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. He was about thirty-five years of
age, had a large family, and lived in a spacious house near the
town, situated in the midst of a grove of fruit trees, and
surrounded by a perfect labyrinth of offices, stables, and native
cottages occupied by his numerous servants, slaves, or
dependants. He usually rose before the sun, and after a cup of
coffee looked after his servants, horses, and dogs, until seven,
when a substantial breakfast of rice and meat was ready in a cool
verandah. Putting on a clean white linen suit, he then (trove to
town in his buggy, where he had an office, with two or three
Chinese clerks who looked after his affairs.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 313 of 419
Words from 85305 to 85572
of 114260
