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MACASSAR TO THE ARU ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU.
(DECEMBER, 1856.) IT was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at Macassar had just set in.

For nearly three months had beheld the sun rise daily above the palm-groves, mount to the zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into the ocean, unobscured for a single moment of his course.

Now dark leaden clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and seemed to have rendered him permanently invisible.

The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust-laden, which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by variable gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and nights together; and the parched and fissured rice stubbles which during the dry weather had extended in every direction for miles around the town, were already so flooded as to be only passable by boats, or by means of a labyrinth of paths on the top of the narrow banks which divided the separate properties.
Five months of this kind of weather might be expected in Southern Celebes, and I therefore determined to seek some more favourable climate for collecting in during that period, and to return in the next dry season to complete my exploration of the district.