er 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