Makassar

“ The affair of the brig Bonito was bound to cause a sensation in Makassar, the prettiest, and perhaps the cleanest-looking of all the towns in the Islands; which however knows few occasions for excitement. The “front,” with its special population, was soon aware that something had happened. A steamer towing a sailing vessel had been observed far out to sea for some time, and when the steamer came in alone, leaving the other outside, attention was aroused. Why was that? Her masts only could be seen—with furled sails—remaining in the same place to the southward. ”

“ We are going to be taken to Makassar.”
“Good God! What’s that for, sir?” came an anxious cry faintly.
“Kindness, I suppose,” Jasper, ironical, shouted with great deliberation. “We might have been—becalmed in here—for days. And hospitality. I am invited to stay—on board here.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thence they struggled on by Mindanao to Makassar in Celebes, delayed by contrary winds, disappointed of refreshments at every place they tried, and losing men from scurvy. At Makassar they met with but an inhospitable reception from the Dutch, who refused to permit them to receive refreshments there, and after waiting at Bonthain, a place in Celebes, several months, for the monsoon to change, they at last arrived at Batavia, the only port in the Dutch Indies really open to ships, in June 1768. ”

“ An element of uncertainty attends the cruise among the Malayan islands, through sudden orders to include strange ports of call in the programme of the route. During the stay at Makassar, a cable from Batavia necessitates a flying visit to Borneo, and though the détour was made from the western coast of Celebes, the great sister island demands a special notice. In steaming thither through the radiant glory of an Equatorial sunset, strange atmospheric effects denote fresh variations of climate and temperature. ”

“ At almost every place of importance which we visited in Malaysia we found these agents of Standard Oil—alert and clean-cut young fellows, who, far from home and friends, are helping to build up a commercial empire for America oversea.
The native soldiery, who form the bulk of the Makassar garrison, are quartered, with their families, in long, stone barracks—ten couples to a room. For every soldier of the colonial forces, whether European or native, is permitted to keep a woman in the barracks with him. ”

“ Science and the arts have not, by extending their views, contributed to enlarge the circle of their desires; and the various refinements of luxury, which in polished societies become necessaries of life, are totally unknown to them. The Makassar and Bugis people, who come annually in their praws from Celebes to trade at Sumatra, are looked up to by the inhabitants as their superiors in manners. The Malays affect to copy their style of dress, and frequent allusions to the feats and achievements of these people are made in their songs. ”

“ The entire force consisted of eighteen boats, viz., three Malukus and fifteen Illanuns; the smallest of these boats carried thirty men, the largest (they are mostly large) upward of a hundred; so that, at a moderate computation, the number of fighting men might be reckoned at from five to six hundred. The Illanum expedition had been absent from Magindano upward of three years, during which time they had cruised among the Moluccas and islands to the eastward, had haunted Boni Bay and Celebes, and beat up the Straits of Makassar. ”

“ The three most important peoples of Celebes are the Bugis, the Makassars, and the Mandars. The medley of more or less savage tribes dwelling in the island are known as Alfuros—literally "wild"—which is the term applied by the Malays to all the uncivilized non-Mohammedan peoples in the eastern part of the archipelago. For the Bugis to refer to the tribes of the interior as wild is like the pot calling the kettle black. ”

“ The city, though old, with all the history of the Malay islands from the sixteenth century in its streets, native, Portuguese, Dutch, and English, has still behind it a [126] land of which we know hardly more than we know of the future of true religion. Macassar is, in fact, only a market place on a beach where gather the traders and ships from hundreds of islands about it. ”

“ At that time Macassar was teeming with life and commerce. It was the point in the islands where tended all those bold spirits who, fitting out schooners on the Australian coast, invaded the Malay Archipelago in search of money and adventure. Bold, reckless, keen in business, not disinclined for a brush with the pirates that were to be found on many a coast as yet, making money fast, they used to have a general "rendezvous" in the bay for purposes of trade and dissipation. The Dutch merchants called those men English pedlars ”

“ African negroes, called here Papua, are the cheapest and worst disposed of any, being given to stealing and almost incorrigible by stripes. Next to them are the Bougis and the Macassars, both inhabitants of the island of Celebes. They are lazy and revengeful in the highest degree, easily giving up their lives to satisfy their revenge. The island of Bali sends the most honest and faithful, consequently the dearest slaves, and Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra, the handsomest women, but of tender, delicate constitutions, ill able to bear the umwholesome climate of Batavia. ”

“ Westward from the Malucas Islands, about twenty leguas distant, is an island called Macasar. It is more than two hundred and fifty leguas around, and is very fertile and rich, being inhabited by the best people in those islands; their king is friendly, very peaceful, and glad to trade with the Spaniards. He used to receive the Dutch, and let them provide themselves from his country with provisions for all their forts. ”

“ Rattans from Borneo, sandal-wood and bees'-was from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, cajputi-oil from Bouru, wild nutmegs and mussoi-bark from New Guinea, are all to be found in the stores of the Chinese and Bugis merchants of Macassar, along with the rice and coffee which are the chief products of the surrounding country. More important than all these however is the trade to Aru, a group of islands situated on the south-west coast of New Guinea, and of which almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. ”

“ When we reached the kingdom of Mandar36 we found another king, already an old man. He treated us well, and immediately sent the prince to see me; he was a fine young fellow. Moreover, we went to Macasar together, which is the capital of all the island. [There] we found the people more civilized. It was God’s will, and was due to His mercy, that I should reach Macasar nine months and three days after leaving Manila, although that voyage had never taken more than forty days. ”

“ Two hundred and fifty men are garrisoned in the government of Ternate, under the command of a captain, a lieutenant, nine ensigns, and one artillery officer.
Government of
Macassar. The government of Macassar, upon the isle of Celebes, which is occupied by an Edel-heer, has four factories in its department; Boelacomba en Bonthain, and Bima, where two under-merchants reside; Saleyer and Maros, of which the chiefs are only book-keepers. Macassar, or Jonpandam, is the strongest place in the Moluccas; however, the natives are careful to confine the Dutch there within the limits of their station. ”

“ Two of these peninsulas extend to the south, and are separated from each other by the Gulf of Boni: one takes an easterly direction, and the other stretches away six degrees to the north and northeast. In the southwest peninsula, which is the only one that has been completely explored, two languages are spoken—the Mangkasara, in the native tongue, or Mangkasa, in the Malay (of which word, “Macassar,” the name of the Dutch capital, is only a corruption) , and the Wugi or Bugi, which was originally more particularly limited to the coast of the Gulf of Boni. ”

“ The maritime power of the kingdom of Siak has always been considerable, and in the history of the Malayan states we repeatedly read of expeditions fitted out from thence making attacks upon Johor, Malacca, and various other places on the two coasts of the peninsula. Most of the neighbouring states (or rivers) on the eastern coast of Sumatra, from Langat to Jambi, are said to have been brought in modern times under its subjection. ”

“ A further proof of the influence that mild government has upon the manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western. Far from our having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis or Makasar people. Europeans, attended by Malays only, are continually travelling through the country. They are the only persons employed in carrying treasure to distant places ”

“ The famous old Straits of Malacca, which were once the haunts of the fierce Malayan pirates, separate the island from the mainland and the Sultanate of Johore.
The shipping that once worked its way through these narrow straits, in momentary fear that its mangrove-bound shores held a long, swift pirate prau, now goes further south and into the island-guarded harbor before Singapore.
Nothing can be more beautiful than the sea approach to Singapore. ”

“ We set sail from this port of Lisbon, six ships in company, for the purpose of making discoveries with regard to an island in the east called Malacca, which is reported very rich. It is, as it were, the warehouse of all the ships which come from the Sea of Ganges and the Indian Ocean, as Cadiz is the storehouse for all ships that pass from east to west, and from west to east, by way of Calcutta. This Malacca is farther east, and much farther south, than Calcutta, because we know that it is situated at the parallel of three degrees north latitude. ”

“ The origin of the Malays, like that of other people, is involved in fable; every raja is descended from some demigod, and the people sprung from the ocean. According to their traditions however their first city of Singapura, near the present Johor, was peopled from Palembang, from whence they proceeded to settle at Malacca (naming their city from the fruit so called) , and spread along the coast. The peninsula is at present inhabited by distinct races of people. The Siamese possess the northern part to latitude 7 degrees, extending from the east to the west side. ”

“ VIEW IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. The old Strait of Singhapura, that lies between the island of Singapore and the mainland of Johore, is a narrow tortuous passage, for many centuries the only thoroughfare for ships passing to the eastward of Malacca. Not many years ago, where charming bungalows, the residences of the merchants, are built among the ever verdant foliage, it was but the home of hordes of piratical marauders, who carried on their depredations with a high hand, sometimes adventuring on distant voyages in fleets of forty or fifty prahus. ”

“ But the pride of Sarawak must always be the Sea Dyaks who live on the Batang Lupar, the Seribas and the right-hand branches of the Rejang. These were the destructive pirates of the coast, who put to sea in large fleets of fast vessels, and ravaged every district they could reach. ”

“ Samoa has been well governed. The people have been forbidden a few perils of civilisation, and for the rest are left pretty well to themselves. Go up from Apia across the mountains, or round the coast, or take a boat over to the other big island, Savaii, and you find them living their old life, fishing and bathing and singing, and never a sign of a white man. They are guaranteed possession of their land. ”

“ They occupy the rich and populous island of Jolo and some islands of the Siassi group, immediately south.
The Samal.—The Samal, or Bajau, are stated to have come originally from Johore. Many of them live almost exclusively in their boats, passing their lives from birth to death upon the sea. They are found throughout most parts of Malaysia, the position of their little fleets changing with the shifting of the monsoons. In the Sulu archipelago and a few points in South Mindanao, many of these Samal have shifted their homes from their boats to the shore. ”

“ Even by the Macassar people themselves, the voyage to the Aru Islands is looked upon as a rather wild and romantic expedition, fall of novel sights and strange adventures. He who has made it is looked up to as an authority, and it remains with many the unachieved ambition of their lives. ”

“ This desperado has for upwards of seventeen years been the terror of the Straits of Macassar, during which period he has committed the most extensive and dreadful excesses sparing no one. Few respectable families along the coast of Borneo and Celebes but have to complain of the loss of a proa, or of some number of their race; he is not more universally dreaded than detested; it is well known that he has cut off and murdered the crews of more than forty European vessels, which have either been wrecked on the coasts, or entrusted themselves in native ports. ”

“ The sixth government is Malacca, which city is the capital of a small kingdom of the same name, inhabited by Malayans or Malays. The governor here is a merchant, and is assisted by a council like all the others. This kingdom of Malacca is the south part of the peninsula of India beyond the Ganges, being divided from the island of Sumatra by a strait, named the strait of Malacca. This city is of considerable size, and carries on an extensive commerce, for which it is admirably situated, and is the storehouse or emporium of all that part of India. ”