1 72 MACASSAR TO THE ARU ISLANDS [chap, xxviil 



and roll very uncomfortably. About nine o'clock, ^owever, 

 it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the fine island 

 of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its moun- 

 tains wreathed with clouds, while its lower lands were 

 still invisible. The afternoon was fine, and the wind got 

 round again to the west ; but although this is really the 

 west monsoon, there is no regularity or steadiness about • 

 it, calms and breezes from everj'' point of the compass 

 continually occurring. The captain, though nominally a 

 Protestant, seemed to have no idea of Christmas-day as a 

 festival. Our dinner was of rice and curry as usual, and 

 an extra glass of wine was all I could do to celebrate it. 



Dec. 2Qth. — Fine view of the mountains of Bouru, 

 which we have now approached considerably. Our crew 

 seem rather a clumsy lot. They do not walk the deck 

 with the easy swing of English sailors, but hesitate and 

 stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower boom of 

 our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning re- 

 pairing it. It consisted of two bamboos lashed together, 

 thick end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The 

 rigging and arrangement of these praus contrasts strangely 

 with that of European vessels, in which the various ropes 

 and spars, though much more numerous, are placed so as 

 not to interfere with each other's action. Here the case is 

 quite different ; for though there are no shrouds or stays to 

 complicate the matter, yet scarcely anything can be done 



i 



