CHAPTER XXVIIL 



MACASSAR TO THE ABU ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU. 

 (decembee, 1856.) 



TT was the beginning of December, and the rainy season 

 at Macassar had just set in. For nearly three months 

 1 had beheld the sun rise daily above the palm-groves, 

 mount to the zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into 

 the ocean, unobscured for a single moment of his course. 

 Now dark leaden clouds had gathered over the whole 

 heavens, and seemed to have rendered him permanently 

 invisible. The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust- 

 laden, which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun 

 liad risen, were now replaced by variable gusty breezes 

 and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and 

 nights together ; and the parched and fissured rice stubbles 

 which during the dry weather had extended in every 

 direction for miles around the town, were already so 

 flooded as to be only passable by boats, or by means of a 

 labyrinth of paths on the top of the narrow banks wliich 

 divided the separate properties. 



