Perjalanan di Kepulauan Hindia Timur/Bab 10

CHAPTER X.

THE NORTHERN PENINSULA OF CELEBES.

On the morning of the 13th of December Mount Klabat, a conical volcanic mountain attaining an elevation of six thousand five hundred feet, appeared on the horizon; and soon after, north of Klabat, was seen Mount Sudara, “The Sisters,” a twin cone whose highest peak is about four thousand four hundred feet above the sea. North of this again is Batu angus, two thousand three hundred feet in height. Its name in Malay means “the hot rock,” but it is really a large volcano, whose top has been blown off and a great crater thus formed; and this shows the fearful fate that awaits each of the other two cones, as soon as the gases pent up beneath their mighty masses have acquired the necessary power. We now approached Limbi, a high, uninhabited island with abrupt shores extending in a northwest and southeast direction, and soon after came to anchor in the road off Kema, the coast here curving inward so as to form a small bay. This is the port used now in the western monsoon. During the eastern monsoon, steamers and ships go round the northern end of Celebes to Menado, in the Strait of Macassar. Kema is a village of two thousand inhabitants. Its streets are very broad, and cross each other at right angles. The houses are well built, and placed on piles twelve or eighteen inches in diameter and six feet high—a remnant of the old custom of placing their huts on high posts to avoid attacks of enemies, which was practised by these people previous to the arrival of Europeans. It is certainly a good custom, not only because all such unwelcome intruders as the large snakes, which are very numerous here, are thus avoided, but also to keep the house dry and cool, by allowing a free circulation of air beneath. Each house has a small plot of ground, and this is separated from that of its neighbor by hedges, which also border the streets, and give the whole village a charming air compared to the irregular, unsightly appearance of those I had been visiting. Most of the streets are also lined with shade-trees, and in the gardens, behind the hedges, are rows of orange-trees, some of their branches bearing flowers, some green fruit, and some drooping under the abundance of their golden-yellow loads.

The controleur here kindly received me into his house. He was just going to Limbi, an island five or six miles north of Kema, to try to take some living babirusa for the governor-general’s garden at Buitenzorg, back of Batavia. That was exactly such an excursion as suited my fancy, and I was very willing to accept his invitation to join him before I began a journey I had been planning over to Menado, and thence up into the interior. While we were preparing for our excursion, another gentleman, Mr. K., decided to join us.

December 20th.—A bright, clear day, and just suitable for starting on our hunt. We have a ship’s long-boat and a small prau, both containing about twenty natives, and a large pack of dogs to start up the game. The controleur is the captain of our boat, and an old, gray Malay, who has been a seaman and a whaler for most of his days, is the coxswain of the other, and pilot for both. For ballast we have a full load of rice, our two boats carrying only half the whole party, the other portion—twenty-five natives and half as many dogs—went yesterday, under the charge of the second native chief of the village, who rejoices in the euphonious title of Hukom kadua, but the Dutch call him the “Second Head.” From Kema up to the strait, between Limbi and Celebes, we had a light air off the shore. A thin cloud, like a veil of gauze, gathered on the heads of the twin-peaks known as “The Sisters,” and fell down in rich graceful folds over their green shoulders. From the crests of all these peaks, down to the high-water line on the shore, is one dense, unbroken forest. There dwells the sapi utung or “wild ox,” probably not indigenous, but descended from the tame sapi introduced from Java and Madura. The natives describe them as being exceedingly fierce, both the cows and the bulls. Here that peculiar antelope, the Anoa depressicornis, H. Smith, abounds. In these same dense, undisturbed forests the babirusa (Babirusa alfurus, Less.) is found in large numbers; and a species of Sus, much like the lean hog that lives in the forests of our Southern States, is very abundant. As soon as we entered[326] the strait we found a strong current against us, and landed on the south side in a small bay to take our lunch. Again we rowed and beat until we came to the narrowest part of the strait, where high, perpendicular walls of rock rise on either hand. The tide which sets toward the east, that is before the wind, now changed, and away we shot between the overhanging crags with the speed of an arrow. Outside of these narrows the shores open on both sides, so that almost at once we were exposed to the full strength of the stormy monsoon. The strong tide running against the wind rolled up a high, irregular sea; in fact, the ocean seemed to boil. “Have you any idea that we can land on that exposed shore in the midst of such a surf?” I asked the controleur. “Well, it is getting dreadfully rough,” was his indefinite reply. The old Malay pilot, who had kept his boat ahead, now stood up, and seeing the combing waves, into which the strong current was rapidly driving us, shouted out to the controleur, “Dra bisa Tuan!” “It is impossible, sir! It is impossible, sir!” Instantly we tacked and stood over toward the Celebes side, and, under the guidance of the old whaler, soon entered a small, well-sheltered bay. Near its middle part the island of Limbi is very narrow, and across that place had been stretched a series of strong nets made of rope a quarter of an inch in diameter, the meshes being about six inches square. Our plan was to commence driving at the northern end of the island and force the wild babirusas into this trap; but it was already quite dark, and the place where the hukom had landed was a long way to windward, and[327] we therefore concluded to camp here to-night. For a tent we cut poles from the neighboring bunches of bamboo and covered them with the boat’s sail and an old tarpaulin. Our friend K., who was extremely careful not to boast of being a good sailor, became exceedingly frightened while we were in the midst of the combing waves, and asked me, half a dozen times during the evening, if the tide would not rise so high as to wash us off this steep shore before morning, but I tried to quiet his nerves by assuring him that such a thing could not happen unless the earth should sink, a very possible thing now that I come to think of it, for that very beach was composed of black volcanic sand, and we were almost beneath a cone, which rose on the flanks of Batu angus, and had been formed so recently that even the luxuriant vegetation of these tropics had not yet had time to gain a footing on its dark sides. In order to get a partial shelter from the heavy showers we expected before morning, we pitched our camp beneath the sturdy branches of an old tree. There we slept while the wind, in heavy gusts, sighed through the dense foliage over our heads, and at our feet rose the heavy, pulsating roar of the ocean-surf.

December 21st.—After passing a comfortable night, notwithstanding the fears of our companion that we should awake before morning, and find ourselves in the midst of the sea, we again attempted to reach the northern end of Limbi, but, as soon as we got out of the bay, we struck into such a heavy sea that our men could not take us to windward, and were therefore obliged to put back once more. This[328] time, to vary the scenery, we passed through the narrows, and encamped on a charming little beach on the island side of the strait, between two high, precipitous crags. Our first care was, of course, to construct a tent, a work soon finished by our large crew. At 11 A. M. we all felt a heavy earthquake-shock, which lasted, apparently, thirty seconds; but these are frequent phenomena in this part of Celebes. On the 25th of last month, not four weeks ago, there was a very heavy earthquake over the whole Minahassa. At Kema we could still see great rents in the ground, three or four inches wide, which could be traced for several rods. The shock was so severe that nearly every article of glass or earthen-ware in the controleur’s house was broken into fragments. Indeed, as I look up now toward the west, I do not wonder the earth heaves beneath us like a troubled sea; for there rises the old volcano known in olden times as Mount Tonkoko. It has a great yawning crater, six hundred feet deep, out of which are rising thick, white clouds of gas. On the northwest side a deep ravine cuts through its flanks, and opens out into the crater. Farther down this same side is the new cone, beneath which we pitched our camp last night. In 1806 a great eruption began in this old volcano, and ashes, sand, and pumice-stone were thrown out in great quantities. At Ayar-madidi the ashes were fine and of a gray color, and covered the ground with a layer an inch thick. For two days the heavens were darkened by the great quantity of these light materials floating in the air. So many stones were ejected, that at a distance of nearly three miles a new cone[329] was formed, from which a long tongue of land stretched itself into the sea. This point the natives called Batu angus, “the Hot Rock,” and since that time the whole volcano has been known by that name. Some of the pumice-stones were said to have been as large as the native huts, but so changed into a kind of foam by the action of heat, that they readily floated on the sea.

Soon after sunset I went out to fish in a small canoe with the controleur and his old pilot. The place we chose was under a high, perpendicular precipice that rose up out of the dark water like an artificial wall. Here we remained while the rocks grew higher and higher and more and more overhanging as the daylight faded, and the approaching night blended the sharp outlines and increased the magnitude of every object around us. Near by was a deep ravine, and from its farthermost recesses rolled out the reverberating, moaning cries of monkeys, who all night long keep up a piteous calling, each answering his fellow in the same mournful tones.

Our lines were just about as large as a mackerel-line. The hooks each native makes for himself, from brass wire, and about a fathom of wire is attached to each hook before the line is fastened to it, in order to prevent the fish from severing the cord with their sharp teeth. For bait, small fish are taken. In fishing at anchor, no leads are used, but, instead of them, a kind of sling of palm-leaf is fastened to each hook. This sling contains a small stone, so fixed that it will carry down the line, but drop out as soon as it touches the bottom. After we had[330] obtained a good supply of fine fish, we slowly passed along the high, well-sheltered shore, while the heavy wind sighed through the lofty branches over our heads. Now a gleam of light comes over the dark water, just beyond that high bluff; we are near the camp, and in a few moments stand again on the beach. This day is done, and yet the storm continues, but we hope we may be more favored to-morrow.

December 22d.—Last night I soon fell asleep after such vigorous use of the paddle, though the storm wailed, and my couch was any thing but a bed of down. At midnight a troubled dream disturbed my brain. An indefinite horror thrilled along my veins as I fancied for a moment that I was whirling round such a deep yawning maelstrom as Poe has pictured, and then literally “a change came o’er the spirit of my dream,” but scarcely a change for the better, for I was fixed in the midst of a water-spout, and, in my struggles to escape, awoke and found a great stream of water pouring down on me from the tarpaulin that formed the roof of our tent. A heavy shower had come on, and the water was all running into a depression in the sail over me, in which, of course, there was a hole, so that the whole formed one big tunnel. Of course, both K. and the controleur enjoyed my discomfiture greatly, but I consoled myself with the thought that long before daylight they would find themselves in the same plight; and the next morning, apparently, the thing that was farthest from their thoughts was to inquire of me in regard to the water-spout.

That portion of the party that had left Kema in[331] advance of us had taken little rice. The controleur, therefore, thought we must make a third attempt to reach the northern end of the island, notwithstanding K.’s earnest entreaties to be only taken back to Kema once more. We had not reached the narrows, however, before we met the hukom with all his men and dogs. They had found the surf so high that the only way most of his men had been able to reach their boats, was to run down the steep rocks and plunge head foremost into the combing waves. We now landed a few natives to scour the woods, and finally come to the southern end of the island, while we went round in the boats. In order to make their way through the dense forest, instead of putting on more clothing as a protection against the sticks and stones and thorny vines, they stripped off what little they wore, except a narrow band over the loins. At the southern end of the island was a small, deep bay, and here we encamped for the third time. Soon the natives came in, but they had secured only two wild hogs. I preserved the skull of one, a female, in which the canine teeth were not as long as those of a male. The hukom declared that in the babirusa only the males have the long curved teeth, which the Malays have fancied resemble the antlers of a deer. While waiting for us, he had been hunting in the vicinity of his camp, and had taken one female by driving her to the end of a high point. As soon as she saw there was no chance for her to escape, she leaped down the precipice and was killed by the fall. Such suicide, he says, is frequently resorted to by that animal when it finds it can retreat no farther.[332] The wild hogs plunge into the water to avoid the dogs, and the natives then pursue them in boats and kill them with spears. As soon as the hunters return to camp, they cut up the hogs, and smoke the pieces over a smouldering fire. The dogs now skulk about to seize a piece if possible, and while the natives are crouching round the fire transforming the lean pork into tough bacon, you are frequently startled by a sharp yelping as some one finds his portion disappearing beneath the jaws of one of these hungry brutes, and a liberal chastisement is at once administered to the thief with the first stick or club at hand.

December 23d.—Last night there was another heavy shower. The water poured down in torrents through our thatching of palm-leaves, for we had already found that both the boat’s sail and the old tarpaulin afforded little protection here where the water appears to fall in broad sheets. Late in the evening the controleur came back from fishing. We could hear the Malays that were pulling his boat singing in an unusually loud and merry style, and all gathered on the beach to see what wonderful monster of the deep they had secured. It proved to be a fish as large as a horse-mackerel, and weighing fully two hundred pounds, which the controleur had succeeded in taking with a small line by chancing to get it alongside the boat and securing it by gaffs. As our stock of rice was getting low, we decided to return, though I could scarcely feel satisfied, for I had hoped to get a complete skeleton of the rare babirusa; however, the controleur more than made up the loss by giving me half a dozen skulls of the equally rare antelope[333] of this region. We now crossed over to the Celebes side to a village of four or five huts, to be sheltered from the heavy rains that have drenched us every night but one since we left Kema. A few natives have moved here from Kema because they take many fish off this part of the coast, and there is a small stream emptying into the sea in the vicinity. They live almost wholly by fishing, and have cleared only a small place near their houses for a garden of Indian corn. This evening they have shown me one of the monsters of these forests. It was an enormous python. Its head has been taken off, but by careful measurement I find it must have been at least fifteen feet long. It was killed here the day before yesterday by one of the natives living in the house where we are now sheltered from the rain. Missing his dog, he chanced to go to the brook where they get water, and there he found this monstrous reptile trying to swallow his favorite. As quietly as possible he stole back to the village and gave the alarm, and at once all went out and succeeded in cutting off its head before it could disgorge its prey and attack them. The natives are now taking off the skin to make rude moccasins, which they frequently use when hunting in the woods, or more especially when travelling through the tall, sharp-edged prairie-grass. They all agree that this tough, scaly skin is much more durable for such a purpose than the best kind of leather. Our old boatman tells me that he once killed one of those great reptiles on Limbi, while it was trying to swallow a wild pig. All the natives assert that this monster sometimes attacks the wild ox,[334] sapi utung, though none of them have ever seen such a dreadful combat. The controleur states to me that when he was stationed at Bachian, near the southern end of Gilolo, he was once out hunting deer, at a place called Patola, with a large party of natives. They had succeeded in starting up several, and he himself saw one of them pass under a tree and at the same instant a great snake came down from one of the lower limbs and caught the flying deer with his jaws. Unfolding his tail from the limb, he instantly wound round his victim, crushing its bones as if they were straw. An alarm was given, and the natives gathered with their spears and killed the great reptile on the spot. It was not as large round as this one, but longer. Many of our men tell me that they once assisted in killing a larger snake than this at the bathing-place back of Kema. It had seized a hog, whose squealing soon gave all the inhabitants a warning of what had happened. They also say (and this remarkable story has since been repeated to me by several other persons at Kema) that a few years ago a native boy went out as usual to work in his ladang, or garden, some distance from the village. At night he did not return, and the next morning a native chanced to pass the garden and saw one of these great monsters trying to swallow the boy head first, having already crushed the bones of its victim. He at once returned to the village, and a large party of natives went out and found the snake and its prey exactly as had been reported, and immediately killed it with such weapons as they had, and gave the body of their young friend a decent burial.[335] While they were telling me these stories I thought of the danger to which I must often have been unconsciously exposed while wandering mile after mile through the jungles on Buru, never suspecting that, before I left the archipelago, I myself should be forced into a dreadful combat with one of these monsters, and in such a place that one or the other must die on the spot.

The next day we returned to Kema, and I began my journey over the peninsula to Menado, and thence up to the plateau in the interior.

December 26th.—At 9 A. M. started on horseback, the only mode of travelling in the Minahassa, for Menado, the largest village in this peninsula of Celebes, and the place where the Resident of this region is located. I went there first, in order to see the Resident and obtain letters to the officials of the interior. The distance from Kema to Menado is about twenty miles. The road is made only for carts, but nearly all the way it is lined with shade-trees, and in several places, for long distances, they meet overhead so as to form a continuous covered way, thus affording to those who travel to and fro an admirable shelter from the hot sunshine and heavy showers. Among these trees were many crows, Corvus enka, not shy as they always are in our country, but so tame that I frequently rode within ten yards of where they were sitting without causing them to move. Numbers of a bright-yellow bird, about as large as our robin, were seen among the branches, and on the ground another somewhat larger than a blackbird, Dicrurus, with a long, lyre-shaped tail, and a plumage of shining blue-black.[336] These birds rarely or never hear the report of a gun, and therefore have not learned to look on man as a universal destroyer, and the tameness they manifest is perfectly charming. Even the black crow, with its hoarse caw, becomes an attractive bird when you find he no longer tries to shun your company, but makes all the overtures he can to be social.

The road runs along the southern flanks of Mount Klabat, and is slowly ascending from Kema to Ayar-madidi, which is about half-way across, and then slowly descends again to the western shore of the peninsula. On my right hand was a deep valley, and fine scenery was occasionally revealed through the foliage of the trees that covered the way. On the opposite side of the valley were many small projecting ridges that have been formed by denuding torrents, and extend down to the level of the stream that flows out from the lake of Tondano to the ocean at Kema.

By noon I came to the village of Ayar-madidi, “Hot Water,” a name it receives from a neighboring spring, which in former times was hot. As it comes out of Mount Klabat, it was probably heated by the volcanic action that raised that great mountain, which is only an extinct volcano. As the volcanic action decreased, the heat passed off, until now, the water is as cool as that of any other stream in the vicinity. Even as late as the 12th of November, 1848, this water was described as “cooking hot.” According to Valentyn, in the year 1683, a great eruption took place in a mountain near Menado, which he calls “Kemaas,” and all the surrounding country was laid[337] waste. “Kemaas” Dr. Junghuhn has supposed to be Klabat, but he never visited this region, and the conical summit of Klabat shows its destruction by heavy eruptions has not yet begun. It is far more probable that Kemaas was the mountain now known as Sudara, whose two peaks are only the fragments of the upper part of the cone that were left standing when the eruptive force blew off the other parts, or so weakened their foundations, that they have long since fallen, and the materials of which they were composed have been brought down, and spread out by the rains over the flanks of the mountain. Natives, who have been to the top of Klabat, inform me that there is a small lake on the northwest side. Its basin is, no doubt, that part of the old crater which has not yet been filled so as to make the whole elevation a perfect cone. If this, lake was of any considerable size, then, as occurred on Mount Papandayang, in Java, mud and hot water will certainly pour down the sides of this mountain, if it is again convulsed by the mighty forces that are now slumbering beneath it. Ayar-madidi is a large kampong, or négri, as the Malays sometimes call their villages. It is beautifully situated on the southern flanks of Mount Klabat. Its streets all cross each other at right angles, and are well shaded. So far as we are aware, the Malays and Javanese had no word for village previous to the arrival of the Telingas, and it has been conjectured, from this fact, that they were scattered everywhere over their particular territories exactly as we have seen is the custom of the aborigines of Buru, the Alfura, who have[338] been beyond the influence of both Hindus and Arabs, and even of those natives who have adopted any foreign religion or custom. Ayar-madidi is a prettier village than Kema. Indeed, the more I travelled in the Minahassa, the more I admired the kampongs, they are so incomparably superior to those of every other part of the archipelago in the regularity of their streets and the beautiful hedges with which they are lined, and, above all, in the neatness and evidence of thrift that everywhere appear.

The chief native of this village is also the chief of the district, which contains several villages. His title in the native language is Hukom Biza, or “Great Chief,” though he prefers to be addressed by the Dutch title of major. The native official next in rank is the chief of one of the smaller villages, as at Kema. His title is Hukom Kadua. At smaller villages than Kema the chief is called Hukom Tua, or “Old Hukom,” and beneath him is the Hukom Kachil, or Little Hukom. These officers are nominally elected by the natives, but the choice is generally confined to the sons of the deceased.

The Majors and Second Heads receive a percentage on all the coffee raised and delivered to the government. This amounts to about twenty thousand guilders per year for the seventeen districts in the whole Minahassa. Besides this income, the Major receives one guilder, and the Second Head half a guilder from each family in their respective districts and sub-districts, and the Hukom Tua five days’ labor from each able-bodied man yearly.

The natives themselves are divided by the Dutch[339] into burgers or “free citizens,” and inlanders or “natives,” who are obliged to work a certain number of days in the coffee-gardens belonging to the government. The total population of the Minahassa in this year (1866), as furnished me by the Resident from the official documents, is 104,418,[48] and the marked degree of variation in the population of this country, where the natives have never been a maritime people, is worth more than a passing notice, because it shows in some degree the beneficial effect of a stable government, and how the natives are sometimes swept away by disease. In 1800, according to Valentyn, the population was 24,000, though he gives the number of able men at only 3,990. In 1825 it was 73,000; in 1842, 93,332; in 1853, 99,588. In 1854 a great mortality appeared, and the population was diminished to 92,546, no less than 12,821 persons, or about one-seventh of the population, having died in a single year. In the district of Amurang the loss was as high as 22½ per cent. The principal diseases are fevers and dysentery. The population of the Minahassa, as compared to its area, 14,000 English square miles, is by no means large. The island of Madura, which is of about the same extent, has more than five times as large a population; and the residency of Surabaya, also of about the same extent, contains more than ten times as many people. The natives directed me to the major’s residence, which I found to be a small but neat and well-painted house, built in European[340] style. It is situated in the middle of a large, oblong lawn, that is surrounded with a row of trees much like our locust-trees, and which are now in full bloom. Near the gate are a guard-house and long series of stables. Dismounting here, I walked up to the broad piazza, where the major sat smoking his pipe in the Dutch style, and discussing in the Dutch language the state of the weather, the crops, and such things as interested the Dutchmen of those lands. His manners were polished, and he received me in a most stately way. His friends were going to Menado, so that I should have companions the rest of the way. Our dinner was in European style, which seemed the more remarkable to me because it differed so much from the way I had been entertained by the rajahs of the Moluccas. In our dining-room was a fine-series of pictures representing scenes in that most charming tale, “Paul and Virginia.” We were just at the foot of Mount Klabat, but we could not see its summit on account of thick rain-clouds that covered its sides, and now and then rolled down and poured out heavy showers over the village. As one of these floated away to the east, the sun came out brightly and changed the falling drops into a remarkably broad and brilliant rainbow, which seemed suspended from the cloud, and floated along with it in a most magical manner.

Here I saw for the first time the plant from which “manilla hemp” is manufactured. It is a species of banana, Musa textilis, and grows to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. It appears to be indigenous, and can be raised here from the seed.[341] The fibres are taken from the large, succulent leaves. Though it resembles the banana so closely that at first most people would mistake it for that plant, its fruit is small, disagreeable to the taste, and not edible. Several residents have made strenuous efforts to extend its cultivation, but the result has shown that the natives can be more profitably employed in raising coffee. The rain-clouds having cleared away, we all started for Menado. The horse that had been kindly furnished me by an officer was not fast nor sure-footed; and, finally, as we were going down a gentle declivity at a quick canter, he fell headlong. As I am, at least, a much better sailor than horseman, I went off over his head with a most surprising momentum, my feet, unfortunately, passing so far into the stirrups that I could not extricate either of them. This so frightened the horse that he reared and plunged fearfully, but I had no idea of being dragged off like Mazeppa, and held on to the reins until my feet were once more clear, when, with one leap, I was again in the saddle, and ready for further experience in this mode of travelling. Though I was aware my position was somewhat dangerous, I could not help feeling amused at the alarm manifested by my companions. They all seemed delighted to know that I had escaped with only such inconvenience as one clad in a summer suit of white would necessarily experience in coming down in such an unceremonious manner into the midst of a muddy stream. Late in the evening we came to the Resident’s house, where a cordial welcome awaited me, and I had the pleasure to find myself once more in[342] the midst of a pleasant family after so long and lonely an exile.

The next morning I walked through the village. Its total population is only about 2,500, of which 300 are Europeans and mestizoes; about 600 Chinamen, and 1,200 natives, half of whom are Christians and the other half Mohammedans. The Resident’s house is surrounded by large grounds, abounding in the choicest of tropical plants. Not far from it is the market, a house without walls, the roof resting on pillars of wood and masonry. This is the universal style of the markets in all parts of the archipelago. Here various kinds of fruits, gambier, betel-nuts, and siri are sold by the natives, and salt, cotton fabrics, and cutlery, by Chinese. The salt used here is not imported from Java, as that used on the other islands I have visited, but is made by the natives themselves in the following manner: Littoral-plants are gathered and burned. The ashes are then placed in a bamboo, which is filled with water. After this has remained for some time, the water is strained off and evaporated. The residuum is a dark, impure salt, but the natives prefer it to any that can be imported. This custom seems to have been introduced lately, for in 1841 the government sold three hundred and twelve thousand pounds of imported salt, but in 1853 only two thousand. From the village of Menado I walked northward parallel to the bay, and, crossing the little stream Menado, came to the village of the Bantiks, a peculiar people, numbering about two thousand five hundred, who refuse to become Mohammedans or Christians, and continue to[343] retain the heathen belief of their forefathers. Many of them are taller than the other people I saw in the Minahassa. Their houses are not placed on higher posts than those of other natives, but they are frequently long, and occupied by several families—a custom which appears to have been general throughout the archipelago in ancient times, and is still practised at Dorey, on the north coast of New Guinea, and again by the people of the Tenger Mountains in Java, who pride themselves on retaining the customs of their ancestors. The view has been advanced that the Bantiks are descendants of Chinamen, who established themselves here when they first came to the Moluccas to purchase spices. This may have been the case, but their features, though somewhat different from the other natives, did not appear to me to be so unlike them as to necessitate such a theory. As they have kept themselves more away from the influence of all foreigners than most Malays, they give us a good idea of what the aborigines of this region were before the arrival of the Portuguese.

About three miles round the northern side bay, we came to Temumpa, where all the lepers of this residency are obliged to live, banished forever from all communication with other natives, except such of their friends as come to see them. The little village consists of twelve small houses, regularly arranged on either side of a street. They were all neatly whitewashed, and each has a small plot of ground, where its unfortunate occupants can busy themselves, and forget their incurable sufferings and their banishment.[344] A native who lives near by has charge of them, and my opinion was very decided that they were well cared for by the government. As we passed from house to house, the officer called them out, and I gave each a small piece of silver, for which they appeared very grateful. There are now nineteen here afflicted with this loathsome malady. The part that appears to be the first attacked is the nose, the next is the hands, and the last the feet, though in some it only appears in one of these organs. In one case the nose had wholly disappeared—even the partition between the nostrils—so that I could look directly into the chamber over the mouth. At the same time the muscles on one side of the face were so contracted that the features presented a most sickening sight. In another case, the nose and all the upper lip were gone, and even the outer part of the upper jaw, so that the front teeth only stuck fast on one side, and were completely exposed to view throughout their entire length. These, however, were the older cases, in which the disease had made greater progress. Many had lost their fingers and toes. One little girl had her ankles and feet so swollen that her ankle-bones could not be seen, and yet I could not but notice how cheerful she appeared. Two men had the disease in their feet, which had swollen until they were three times their proper size, and all broken open and fissured in the most shocking manner. No one who has not seen such lepers as these can have any idea of what forms human flesh can assume, and life yet remain in the body. Suffering from such an incurable, loathsome[345] malady is literally a living death. I found it so sickening, even to look at them, that I was glad when I came to the last house. Here I was shown a young child, a few weeks old. No marks of the disease could be detected, unless it might be that it was very much lighter colored than either of its parents. The father was one of the worst cases I saw, but the disease had not appeared in the mother, except as a great swelling in the ankles. This child must certainly die a leper, and probably will never leave the village where it was born. For this reason, if for no other, the government certainly acts wisely in compelling all who have this disease to come and live here together, where, at all events, it cannot be widely spread. When it does not appear in a very malignant form in the parents, it has been known to fail to appear in the children, but to appear again in the grandchildren. Governor Arriens told me of such a case in Java. It was evident that the man was a leper, though only a considerable swelling could be detected on one ear, yet he was able to prove that neither of his parents was a leper, but, on further inquiry, the governor found that the man’s grandfather was a leper. This disease is regarded here as an endemic, that is, chiefly confined to the Minahassa and the Moluccas. Much discussion has arisen whether leprosy is contagious. The doctor with whom I resided while at Buru had been previously stationed at Amboina, and while there a soldier who was born in Holland was taken, and died with this disease. In that case it was evident that the disease was not hereditary, and, after the most careful inquiry,[346] the doctor was not able to learn that he had ever been near a leper, or that he might have taken the disease from any one; for all afflicted with this loathsome malady in Amboina and the neighboring islands are banished to Molano, a small island southwest of Saparua. This is the only case that I heard of, during my travels among these islands, where a foreigner had suffered from this disease. It may be remarked that this is not the leprosy spoken of in the sacred Scriptures, where the sufferers are described as being “white as snow.”

From the shore near Temumpa we had a delightful view over the bay of Menado. The sea was as smooth as glass, and scarcely a ripple broke on the sandy beach, which was shaded by graceful, overhanging palms. Before me to the south rose the high mountains which form the great buttresses to the plateau they enclose, and on my right was the sharp volcanic peak called Old Menado because foreigners first established themselves on that island, and then moved over to Celebes.

In the evening the Resident showed me the large wooden store-houses where the coffee is received from the interior, and kept for exportation. As we entered the building, I was surprised at the rich aromatic fragrance that filled the air. It differed much more from the fragrance given out by the coffee seen in our land than any one will readily believe. Here it is stored in bags, just as it comes in from the plantations. In order that I might see what superior coffee the Minahassa produces, the Resident had several bags opened. I found the kernels, instead[347] of being opaque, and having, as when we usually see them, a tinge of bronze, were translucent, and of a greenish-blue color. The best are those which have these characters, and at the same time are very hard. This coffee commands a much higher price than that of Java, and is superior to any raised in the archipelago, unless it may be some that comes from the highlands in the interior of Sumatra.

The coffee crop is subject to some variation, but the Resident informs me that the average yield of the government gardens during the last few years has been no less than 37,000 piculs (5,000,000 pounds). The whole number of trees belonging to the government is 5,949,616, but a large proportion of these are young, and therefore bear little or no fruit. Several private individuals also own large plantations, that yield as well in proportion to the number of trees they contain. The trees are found to thrive best above an elevation of one thousand feet.

The native name of this plant and its fruit is kopi, a corruption of the name in Dutch, the people who introduced it into this archipelago. The tree, Coffea Arabica, is a native of Africa, between the tenth and fifteenth degrees of north latitude,[49] but it thrives anywhere within the tropics on the hundreds of high islands in the archipelago, as well as in the dry lands where it is indigenous. It was as late as 1450, about half a century before the discovery of our continent, that it was brought over from Abyssinia to the mountainous parts of Arabia. In this way it happened that the Arabians were the people who introduced it[348] into Europe. In 1690, forty years after, the people of Europe had learned to use it as a beverage. Governor-General Van Hoorne had some of the seeds brought to him from ports on the Arabian Gulf, by the vessels of the Dutch East India Company, who then carried on some trade between those places and Java. The seeds were planted in a garden near Batavia, where the plants flourished well and bore so much fruit that their culture was at once begun, and since that time has spread to many parts of the archipelago, but the chief islands from which coffee is now exported are Celebes, Bali, Java, and Sumatra. It is also raised to some extent in the Philippines, and these and the Malay Islands furnish one-fourth or more of all that is used. One of the first plants raised at Batavia was sent to Holland, to Nicholas Witsen, the head of the East India Company, where it arrived safely and bore fruit, and the plants from its seeds were sent to Surinam, where they flourished, and in 1718 coffee began to be an article of export from that part. Ten years later, in 1728, it was introduced from Surinam into the French and English islands of the West Indies, having previously been successively introduced into Arabia, Java, and Holland. I am told that it was first brought here from Java by a native prince, and, the remarkable manner in which it thrived having attracted the attention of the officials, more trees were introduced. In 1822 only eighty piculs were produced; in 1834, a remarkably favorable year, 10,000, but in the next year only 4,000 were obtained. In 1853 the crop was 13,000 piculs, and in 1854, 23,000. This indicates how remarkably[349] this crop varies in the same locality—in that year the total number of trees was 4,600,000—and that there has been a steady increase since, both in the number of trees and in the quantity of fruit they have yielded; but yet not more than one-half the number are planted that might be if the population was sufficiently great to take proper care of them. With such an enormous yield a large surplus is left in the hands of the government after it has paid the natives who cultivate it, the percentage to the chiefs, and the cost of transportation from the small store-houses in the interior to the large ones at Menado, from which it is put on board of vessels either directly for foreign ports or to be taken to Macassar and thence be reshipped to Europe. Though the government wishes to give up its monopoly in the cultivation of spices in the Bandas and Moluccas, I did not hear that it is particularly anxious to do so here with the profitable cultivation of coffee.

From the store-houses we walked to the hospital, where I was shown a patient whose case was most remarkable. He was a native of Kema, and was bathing in one of the streams that flow through the village, when suddenly he found his head between the teeth of an enormous crocodile. Fortunately, the great reptile did not close his jaws, nor settle down with his prey as usual, and another native, hearing the cries of his friend, caught a large stick, and beat the brute until he let go. The man was at once brought here to the hospital, and has now nearly recovered. On his left jaw-bone there was one continuous incision from the ear to the chin, and on the right side[350] of his face the muscles near the cheek-bone and on the temple were dreadfully lacerated. That a man should ever escape alive after his head had once been between a crocodile’s jaws is certainly the next thing to a miracle. I asked him what he thought when he found his head in such a vice. “Well,” said he, coolly, “I thought my time had come, but that I had better sing out while I could, and that’s what saved me, you see.”

December 28th.—At 6 A. M. bade the Resident good-by, and started for the highlands in the interior with an opas or official servant as a guide and attendant. It was a lovely morning. The cuckoos were pouring out their early songs, and the gurgling of the brook by the wayside was almost the only other sound that disturbed the stillness of the morning. A few cirri were floating high in the sky, and also a number of cumuli, whose perpendicular sides reflected the bright sunlight like pearly, opaque crystals. Along the way we met natives of both sexes carrying tobacco and vegetables to market, the men having their loads in a sled-shaped frame on their backs, and the women carrying theirs in shallow baskets on their heads. Our road, which led to the south, was—like all in the Minahassa—broad and well graded, and where it ascended an acclivity coarse fibres from the leaves of the gomuti palm were laid across it from place to place to cause the water to drain off into the ditches by its sides. When the road came to a village it always divided, that all the carts may go round the village, and not through it. This arrangement enables the natives to keep the street[351] through their village neat and smooth. Such streets usually consist of a narrow road, bordered on either side by a band of green turf, and outside of these are sidewalks of naked soil like the road. Six miles out we came to Lotta, a village of about four hundred souls, and soon after began to rapidly ascend by a well-built road, that zigzags up the sides of Mount Empung, which forms one of the northern buttresses of the plateau situated to the south and east. Nine paals from Menado, when we were about twelve hundred feet above the sea, I wheeled round my horse and enjoyed a magnificent view over the bay of Menado and the adjacent shore. Out in the bay rose several high islands, among them the volcanic peak of Menado Tua, its head raised high in the blue sky, and its feet bathed in the blue sea. Near the shore the land is very low, and abounds in various species of palms. Farther back it begins to rise, and soon curves up toward the lofty peak of Klabat.

The beautiful cirri which we had noticed in the early morning now began to change into rain-clouds, and roll down the mountain, and soon the beautiful landscape beneath us was entirely hidden from our view. The road here passes through deep cuts that show well the various kinds of rocks, which are trachytic sand, pumice-stone, and a conglomerate of these materials. As we ascended we passed many places on the mountain-side where the natives were cultivating maize, and from far above us and beneath us came the echoing and reëchoing songs of the natives, who were busy cultivating this exotic but[352] most useful plant. The custom of these people to sing while working in the field is the more noticeable, because the Javanese and Malays usually toil without thinking of thus lightening their monotonous labor. Upward and upward we climbed until we were about three thousand feet above the sea, when we came to two small villages. Beyond, the road again became level, and soon we reached Tomohon, where I met the controleur from Tondano, a large village to the east, who had come at the Resident’s request to accompany me for the rest of that day’s journey. Another horse was brought and saddled for me, and we continued on toward the south, our party now numbering six or eight, for the chief of each village and one or two servants are obliged by law to accompany the controleur from their own village to the next one he comes to, in whatever direction he may choose to travel. We soon after entered the charming village of Saronsong. In the centre of it and on one side of the street is the chiefs house, and opposite to it but back from the street is the ruma négri, and the space between the two is a pretty garden abounding in roses. This reminder of home gave me a thrill of pleasure that I shall remember as long as I love to look on this, the most beautiful of all flowers. As we galloped out of this village the thick rain-clouds and fog cleared away, and only cumuli and cirri were again to be seen in the sky. I now had a magnificent view, on the left, of the high range along the west side of lake Tondano, toward the northwest of the sharp volcanic cone of Lohon, about five thousand feet in[353] height, west of that of Empung, attaining nearly that height, and in the northeast Gunong Api with its three peaks. Somewhat farther on we rode down into a little valley, where the road ran along the side of a small lake, whose muddy water was of a dirty-white color, and from which strong, almost strangling, fumes of sulphur were rising—a most unearthly place, and one that would remind the traveller of Bunyan’s picture of “the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” where the way was narrow, and on either hand “ever and anon came up flame and smoke in great abundance with sparks and hideous noises.” In one place a flock of ducks was swimming in this sulphurous pool, and on its margin I noticed a few waders running to and fro seeking food. Its banks were mostly covered with ferns, the leaves of which were of a bright red, reminding one of the brilliantly-colored leaves of our maples in autumn.

Near the next village, Lahendong, we made a short excursion to the left, up a high but not a steep hill, to see the remarkable lake Linu. The hill is the top of an old volcano, and soon, as we descended and turned a sharp point, we found before us the lake now filling the bottom of the crater. On our way down to a house near its edge, we passed a place where much sulphurous gas was escaping. It looked indeed much like the top of a great half-slaked lime-kiln. The lake is about half a mile in diameter, and has an outlet on the southwest, through a former split in the old crater-wall. In most parts the water has a blue color, but in some it has a whitish tinge from gases that rise up through the[354] bottom of its basin. On the northeast end there is a large solfatara, like the one we passed in coming down to the lake, but larger. Here it was that the Italian count, Carlo de Vidua, who had travelled over a large part of the globe, met with a misfortune that caused his untimely death. He ventured too far on the soft, hot clay, and sank in, and before the natives, who had cautioned him against going there, could take him out, he was burned so badly that he died in a short time afterward at Amboina, whither he was taken, that he might be cared for in the best possible manner. He had travelled over a considerable portion of our own continent, and, after escaping many imminent dangers, ventured in this spot too far. Such is the history of many a daring traveller, and no one who comes out here, where on the sea there are pirates, and on the land earthquakes and savage beasts, and in some places still more savage men, can know at what moment he is planning a fatal voyage, or when he is taking the step that may be his last. Yet some one must take this risk if the limited boundaries of our knowledge of these remote lands are ever to be extended.

Although the water of this lake is largely impregnated with sulphur and other substances that rise up through its bottom, yet Dr. Bleeker found two kinds of fish here, Ophiocephalus striatus, Bl., and Anabas scandens, Cuv., and an eel, Anguilla Elphinstonei, Syk., which are also found in the fresh waters of Java and Sumatra, and in India. Returning to the main road, we continued on to Sonder, and, passing through a part of the village, came to the[355] ruma négri, a public-house for any officer who chances to come to that place. This house is said to be far better even than any of the same kind in Java. It stands at the end of a long, beautifully-shaded avenue. The road is bordered with a narrow band of grass, neatly clipped, and the sidewalks are of a white earth, which has been brought from some distance. A fine grove surrounds the house, and here are many casuarina or cassowary-trees, the long, needle-like leaves of which closely resemble the downy plumage of that strange bird. This evening, as the full moon shines through the foliage, the whole grove is transformed into an enchanted place.