ir busy markets and hybrid
population, we drive through the long line of _campongs_ bordering the
palm-fringed coast. The bamboo walls of the fragile houses, standing on
stilts or rocking on poles in the rippling sea, show a multitude of
fantastic designs, the broad roofs of thatched grass or plaited
palm-leaves extending in penthouse eaves above carven panels let into
the gables. A riot of glorious vegetation frames and overshadows the
clustering huts of deftly-woven cane. Dark faces peer through the
narrow slits of bamboo window-spaces, but Makassar pride contains the
elements of self-respect, and though the stranger attracts a certain
amount of interest, no discourtesy mars the pleasure of exploration. A
red road beneath towering palms, skirts rice-fields and bamboo thickets
to the beautiful ford of the Tello, a broad river flowing between vast
woods of cocoanut and bread-fruit trees, with only a tiny dug-out,
steered by a brown boy in a scarlet turban, to dispel the loneliness of
the scene. The vicinity of Makassar offers no special characteristics
beyond those of a tropical garden, but the changing aspects of native
life provide subjects of unceasing interest. To-day a great Chinese
festa takes place, which attracts all the inhabitants of town and
_campong_, for amusements are scarce on these distant shores, and no
questions of race or faith complicate the determination to secure a
share in the pleasures of the ceremony. When the usual burst of squibs
and crackers, lighting of bonfires, and tossing of joss-papers into the
air, marks the commencement of the holiday, spectators line the roads,
climb the trees, and crowd the fiat roofs of Portuguese houses. The
afternoon is the children's portion of the festival, and the little
bedizened figures, with rouged faces, tinsel crowns, and spangled
robes, bestride grotesque wooden dragons, fishes, and birds,
brilliantly painted, and drawn on wheels by masked men in robes of pink
and green. A crowd of high-class babies, also bedizened and spangled,
follows in perambulators wreathed with flowers, and pushed by their
Chinese nurses. Hideous gods in glittering robes, and appalling demons
painted in black and scarlet, bring up the rear of the long procession,
which traverses every street and lane of the Chinese _campong_, the
open houses displaying the lighted altars and tutelary gods of
Buddhist and Taoist creed, for the mystic philosophy of the Eastern
sages materialises into g