rossest realism by passing through the
crucible of Chinese thought.

A visit to the so-called "Kingdom of Goa" fills up our last day in
Makassar. The Palace of the tributary Sultan, ten miles from the
capital, consists of steep-roofed houses built upon huge trunks of
forest trees, and connected by carved galleries and crumbling stairs
with the Harem at the back of the main edifice. Squalid women in blue
yashmaks loll on the crazy verandah, whence a native secretary marshals
us through the dusty and ruinous building. The Sultan, taking to the
hills as a necessary precaution after inciting his subjects to
rebellion against the Dutch, has just been captured, but, whether by
accident or design, fell over a cliff, and until his dead body is
brought back to receive the Mohammedan rites of burial, the royal
residence remains in charge of the police. The grass-grown road to the
decaying Palace intersects the rambling and sordid village of Goa, the
feudal appanage of the sorry chieftain, a perpetual thorn in the side
of the Dutch Government. The surrounding country appears almost a
solitude, the silence stirred by the song of the distant surf, the
chirping of myriad grasshoppers, and the ceaseless clash of waving
palms in the breeze which steals up from the sea. A quaint
water-castle, shaped like a Chinese junk, stands on a rock in a
fish-pond reflecting the rosy sky, and the fretted marble of a
beautiful Arabian tomb gleams from a clump of white-starred _sumboya_
exhaling incense on the air. As the magic and mystery of night shroud
Makassar in a mantle of gloom, the surrounding sea becomes a vision of
phosphorescent flame to the furthest horizon. The sheet-lightning of
the tropical sky repeats the wonders of the deep, the glamour of
romance gilds the prose of reality, and we apprehend that spirit of
wondering awe which breathes through the records of old-world voyagers
across uncharted oceans, when witnessing the phenomena of Nature in the
sanctuary of her power, before Science had torn the veil from the
mystic shrine.

The steamer's course follows the bold and mountainous coast; steep
cliffs alternate with forest-clad ravines, the purple ranges of the
foreground melting into the azure crests of soaring peaks. Skilful
navigation is required in threading the blue water-lanes of the
Spermunde group, the scores of palm-clad islets like bouquets of
verdure thrown on the tranquil sea. The wicker-work _campongs_ of the
fishing pop