way to Kema, having heen transferred, at his request,
to Sumatra. We should therefore he companions
on the steamer all the way to Java, which
was especially agreeable to me, as he spoke English
well, and no one not horn in Holland can ever
learn to pronounce the harsh gutturals of the Dutch
language with perfect ease and accuracy. From Lan-
gowan we rode four miles in a northerly direction to
Kakas, a village at the southern end of the lake of
Tondano. The ruma négri here is one of the most
pleasantly-situated buildings in the Minahassa. It is
large and carefully built, and has broad verandas
both toward the lake and the village. It is surrounded
with plots of green grass, neatly bordered
with gravelled walks, and O f rose-bushes covered with
large crimson flowers. In the evening, when the moon
rose over the sharp peaks a short distance to the
east, and spread a broad band of silver light over the
lake, the effect was charming ; and now, while we
inhale the balmy air, and recall to mind the ponds of
beautiful lotus we have been passing, we may feel
that we are indeed in the enchanted lotus-land that
Tennyson thus pictures :
In the afternoon they came nnto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon ;
A t noon the coast with languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ;
And like a downward smoke the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall, and pause, and fall, did seem.
January 1, 1866.—Walked with the controleur
and chief through the village, and saw the mode of
pounding out rice by water-power. The axle of the
water-wheel is made very long, and filled with a
number of small sticks, which, as they turn over,
raise poles fixed in a perpendicular position, that faL
again when the revolving stick is drawn away from
them. A large boat, manned by seven natives, was
made' ready for me to go to any part of the lake
of Tondano and ascertain its depth. It occupies the
lower portion of a high plateau, and its surface, as
measured by S. H. De Lange, is two thousand two
hundred and seventy-two English feet above the sea.
It is about seventeen miles long m a northerly and
southerly direction, and varies in width from two to
seven miles. It is nearly divided into two equal
parts by high capes that project from either shore.
On the south and southwest and on the north, its
shores are low, and the land slowly ascends from one
to five miles, and then curves upward to the jagged
mountain-crest that bounds the horizon on all sides.
In the other parts of its shores it rises up from the
water in steep acclivities. All the lowlands and the
lower flanks of the mountains are under a high state
of cultivation, and the air is cool and pure, while it
is excessively hot and sultry on the ocean-shore below
Some writers have regarded this lake-basin as an old
extinct crater; and some, as only a depression in
the surrounding plain, or, in other words, the lower
part of the plateau. To settle this question beyond
a doubt, it was necessary to ascertain its form. I
therefore asked the Resident if he could furnish me
with a line to sound with as I crossed it. He replied
that he had but one of two hundred fathoms,