iOO TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



and even cannibals. Barbosa * makes a similar state- 

 ment in regard to all tlie natives of this island in his 

 time. He says, wlien they came to the Moluccas to 

 trade, they were accustomed to ask the king of those 

 islands to kindly deliver up to. them the persons he 

 had condemned to death, that they might gratify 

 their palates on the bodies of such unfortunates, " as 

 if asking for a hog." 



As we steamed up the coast to Macassar, the 

 mountains in the interior came grandly into view. 

 They appear much more connected into chains than in 

 Java. One of them, Lompo-batung, rises to a height 

 of eight thousand two hundred feet above the sea, and 

 is proba])ly the loftiest peak on the whole island. 



The harbor of Macassar is formed by a long, 

 curving coral reef, with its convex side from the 

 shore. At a few places this reef rises above the sur- 

 face of the water and forms low islands ; but, in the 

 heavy gales of the western monsoon, the sea fre- 

 quently breaks over it into the road with such vio- 

 lence as to drive most of the native praus on shore. 

 Near it were fleets of fishing-boats, and this was the 

 first place in these tropical seas where I found a fish 

 that, according to my taste, was as nice as those which 

 come from the cold waters that bathe our New-Eng- 

 land shores. 



* Odoardo Barbosa (in Spanish, Balbosa) was a gentleman of Lisbon, 

 who travelled in the East during his youth. From h}s writings it appears 

 probable that he visited Malacca before it was conquered by the Portu- 

 guese in 1511. His work appeared in 1516. In 1519 he joined Magel- 

 lan, and was treacherously murdered by the natives of Zebu, one of the 

 Philippines, in 1521, four days after the great navigator, whom he ac- 

 companied, had suftered a like fate. 



