ulation form a ring round each white beach of sparkling
coral sand. The black bow of the "Bromo," a ship which broke her back
on a reef twenty years ago, stands high above the treacherous rocks,
and accentuates the vivid colouring of water and foliage. At Pare-Pare,
a native _campong_ in a deep bay at the edge of a forest, the steamer
stops to discharge cargo, and affords an opportunity of landing. A gay
crowd lines the shore of the picturesque village, the houses of
palm-thatched bamboo adorned with carved ladders and upcurving eaves of
white wood. One of the numerous military expeditions to turbulent
Celebes has lately been successful, and the _campong_, where every hut
was closed for a year in consequence of the local Rajah forcing his
people to join in his insurrection, has at last been re-opened, though
under a guard of Dutch and Malay troops. A brown bodyguard of native
children, mainly clad in silver chains and medals, escorts the
strangers with intense delight to a shabby little mosque, where a
Dervish, in the orange turban rewarding a pilgrim to Mecca, beats a big
drum in the stone court. The little savages encountered at Mandja on
the following day seem equally free from clothes and cares, but
Europeans, though possessing the charm of novelty, are regarded with
awe; a sudden stop, a word, or even a lifted hand, sufficing to make
the whole juvenile population take to their heels, and hide among the
palms and bananas until a sudden impulse of fresh curiosity banishes
fear. Clothing is at a discount, but ornaments of brass, silver, and
coloured beads, are evidently indispensable. Natural flowers, like
immense red fuchsias with long white bells, serve as ear-rings, and
scarlet caps adorn the sleek black heads of the elder girls. An _al
fresco_ picnic party from the hills occupies a green mound, and boils a
kettle on sticks of flaming bamboo, though a stray spark might easily
burn down the entire _campong_. A great part of Celebes is uninhabited
and uncultivated, but the tribes of the interior, warlike and
treacherous, have never been completely subjugated. The slave trade
flourishes among these lonely hills, murder and violence are rife; the
methods of warfare, comprising poisoned arrows, and bullets containing
splinters of glass, denote absolute barbarism, and the enormous island,
which ought to be a field of emigration for some of Java's twenty-seven
millions, except for the coast _campongs_ and the rice-grounds o