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.