CELEBES 1>0:> 



esteemed over the whole arcliipelago, tliose (n-iKiincntcil 

 with gold thread bringing very high prices. 



Omitting the cities of Java, Makassar is tlie most 

 important town in the whole of the Dutch East Indies — 

 tlie centre of trade of a vast extent of country, a position 

 it owes to the wonderful mercantile energy of the JUigis, 

 a people who are to the archipelago what the Chinese 

 are to Asia proper. Makassar may lie said to be 

 the Hongkong of the Dutch, while Batavia is tlieir 

 Singapore. Although an open roadstead, the port affords 

 safe anchorage at almost all seasons. It has good piers, 

 and is frequented by much shipping. The town is low 

 and flat, but healthy, although from December to ]\Iarch 

 the rains are heavy. It contains over 20,000 inhabitants. 

 The business quarter, thick with powdery dust in the 

 dry season, lines the shore for half Ci mile, and is crowded 

 with Chinese, Bugis, and Arabs. Here are the offices 

 and " godowns " of the Dutch and German merchants, the 

 latter being strongly represented here, as in other ^lalay 

 towns. Northward is a populous native suburb. The 

 European quarter lies at the south of the town, the 

 villas thickly shaded with trees, and near it is Fort 

 Eotterdam, where the garrison is quartered, strongly 

 built, but now useless against large ordnance. The 

 town is walled, and many of the streets are kept clean 

 by means of narrow canals into which the tidal waters 

 are admitted at high tide and allowed to run out with 

 the ebb. Northward of Makassar, and lining the coast 

 for nearly 50 miles, lies the Spermonde Archipelago, a 

 complex network of countless islands, reefs, and shoals, 

 densely populated by tripang fishermen and covered with 

 coco-palms. 



The Menado Residency consists of the volcanic region 

 of Minahasa, about 70 miles long, and an extensive 



