Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XXVIII
Macassar to the Aru Islands in a Native Prau
(
DECEMBER
, 1856)
It was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at Macassar had just set in. For
nearly three months I had beheld the sun 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 clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and seemed to have
rendered him permanently invisible. The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust-laden,
which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by variable
gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and nights together; and the
parched and fissured rice stubbles which during the dry weather had extended in every direc-
tion for miles around the town, were already so flooded as to be only passable by boats, or by
means of a labyrinth of paths on the top of the narrow banks which divided the separate prop-
erties.
Five months 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 emporiums of the native trade of the Archipelago. Rattans from
Borneo, sandal-wood and bees'-wax from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Car-
pentaria, cajuputi-oil from Bouru, 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 the rice
and coffee which are the chief products of the surrounding country. More important than all
these however is the trade to Aru, a group of islands situated on the south-west coast of New
Guinea, and of which almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. These
islands are quite out of the track of all European trade, and are inhabited only by black mop-
headed savages, who yet contribute to the luxurious tastes of the most civilized races. Pearls,
