caiAP, xxFiii.] MACASSAR TO THE ARU TSLANm. 



403 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 



MACASSAK TO THE ARU ISLANDS IN A NATIVB PEAU, 

 (DECEMBHai, ISDe.) 



IT was the begianing of December, and the rainy season 

 at Macassar had jiist ^et in. For nearly three months 

 I had beheld the ann 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 clouda had gathered over the whole 

 heavens, and seemed to have rendered him permanently 

 invisible. The strong ea^^t winds, warm and dry and dust- 

 laden, wliich had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun 

 had risen, were now replaced by variable gusty breezejs 

 and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and 

 nights together; and the parched and fissured rice stubbles 

 %vhich during the dry weather hud extended in every 

 direction for miles ai-ound the town, were already so 

 flooded as to l>e only passable by boats, or by means of a 

 l!ib>Tinth of patlis on the top of the narj'ow banks which 

 divided the separate properties. 



Five raontha of this kind of weather might be expected 

 in Southern Celebes, and I therefore determined to seek 

 some more favourable climate for collecting in during that 

 period, and to return in the next dry season to complete 

 my exploration of the district Fortunately for me I was 

 in one of the great etnporiums of the native trade of the 

 Archipelago. Rattans fmm Bt^rneo, sandal- wood and bees'- 

 wax from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria, cajupnti-oil from Bourn, wild nutmegs and 

 mussoi-bark from New Guinea, are all to be found in the 

 stores of the Chinese and Bugis merchants of Macassar, 

 along with tlie rice and coffee which are the chief products 

 of the surronnding country. More important than all these 

 however is the trade to Am, a group of islands situated on 

 the south-west coast of Kew Guinea, and of which almost 

 the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. 



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