their bloody rites. As soon as a few natives had
been tanght to read and write, they were employed
as teachers, and schools were established from place
to place, and from these centres a spirit of industry
and self-respect has diffused itself among the people
and supplanted in a great measure their previous
predisposition to idleness and self-neglect. In 1840,
seven years after Pietermaat gave the description
of these people mentioned above, the number of
Christians compared to that of heathen was as one
to sixteen, now it is about as two to five; and
exactly as this ratio continues to increase, in the
same degree will the prosperity of this land become
greater.
The rocks seen on this journey through the
Minahassa, as noted above, are trachytic lavas, volcanic
sand and ashes, pumice-stone, and conglomerates
composed of these materials and clay formed
by their decomposition. They all appear to be of
a late formation, and, as Dr. Bleeker remarks, the
Minahassa seems to be only a recent prolongation
of the older sedimentary rocks in the residency of
Gorontalo. In this small part of the peninsula,
there are no less than eleven volcanoes. North of
Menado is a chain of volcanic islands, which form a
prolongation of this peninsula. On the island Siao
there is an active volcano. North of it is the large
island of Sangir. According to Valentyn, the highest
mountain on the island underwent an eruption
in December, 1711. A great quantity of ashes and
lava was ejected, and the air was so heated for some
distance around, that many of the natives lost their
lives. North of the Sangir islands are the Talaut
group. These are the most northern islands under
the Dutch, and the boundary of their possessions in
this part of the archipelago.
5 The steamer Menado, on which I had previously
taken passage from Batavia all the way to Amboina,
now arrived at Kema. She had brought my collection
from Amboina, Buru, and Ternate, and I was
ready to return to Java, for some months had passed
since I accomplished the object of my journey to the
Spice Islands, and during that time I had traveUed
many hundred miles and had reached several regions
which I had not dared to expect to see, even when I
left Batavia. A whale-ship from New Bedford was
also in the road, and when I visited her and heard
every one, even the cabin-boy, speaking English, it
seemed almost as strange as it did to hear nothing
but Malay and Dutch when I first arrived in Java.
Many whales are usually found east of the Sangir
Islands, and north of Gilolo and New Guinea.
January 10th.—At noon steamed out of the bay
of Kema and down the eastern coast of Celebes for
Macassar. "When the sun was setting, we were just
off Tanjong Fiasco, which forms the northern limit
of the bay of Gorontalo or Tomini. As the sun
sank behind the end of this high promontory, its
jagged outline received a broad margin of gold.
Bands of strati stretched across the sky from north
to south and successively changed from gold to a
bright crimson, and then to a deep, dark red as the
sunlight faded. All this bright coloring of the sky
was repeated in the sea, and the air between them