IT was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at
Macassar had just set in. For nearly three months 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 direction 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 properties.
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 treat emporiums of the
native trade of the archipelago. Rattans from Borneo, sandal-wood
and bees'-was from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of
Carpentaria, cajputi-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.
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