2 37
This ifland is governed by fourteen regents, who refort once a year, in the monthof October, to Fort Rotterdam, with two hundred and fifty or three hundred of theircountrymen, to perform the cuftomary duties of vaffalage, and to fet forth iuch difputesas they may have among themfelves, in order to obtain a decifion in them.
This people are pufillanimous and fervile, and, at the fame time, quarrelfome andperverfe; infomuch, that if their fituation be not exactly to their own liking, they im-mediately emigrate with the whole of their family to another country.
A junior merchant is placed here as refident in behalf of the Company, who hashis abode near or in a palifadoed pagger, or redoubt, called Defence, which lies, as Iwas informed, in five degrees fouth latitude.
The before-mentioned illands Bonaratte and Calauwe were given in fief to the oldRadja Palacca. He made ufe of the firft for a place of education and inftruction forhis dancing girls ; to which purpofe his fuccelfors in the kingdom of Boni likewifeappropriated it; hence thefe illands are moftly inhabited by Bouginefe, and but veryRw Saleyers are found upon them.
From thefe fhort lketches and defcriptions of the nations who inhabit the great ifland°f Celebes , may eafily be deduced the different relations, in which they ftand towardsea ch other, and towards their neighbours, both with refpect to their internal policy,«md their foreign connections; and hence may likewife be feen, how intricate andtroublefome the office of governor of Macaffer muff be, in order to reconcile the jar-nn g intereft of all thefe numerous petty ftates with each other, and with the intereft°f his employers,
. Tffie con trad, or treaty, of Boni, which has been fo often mentioned in the preced-ln g pages, was the foundation upon which the fuperftru&ure of the Company’s powerand influence in Celebes was erected more than a century ago. Boni, who firft en-tered into this engagement, and whence it has always been called the contradt of Boni,has for that reafon been ever efteemed the firft and oldeft ally of the Company. Itat that time in danger of being fubdued by the Macaffers; and not poffeffingSufficient power to oppofe fo redoubted an enemy, it may therefore be eafily conceivedthat the Bouginefe readily embraced the opportunity of entering into the ftrideft alii-ance with the Company, whofe power was fo great, and fo renowned throughout India ,hat whoever were their allies might diveft themfelves of all fear of being maftered.his was in fact apparent in the fequel. Macaffer was fubdued, and Boni, being thusreed from the fear of their hereditary adverfaries, increafed more and more in great-els ar >d luftre, more efpecially during the government of Radja Palacca. It becamean adopted political maxim, that Macaffer fhould be continually kept under; and thisas been till the prefent time fo ftridtly adhered to, that Boni has been rendered fogreat and powerful, that it is at prefent out of all queftion to prefcribe rules or boundsf r t hat_kingdom , although the miftake is now mod clearly perceivable : it even happensom time to time, and every year, that different portions of territory, which apper-cI n to the Company by right of conqueft, are fuffered by the negligence or indul-®^ nce °f the governors to be wrefted from them by Boni, under fome plaufible pretextth 0t ^ er > while thefe encroachments are likewife afterwards unaccountably ratified bye government at Batavia.
r rrh to fouth, on bamboo chairs, made
«« very fteep hills, that run along the middle of the He computes the inhabitants of Saltyer
the fpot and they went over the flat lands on ho ™J? ck j- uor ca lkd fagture, drawn from the palm-to amount to about f.xty thoufand. They drink much ot a l.quo
tr «e; they burn tallow from the tallow- tree, as m 11 * he