(MACASSAR, SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER, 1856.)
I LEFT Lombock on the 30th of August, and reached Macassar in three
days. It was with great satisfaction that I stepped on a shore which I
had been vainly trying to reach since February, and where I expected to
meet with so much that was new and interesting.
The coast of this part of Celebes is low and flat, lined with trees and
villages so as to conceal the interior, except at occasional openings
which show a wide extent of bare and marshy rice-fields. A few hills
of no great height were visible in the background; but owing to the
perpetual haze over the land at this time of the year, I could nowhere
discern the high central range of the peninsula, or the celebrated peak
of Bontyne at its southern extremity. In the roadstead of Macassar there
was a fine 42-gun frigate, the guardship of the place, as well as a
small war steamer and three or four little cutters used for cruising
after the pirates which infest these seas. There were also a few
square-rigged trading-vessels, and twenty or thirty native praus of
various sizes. I brought letters of introduction to a Dutch gentleman,
Mr. Mesman, and also to a Danish shopkeeper, who could both speak
English and who promised to assist me in finding a place to stay,
suitable for my pursuits. In the meantime, I went to a kind of
clubhouse, in default of any hotel in the place.
Macassar was the first Dutch town I had visited, and I found it prettier
and cleaner than any I had yet seen in the East. The Dutch have some
admirable local regulations. All European houses must be kept well
white-washed, and every person must, at four in the afternoon, water the
road in front of his house. The streets are kept clear of refuse, and
covered drains carry away all impurities into large open sewers, into
which the tide is admitted at high-water and allowed to flow out when
it has ebbed, carrying all the sewage with it into the sea. The town
consists chiefly of one long narrow street along the seaside, devoted to
business, and principally occupied by the Dutch and Chinese merchants'
offices and warehouses, and the native shops or bazaars. This extends
northwards for more than a mile, gradually merging into native
houses often of a most miserable description, but made to have a neat
appearance by being all built up exactly to the straight line of the
street, and being generally backed by fruit trees. This street is
usually thronged with a native population of Bugis and Macassar men, who
wear cotton trousers about twelve inches long, covering only from the
hip to half-way down the thigh, and the universal Malay sarong, of gay
checked colours, worn around the waist or across the shoulders in a
variety of ways. Parallel to this street run two short ones which form
the old Dutch town, and are enclosed by gates. These consist of private
houses, and at their southern end is the fort, the church, and a road at
right angles to the beach, containing the houses of the Governor and
of the principal officials. Beyond the fort, again along the beach,
is another long street of native huts and many country-houses of the
tradesmen and merchants. All around extend the flat rice-fields, now
bare and dry and forbidding, covered with dusty stubble and weeds. A few
months back these were a mass of verdure, and their barren appearance
at this season offered a striking contrast to the perpetual crops on the
same kind of country in Lombock and Bali, where the seasons are exactly
similar, but where an elaborate system of irrigation produces the effect
of a perpetual spring.
The day after my arrival I paid a visit of ceremony to the Governor,
accompanied by my friend the Danish merchant, who spoke excellent
English. His Excellency was very polite, and offered me every facility
for travelling about the country and prosecuting my researches in
natural history. We conversed in French, which all Dutch officials speak
very well.
Finding it very inconvenient and expensive to stay in the town, I
removed at the end of a week to a little bamboo house, kindly offered me
by Mr. Mesman. It was situated about two miles away, on a small coffee
plantation and farm, and about a mile beyond Mr. M.'s own country-house.
It consisted of two rooms raised about seven feet above the ground, the
lower part being partly open (and serving excellently to skin birds in)
and partly used as a granary for rice. There was a kitchen and other
outhouses, and several cottages nearby, occupied by men in Mr. M.'s
employ.
After being settled a few days in my new house, I found that no
collections could be made without going much further into the country.
The rice-fields for some miles around resembled English stubbles late
in autumn, and were almost as unproductive of bird or insect life. There
were several native villages scattered about, so embosomed in fruit
trees that at a distance they looked like clumps or patches of forest.
These were my only collecting places; but they produced a very limited
number of species, and were soon exhausted. Before I could move to any
more promising district it was necessary to obtain permission from the
Rajah of Goa, whose territories approach to within two miles of the town
of Macassar. I therefore presented myself at the Governor's office and
requested a letter to the Rajah, to claim his protection, and permission
to travel in his territories whenever I might wish to do so. This was
immediately granted, and a special messenger was sent with me to carry
the letter.
My friend Mr. Mesman kindly lent me a horse, and accompanied me on my
visit to the Rajah, with whom he was great friends. We found his Majesty
seated out of doors, watching the erection of a new house. He was naked
from the waist up, wearing only the usual short trousers and sarong.
Two chairs were brought out for us, but all the chiefs and other natives
were seated on the ground. The messenger, squatting down at the Rajah's
feet, produced the letter, which was sewn up in a covering of yellow
silk. It was handed to one of the chief officers, who ripped it open and
returned it to the Rajah, who read it, and then showed it to Mr. M., who
both speaks and reads the Macassar language fluently, and who explained
fully what I required. Permission was immediately granted me to go where
I liked in the territories of Goa, but the Rajah desired, that should I
wish to stay any time at a place I would first give him notice, in order
that he might send someone to see that no injury was done me. Some wine
was then brought us, and afterwards some detestable coffee and wretched
sweetmeats, for it is a fact that I have never tasted good coffee where
people grow it themselves.
Although this was the height of the dry season, and there was a fine
wind all day, it was by no means a healthy time of year. My boy Ali had
hardly been a day on shore when he was attacked by fever, which put me
to great inconvenience, as at the house where I was staying, nothing
could be obtained but at mealtime. After having cured Ali, and with much
difficulty got another servant to cook for me, I was no sooner settled
at my country abode than the latter was attacked with the same disease;
and, having a wife in the town, left me. Hardly was he gone than I fell
ill myself with strong intermittent fever every other day. In about a
week I got over it, by a liberal use of quinine, when scarcely was I on
my legs than Ali again became worse than ever. Ali's fever attacked him
daily, but early in the morning he was pretty well, and then managed
to cook enough for me for the day. In a week I cured him, and also
succeeded in getting another boy who could cook and shoot, and had no
objection to go into the interior. His name was Baderoon, and as he
was unmarried and had been used to a roving life, having been several
voyages to North Australia to catch trepang or "beche de mer", I was in
hopes of being able to keep him. I also got hold of a little impudent
rascal of twelve or fourteen, who could speak some Malay, to carry my
gun or insect-net and make himself generally useful. Ali had by this
time become a pretty good bird-skinner, so that I was fairly supplied
with servants.
I made many excursions into the country, in search of a good station for
collecting birds and insects. Some of the villages a few miles inland
are scattered about in woody ground which has once been virgin forest,
but of which the constituent trees have been for the most part replaced
by fruit trees, and particularly by the large palm, Arenga saccharifera,
from which wine and sugar are made, and which also produces a coarse
black fibre used for cordage. That necessary of life, the bamboo, has
also been abundantly planted. In such places I found a good many birds,
among which were the fine cream-coloured pigeon, Carpophaga luctuosa,
and the rare blue-headed roller, Coracias temmincki, which has a most
discordant voice, and generally goes in pairs, flying from tree to tree,
and exhibiting while at rest that all-in-a-heap appearance and jerking
motion of the head and tail which are so characteristic of the great
Fissirostral group to which it belongs. From this habit alone,
the kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, trogons, and South American
puff-birds, might be grouped together by a person who had observed them
in a state of nature, but who had never had an opportunity of examining
their form and structure in detail. Thousands of crows, rather smaller
than our rook, keep up a constant cawing in these plantations; the
curious wood-swallows (Artami), which closely resemble swallows in their
habits and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter from
the tree-tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with brilliant black
plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the naturalist by the
variety of its unmelodious notes.
In the more shady parts butterflies were tolerably abundant; the most
common being species of Euplaea and Danais, which frequent gardens
and shrubberies, and owing to their weak flight are easily captured. A
beautiful pale blue and black butterfly, which flutters along near the
ground among the thickets, and settles occasionally upon flowers, was
one of the most striking; and scarcely less so, was one with a rich
orange band on a blackish ground--these both belong to the Pieridae, the
group that contains our common white butterflies, although differing
so much from them in appearance. Both were quite new to European
naturalists. [The former has been named Eronia tritaea; the latter
Tachyris ithonae.] Now and then I extended my walks some miles further,
to the only patch of true forest I could find, accompanied by my two
boys with guns and insect-net. We used to start early, taking our
breakfast with us, and eating it wherever we could find shade and water.
At such times my Macassar boys would put a minute fragment of rice and
meat or fish on a leaf, and lay it on a stone or stump as an offering to
the deity of the spot; for though nominal Mahometans the Macassar people
retain many pagan superstitions, and are but lax in their religious
observances. Pork, it is true, they hold in abhorrence, but will
not refuse wine when offered them, and consume immense quantities of
"sagueir," or palm-wine, which is about as intoxicating as ordinary beer
or cider. When well made it is a very refreshing drink, and we often
took a draught at some of the little sheds dignified by the name of
bazaars, which are scattered about the country wherever there is any
traffic.
One day Mr. Mesman told me of a larger piece of forest where he
sometimes went to shoot deer, but he assured me it was much further off,
and that there were no birds. However, I resolved to explore it, and the
next morning at five o'clock we started, carrying our breakfast and some
other provisions with us, and intending to stay the night at a house on
the borders of the wood. To my surprise two hours' hard walking brought
us to this house, where we obtained permission to pass the night. We
then walked on, Ali and Baderoon with a gun each, Baso carrying
our provisions and my insect-box, while I took only my net and
collecting-bottle and determined to devote myself wholly to the insects.
Scarcely had I entered the forest when I found some beautiful little
green and gold speckled weevils allied to the genus Pachyrhynchus, a
group which is almost confined to the Philippine Islands, and is quite
unknown in Borneo, Java, or Malacca. The road was shady and apparently
much trodden by horses and cattle, and I quickly obtained some
butterflies I had not before met with. Soon a couple of reports were
heard, and coming up to my boys I found they had shot two specimens of
one of the finest of known cuckoos, Phoenicophaus callirhynchus. This
bird derives its name from its large bill being coloured of a brilliant
yellow, red, and black, in about equal proportions. The tail is
exceedingly long, and of a fine metallic purple, while the plumage of
the body is light coffee brown. It is one of the characteristic birds of
the island of Celebes, to which it is confined.
After sauntering along for a couple of hours we reached a small river,
so deep that horses could only cross it by swimming, so we had to
turn back; but as we were getting hungry, and the water of the almost
stagnant river was too muddy to drink, we went towards a house a few
hundred yards off. In the plantation we saw a small raised hut, which
we thought would do well for us to breakfast in, so I entered, and found
inside a young woman with an infant. She handed me a jug of water, but
looked very much frightened. However, I sat down on the doorstep, and
asked for the provisions. In handing them up, Baderoon saw the infant,
and started back as if he had seen a serpent. It then immediately struck
me that this was a hut in which, as among the Dyaks of Borneo and many
other savage tribes, the women are secluded for some time after the
birth of their child, and that we did very wrong to enter it; so we
walked off and asked permission to eat our breakfast in the family
mansion close at hand, which was of course granted. While I ate, three
men, two women, and four children watched every motion, and never took
eyes off me until I had finished.
On our way back in the heat of the day, I had the good fortune to
capture three specimens of a fine Ornithoptera, the largest, the
most perfect, and the most beautiful of butterflies. I trembled with
excitement as I took the first out of my net and found it to be in
perfect condition. The ground colour of this superb insect was a rich
shining bronzy black, the lower wings delicately grained with white, and
bordered by a row of large spots of the most brilliant satiny yellow.
The body was marked with shaded spots of white, yellow, and fiery
orange, while the head and thorax were intense black. On the under-side
the lower wings were satiny white, with the marginal spots half black
and half yellow. I gazed upon my prize with extreme interest, as I at
first thought it was quite a new species. It proved however to be a
variety of Ornithoptera remus, one of the rarest and most remarkable
species of this highly esteemed group. I also obtained several other
new and pretty butterflies. When we arrived at our lodging-house, being
particularly anxious about my insect treasures, I suspended the box
from a bamboo on which I could detect no sign of ants, and then began
skinning some of my birds. During my work I often glanced at my precious
box to see that no intruders had arrived, until after a longer spell of
work than usual I looked again, and saw to my horror that a column of
small red ants were descending the string and entering the box. They
were already busy at work at the bodies of my treasures, and another
half-hour would have seen my whole day's collection destroyed. As it
was, I had to take every insect out, clean them thoroughly as well as
the box, and then seek a place of safety for them. As the only effectual
one, I begged a plate and a basin from my host, filled the former with
water, and standing the latter in it placed my box on the top, and then
felt secure for the night; a few inches of clean water or oil being the
only barrier these terrible pests are not able to pass.
On returning home to Mamajam (as my house was called) I had a slight
return of intermittent fever, which kept me some days indoors. As soon
as I was well, I again went to Goa, accompanied by Mr. Mesman, to beg
the Rajah's assistance in getting a small house built for me near the
forest. We found him at a cock-fight in a shed near his palace, which
however, he immediately left to receive us, and walked with us up an
inclined plane of boards which serves for stairs to his house. This was
large, well-built, and lofty, with bamboo floor and glass windows. The
greater part of it seemed to be one large hall divided by the supporting
posts. Near a window sat the Queen, squatting on a rough wooden
arm-chair, chewing the everlasting sirih and betel-nut, while a brass
spittoon by her side and a sirih-box in front were ready to administer
to her wants. The Rajah seated himself opposite to her in a similar
chair, and a similar spittoon and sirih-box were held by a little boy
squatting at his side. Two other chairs were brought for us. Several
young women, some the Rajah's daughters, others slaves, were standing
about; a few were working at frames making sarongs, but most of them
were idle.
And here I might (if I followed the example of most travellers) launch
out into a glowing description of the charms of these damsels, the
elegant costumes they wore, and the gold and silver ornaments with which
they were adorned. The jacket or body of purple gauze would figure well
in such a description, allowing the heaving bosom to be seen beneath it,
while "sparkling eyes," and "jetty tresses," and "tiny feet" might be
thrown in profusely. But, alas! regard for truth will not permit me to
expatiate too admiringly on such topics, determined as I am to give
as far as I can a true picture of the people and places I visit. The
princesses were, it is true, sufficiently good-looking, yet neither
their persons nor their garments had that appearance of freshness and
cleanliness without which no other charms can be contemplated with
pleasure. Everything had a dingy and faded appearance, very disagreeable
and unroyal to a European eye. The only thing that excited some degree
of admiration was the quiet and dignified manner of the Rajah and the
great respect always paid to him. None can stand erect in his presence,
and when he sits on a chair, all present (Europeans of course excepted)
squat upon the ground. The highest seat is literally, with these people,
the place of honour and the sign of rank. So unbending are the rules in
this respect, that when an English carriage which the Rajah of Lombock
had sent for arrived, it was found impossible to use it because the
driver's seat was the highest, and it had to be kept as a show in its
coach house. On being told the object of my visit, the Rajah at once
said that he would order a house to be emptied for me, which would be
much better than building one, as that would take a good deal of time.
Bad coffee and sweetmeats were given us as before.
Two days afterwards, I called on the Rajah to ask him to send a guide
with me to show me the house I was to occupy. He immediately ordered a
man to be sent for, gave him instructions, and in a few minutes we
were on our way. My conductor could speak no Malay, so we walked on in
silence for an hour, when we turned into a pretty good house and I was
asked to sit down. The head man of the district lived here, and in about
half an hour we started again, and another hour's walk brought us to the
village and where I was to be lodged. We went to the residence of the
village chief, who conversed with my conductor for some time.
Getting tired, I asked to be shown the house that was prepared for me,
but the only reply I could get was, "Wait a little," and the parties
went on talking as before. So I told them I could not wait, as I wanted
to see the house and then to go shooting in the forest. This seemed
to puzzle them, and at length, in answer to questions, very poorly
explained by one or two bystanders who knew a little Malay, it came out
that no house was ready, and no one seemed to have the least idea where
to get one. As I did not want to trouble the Rajah any more, I thought
it best to try to frighten them a little; so I told them that if they
did not immediately find me a house as the Rajah had ordered, I should
go back and complain to him, but that if a house was found me I would
pay for the use of it. This had the desired effect, and one of the head
men of the village asked me to go with him and look for a house. He
showed me one or two of the most miserable and ruinous description,
which I at once rejected, saying, "I must have a good one, and near to
the forest." The next he showed me suited very well, so I told him to
see that it was emptied the next day, for that the day after I should
come and occupy it.
On the day mentioned, as I was not quite ready to go, I sent my two
Macassar boys with brooms to sweep out the house thoroughly. They
returned in the evening and told me that when they got there the house
was inhabited, and not a single article removed. However, on hearing
they had come to clean and take possession, the occupants made a move,
but with a good deal of grumbling, which made me feel rather uneasy as
to how the people generally might take my intrusion into their village.
The next morning we took our baggage on three packhorses, and, after a
few break-downs, arrived about noon at our destination.
After getting all my things set straight, and having made a hasty meal,
I determined if possible to make friends with the people. I therefore
sent for the owner of the house and as many of his acquaintances as
liked to come, to have a "bitchara," or talk. When they were all seated,
I gave them a little tobacco all around, and having my boy Baderoon for
interpreter, tried to explain to them why I came there; that I was very
sorry to turn them out of the house, but that the Rajah had ordered it
rather than build a new one, which was what I had asked for, and then
placed five silver rupees in the owner's hand as one month's rent. I
then assured them that my being there would be a benefit to them, as I
should buy their eggs and fowls and fruit; and if their children would
bring me shells and insects, of which I showed them specimens, they also
might earn a good many coppers. After all this had been fully explained
to them, with a long talk and discussion between every sentence, I could
see that I had made a favourable impression; and that very afternoon, as
if to test my promise to buy even miserable little snail-shells, a dozen
children came one after another, bringing me a few specimens each of
a small Helix, for which they duly received "coppers," and went away
amazed but rejoicing.
A few days' exploration made me well acquainted with the surrounding
country. I was a long way from the road in the forest which I had first
visited, and for some distance around my house were old clearings and
cottages. I found a few good butterflies, but beetles were very scarce,
and even rotten timber and newly-felled trees (generally so productive)
here produced scarcely anything. This convinced me that there was not a
sufficient extent of forest in the neighbourhood to make the place worth
staying at long, but it was too late now to think of going further, as
in about a month the wet season would begin; so I resolved to stay here
and get what was to be had. Unfortunately, after a few days I became ill
with a low fever which produced excessive lassitude and disinclination
to all exertion. In vain I endeavoured to shake it off; all I could do
was to stroll quietly each day for an hour about the gardens near, and
to the well, where some good insects were occasionally to be found; and
the rest of the day to wait quietly at home, and receive what beetles
and shells my little corps of collectors brought me daily. I imputed
my illness chiefly to the water, which was procured from shallow wells,
around which there was almost always a stagnant puddle in which the
buffaloes wallowed. Close to my house was an enclosed mudhole where
three buffaloes were shut up every night, and the effluvia from which
freely entered through the open bamboo floor. My Malay boy Ali was
affected with the same illness, and as he was my chief bird-skinner I
got on but slowly with my collections.
The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed but little
from those of all other Malay races. The time of the women was almost
wholly occupied in pounding and cleaning rice for daily use, in bringing
home firewood and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning, and weaving
the native cotton into sarongs. The weaving is done in the simplest kind
of frame stretched on the floor; and is a very slow and tedious process.
To form the checked pattern in common use, each patch of coloured
threads has to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed
between them; so that about an inch a day is the usual progress in stuff
a yard and a half wide. The men cultivate a little sirih (the pungent
pepper leaf used for chewing with betel-nut) and a few vegetables; and
once a year rudely plough a small patch of ground with their buffaloes
and plant rice, which then requires little attention until harvest time.
Now and then they have to see to the repairs of their houses, and make
mats, baskets, or other domestic utensils, but a large part of their
time is passed in idleness.
Not a single person in the village could speak more than a few words
of Malay, and hardly any of the people appeared to have seen a European
before. One most disagreeable result of this was that I excited terror
alike in man and beast. Wherever I went, dogs barked, children screamed,
women ran away, and men stared as though I were some strange and
terrible cannibal or monster. Even the pack-horses on the roads and
paths would start aside when I appeared and rush into the jungle; and
as to those horrid, ugly brutes, the buffaloes, they could never be
approached by me; not for fear of my own but of others' safety. They
would first stick out their necks and stare at me, and then on a
nearer view break loose from their halters or tethers, and rush away
helter-skelter as if a demon were after them, without any regard for
what might be in their way. Whenever I met buffaloes carrying packs
along a pathway, or being driven home to the village, I had to turn
aside into the jungle and hide myself until they had passed, to avoid
a catastrophe which would increase the dislike with which I was already
regarded. Everyday about noon the buffaloes were brought into the villa,
and were tethered in the shade around the houses; and then I had to
creep about like a thief by back ways, for no one could tell what
mischief they might do to children and houses were I to walk among
them. If I came suddenly upon a well where women were drawing water or
children bathing, a sudden flight was the certain result; which things
occurring day after day, were very unpleasant to a person who does not
like to be disliked, and who had never been accustomed to be treated as
an ogre.
About the middle of November, finding my health no better, and insects,
birds, and shells all very scarce, I determined to return to Mamajam,
and pack up my collections before the heavy rains commenced. The wind
had already begun to blow from the west, and many signs indicated that
the rainy season might set in earlier than usual; and then everything
becomes very damp, and it is almost impossible to dry collections
properly. My kind friend Mr. Mesman again lent me his pack-horses, and
with the assistance of a few men to carry my birds and insects, which I
did not like to trust on horses' backs, we got everything home safe. Few
can imagine the luxury it was to stretch myself on a sofa, and to take
my supper comfortably at table seated in my easy bamboo chair, after
having for five weeks taken all my meals uncomfortably on the floor.
Such things are trifles in health, but when the body is weakened by
disease the habits of a lifetime cannot be so easily set aside.
My house, like all bamboo structures in this country, was a leaning one,
the strong westerly winds of the wet season having set all its posts
out of the perpendicular to such a degree as to make me think it might
someday possibly go over altogether. It is a remarkable thing that the
natives of Celebes have not discovered the use of diagonal struts in
strengthening buildings. I doubt if there is a native house in the
country two years old and at all exposed to the wind, which stands
upright; and no wonder, as they merely consist of posts and joists all
placed upright or horizontal, and fastened rudely together with rattans.
They may be seen in every stage of the process of tumbling down, from
the first slight inclination, to such a dangerous slope that it becomes
a notice to quit to the occupiers.
The mechanical geniuses of the country have only discovered two ways of
remedying the evil. One is, after it has commenced, to tie the house to
a post in the ground on the windward side by a rattan or bamboo cable.
The other is a preventive, but how they ever found it out and did not
discover the true way is a mystery. This plan is, to build the house
in the usual way, but instead of having all the principal supports
of straight posts, to have two or three of them chosen as crooked as
possible. I had often noticed these crooked posts in houses, but imputed
it to the scarcity of good, straight timber, until one day I met some
men carrying home a post shaped something like a dog's hind leg, and
inquired of my native boy what they were going to do with such a piece
of wood. "To make a post for a house," said he. "But why don't they get
a straight one, there are plenty here?" said I. "Oh," replied he, "they
prefer some like that in a house, because then it won't fall," evidently
imputing the effect to some occult property of crooked timber. A little
consideration and a diagram will, however, show, that the effect imputed
to the crooked post may be really produced by it. A true square changes
its figure readily into a rhomboid or oblique figure, but when one or
two of the uprights are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each
other, the effect of a strut is produced, though in a rude and clumsy
manner.
Just before I had left Mamajam the people had sown a considerable
quantity of maize, which appears above ground in two or three days, and
in favourable seasons ripens in less than two months. Owing to a week's
premature rains the ground was all flooded when I returned, and the
plants just coming into ear were yellow and dead. Not a grain would be
obtained by the whole village, but luckily it is only a luxury, not a
necessity of life. The rain was the signal for ploughing to begin, in
order to sow rice on all the flat lands between us and the town. The
plough used is a rude wooden instrument with a very short single handle,
a tolerably well-shaped coulter, and the point formed of a piece of hard
palm-wood fastened in with wedges. One or two buffaloes draw it at a
very slow pace. The seed is sown broadcast, and a rude wooden harrow is
used to smooth the surface.
By the beginning of December the regular wet season had set in. Westerly
winds and driving rains sometimes continued for days together; the
fields for miles around were under water, and the ducks and buffaloes
enjoyed themselves amazingly. All along the road to Macassar, ploughing
was daily going on in the mud and water, through which the wooden plough
easily makes its way, the ploughman holding the plough-handle with one
hand while a long bamboo in the other serves to guide the buffaloes.
These animals require an immense deal of driving to get them on at all;
a continual shower of exclamations is kept up at them, and "Oh! ah! Gee!
ugh!" are to be heard in various keys and in an uninterrupted succession
all day long. At night we were favoured with a different kind of
concert. The dry ground around my house had become a marsh tenanted by
frogs, who kept up a most incredible noise from dusk to dawn. They
were somewhat musical too, having a deep vibrating note which at times
closely resembles the tuning of two or three bass-viols in an orchestra.
In Malacca and Borneo I had heard no such sounds as these, which
indicates that the frogs, like most of the animals of Celebes, are of
species peculiar to it.
My kind friend and landlord, Mr. Mesman, was a good specimen of the
Macassar-born Dutchman. He was about thirty-five years of age, had a
large family, and lived in a spacious house near the town, situated
in the midst of a grove of fruit trees, and surrounded by a perfect
labyrinth of offices, stables, and native cottages occupied by his
numerous servants, slaves, or dependants. He usually rose before the
sun, and after a cup of coffee looked after his servants, horses, and
dogs, until seven, when a substantial breakfast of rice and meat was
ready in a cool verandah. Putting on a clean white linen suit, he then
drove to town in his buggy, where he had an office, with two or three
Chinese clerks who looked after his affairs. His business was that of
a coffee and opium merchant. He had a coffee estate at Bontyne, and
a small prau which traded to the Eastern islands near New Guinea, for
mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. About one he would return home,
have coffee and cake or fried plantain, first changing his dress for a
coloured cotton shirt and trousers and bare feet, and then take a siesta
with a book. About four, after a cup of tea, he would walk round his
premises, and generally stroll down to Mamajam to pay me a visit, and
look after his farm.
This consisted of a coffee plantation and an orchard of fruit trees,
a dozen horses and a score of cattle, with a small village of Timorese
slaves and Macassar servants. One family looked after the cattle and
supplied the house with milk, bringing me also a large glassful every
morning, one of my greatest luxuries. Others had charge of the horses,
which were brought in every afternoon and fed with cut grass. Others had
to cut grass for their master's horses at Macassar--not a very easy task
in the dry season, when all the country looks like baked mud; or in
the rainy season, when miles in every direction are flooded. How they
managed it was a mystery to me, but they know grass must be had, and
they get it. One lame woman had charge of a flock of ducks. Twice a
day she took them out to feed in the marshy places, let them waddle and
gobble for an hour or two, and then drove them back and shut them up
in a small dark shed to digest their meal, whence they gave forth
occasionally a melancholy quack. Every night a watch was set,
principally for the sake of the horses--the people of Goa, only two
miles off, being notorious thieves, and horses offering the easiest and
most valuable spoil. This enabled me to sleep in security, although many
people in Macassar thought I was running a great risk, living alone in
such a solitary place and with such bad neighbours.
My house was surrounded by a kind of straggling hedge of roses,
jessamines, and other flowers, and every morning one of the women
gathered a basketful of the blossoms for Mr. Mesman's family. I
generally took a couple for my own breakfast table, and the supply never
failed during my stay, and I suppose never does. Almost every Sunday Mr.
M. made a shooting excursion with his eldest son, a lad of fifteen, and
I generally accompanied him; for though the Dutch are Protestants,
they do not observe Sunday in the rigid manner practised in England and
English colonies. The Governor of the place has his public reception
every Sunday evening, when card-playing is the regular amusement.
On December 13th I went on board a prau bound for the Aru Islands, a
journey which will be described in the latter part of this work.
On my return, after a seven months' absence, I visited another district
to the north of Macassar, which will form the subject of the next
CHAPTER.