ows of magnificent canarium trees or
tamarinds, whose branches interlace high overhead in a canopy of green.
The European life of Makassar centers in the great grass-covered
_plein_, or common, where band concerts, reviews, horse races,
festivals, and similar events are held. Facing on the _plein_ is the
palace of the Governor of the Celebes, a one-story, porticoed building
with white walls and green blinds, in the Dutch colonial style, a type
of architecture which is admirably adapted to the tropics. Next to the
palace is the Oranje Hotel, a well-kept and comfortable hostelry as
hotels go in Malaysia. On its terrace the homesick Europeans gather
toward twilight to sip _advocat_--a drink which is a first cousin to
the egg-nogg of pre-Volstead days, very popular in the Indies--and to
listen to the military band playing on the _plein_.

Diagonally across the _plein_ rise the massive walls of Fort Rotterdam,
erected by one of the native rulers, the King of Goa, with the
assistance of the Portuguese, when the seventeenth century was still in
its infancy and when the settlement on the lower end of Manhattan
Island was still called Nieuw Amsterdam. The capture of the fort by the
Dutch in 1667 signalized the passing of Portuguese power in Asia. Pass
the slovenly native sentry at the outer gate, cross the creaking
drawbridge, and, were it not for the tropical vegetation and the
oppressive heat, you might think yourself in the Low Countries instead
of a few degrees below the Line, for the crenelated ramparts, the
shaded, gravelled paths, the ancient garrison church, the officers'
quarters with their steep-pitched, red-tiled roofs, make the interior a
veritable bit of Holland, transplanted to a tropic island half the
world away.

Makassar has a population of about fifty thousand, including something
over a thousand Europeans and some five thousand Chinese, but as most
of the natives live in their walled kampongs in the environs, the city
appears much smaller than it really is. The retail trade is almost
wholly in the hands of the Chinese, many of whom are men of great
wealth and influence. There was also a small colony of Japanese, but,
as a result of the boycott which the Chinese had instituted against
them in reprisal for Japan's refusal to evacuate Shantung, they were
unable to find markets for their wares or to obtain employment and,
in consequence, were being forced to leave the island. The only
American in the Celebes whe