14 A NATUBALIST IN CELEBES ch. i 



relied upon in the tropics as far as appointments are con- 

 cerned, and he becomes accustomed to it. There is no 

 word for ' punctual ' in the Malay language. That we did 

 succeed in leaving Manado only fifteen hours late was 

 something to be thankful for. 



When we left the river mouth that night it was pitch 

 dark in Manado Bay, and I wondered how it was possible 

 for our captain, a Manilla man who could talk a little 

 broken English, to direct our course. 



For the first few hours we were favoured by the so- 

 called land-wind, a rush of cold air from the highlands to 

 the sea which blows with great constancy from sunset to mid- 

 night at this time of the year, and we made rapid progress 

 towards Tanjong Piso, or Knife Cape, at the northern 

 extremity of Manado Bay. No sooner had we rounded 

 the cape than the wind dropped and we nearly came to a 

 standstill. Our ' kamudi ' — i.e. captain and steersman — did 

 the best he could for us, but in vain ; we were doomed to 

 drift about for some hours without much progress. He 

 would whistle softly and enticingly, or would change his 

 tone and with pouted lips whistle angrily and viciously for 

 the wind that would not come to help us on. I have often 

 wondered what can have been the origin of this almost 

 universal custom of whistling for the wind. That the 

 custom is of undoubted practical utihty is the firm beUef of 

 many races of seafarers, from the English sea-captain to 

 the humble Malay kamudi. I was on one occasion very 

 roughly spoken to by a captain in the Irish Channel for 

 casually whistUng in a gale of wind. He thought it a 

 piece of gross carelessness on my part which might lead to 

 serious consequences. Here in Celebes, too, I was warned 

 to be careful not to laugh when the kamudi screwed his 

 face up into an intensely ludicrous expression of feigned 

 passion and whistled angrily for the wind to come, for the 



