98 



TRAVELS m THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



consist of maBy islands, and this belief appears to 

 have given it a name in a plural form. It consists of 

 a small, iiTegular, central area and four long limba or 

 peninsulas, and De Cauto * veiy aptly describes it as 

 " resembling in fonn a huge grasshopper." Two of 

 these peninsulas extend to the south, and are sepa- 

 rated from each other by the Gulf of Boni: one 

 takes an easterly direction, and the other stretches 

 away six degrees to the north and northeast. In the 

 southwest peninsula, which is the only one that has 

 been completely explored, two languages are spoken 

 — ^the Mangkasara, in the native tongue, or Mang- 

 kasa, in the Malay (of which word, " Macassar," the 

 name of the Dutch capital, is only a corruption), and 

 the Wugi or Bugi, which was originally more par- 

 ticularly limited to the coast of the Gulf of Boni. 

 Korth of Macassai', in the most western part of the 

 island, is another people— the Maudhar— who speak 

 another language. On the island of Buton, which 

 ought to be considered a pai*t of the peninsula east 

 of the Gulf of Boni, another language is spoten. 

 The eastern peninsula is unexplored. The norfchem 

 contains the people speaking the Gorontalo and the 

 Menado langufiges. 



The pi-imitive religion of most of these natives is 

 supposed to have been some form of Hinduism. De 



* Diogo de Canto, who wrote the " Aaia Portugucaa," was boro in 

 Lisbon in 1542, and died at Qoft, the Portognese capital of India, in 1616, 

 at the age of seventy-fLiiir. It is believed that he went to India at tlie 

 age of fourteen, and, after having lived there in the army ten years, re- 

 tnraed to Portugal, bnt soon after wont back, and continued there till his 

 death. It Is probable that he never visited any part of the archipelago 

 himaelf, but obtained from others the information be gives ns. 



