of Ms 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, 11 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, wMch 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
through their village neat and smooth. Such streets
usually consist of a narrow road, bordered on eithei
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 m 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 Mnds 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 reechoing songs of the
natives, who were busy cultivating this exotic but