The ship becomes our home for a month, and affords a welcome
relief from divers struggles on land, involved by a dual language,
official red tape, and native incompetence. A brilliant sunset flames
across the heavens, and we glide across a golden sea as a fitting
prelude to unknown realms of enchantment. The dreamful calm of the two
days' passage obliterates the memory of bygone difficulties and
perturbations, the interval between past and future experiences falling
like refreshing dew on the weary spirit, and increasing the receptive
capacity required for the assimilation of new impressions. The vast
extent of the Malay Archipelago, and the stupendous size of the
principal islands, comes as a fresh revelation to travellers whose
ideas have been limited by vague recollections of schoolroom geography.
The seven hundred miles of Java's length, Sumatra's vast extent of
fourteen hundred miles, the area of Borneo equalling that of France and
Germany combined, and the fact of Celebes, for which we are bound,
exceeding the dimensions of Norway and Sweden, convey startling
suggestions of the limitless space occupied by the great Equatorial
group. The palms and flowers of myriad smaller isles break the blue
monotony of these summer seas traversed by the Malay wanderers of olden
days, striving to sail beyond the sunset, and to overtake that
visionary ideal flitting ever before them, and luring them on with the
fairy gold of unfulfilled desires.

At length the high blue peaks of central Celebes pierce the silver
mists of a roseate dawn, and beyond a cluster of coral islets, the
white town of Makassar gleams against a green background of palms.
Miles of brown _campongs_ fringe the shore, but the gay scene on the
wooden wharves at first occupies undivided attention. _Sarongs_ of
crimson, orange, purple, or boldly-contrasting plaids, enhance the deep
bronze of native complexion, the ample folds of the wide skirts drawn
up above the knees. High turbans of white or red cambric, elaborately
twisted, add dignity to the stately figures, deeply-cut features and
hawk noses denoting Arab origin, for the Makassarese is a lineal
descendant of the Moslem pirates, once the terror of these
island-studded seas. Proud, courageous, and passionately addicted to
adventurous travel in far-off lands, these sturdy islanders have little
in common with the inert races of Java. The normal Malay element
appears extinguished by the fiery superstructure of Ar