which Avord, " Macassar," the 

 name of the Dutch capital, is only a corruption), and 

 the Wugi or Bugi, which was originally more par- 

 ticularly limited to the coast of the Gulf of Boni. 

 North of Macassar, in the most western part of the 

 island, is another people — the Mandhar — who speak 

 another lano;uag-e. On the island of Buton, which 

 ought to be considered a part of the peninsula east 

 of the Gulf of Boni, another language is spoken. 

 The eastern peninsula is unexplored. The northern 

 contains the j^eople speaking the Gorontalo and the 

 Meuado lano;uao;es. 



The primitive religion of most of these natives is 

 supposed to have been some form of Hinduism. De 



* Diogo de Cauto, who wrote the " Asia Portuguesa," was born in 

 Lisbon in 1542, and died at Goa, the Portuguese capital of India, in 1616, 

 at the age of seventy-four. It is believed that he went to India at the 

 age of fourteen, and, after having lived there in the army ten years, re- 

 turned to Portugal, but soon after went back, and continued there till his 

 death. It is probable that he never visited any part of the archipelago 

 himself, but obtained from others the information he gives us. 



