Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XVII
Celebes
(
MENADO. JUNE TO SEPTEMBER
, 1859.)
It was after my residence at Timor-Coupang that I visited the north-eastern extremity of
Celebes, touching on my way at Banda, Amboyna, and Ternate. I reached Menado on the
10th of June, 1859, and was very kindly received by Mr. Tower, an Englishman, but a very
old resident in Menado, where he carries on a general business. He introduced me to Mr. L.
Duivenboden (whose father had been my friend at Ternate), who had much taste for natural
history; and to Mr. Neys, a native of Menado, but who was educated at Calcutta, and to
whom Dutch, English, and Malay were equally mother-tongues. All these gentlemen showed
me the greatest kindness, accompanied me in my earliest walks about the country, and assis-
ted me by every means in their power. I spent a week in the town very pleasantly, making ex-
plorations and inquiries after a good collecting station, which I had much difficulty in find-
ing, owing to the wide cultivation of coffee and cacao, which has led to the clearing away of
the forests for many miles round the town, and over extensive districts far into the interior.
The little town of Menado is one of the prettiest in the East. It has the appearance of a large
garden containing rows of rustic villas, with broad paths between, forming streets generally
at right angles with each other. Good roads branch off in several directions towards the interi-
or, with a succession of pretty cottages, neat gardens, and thriving plantations, interspersed
with wildernesses of fruit trees. To the west and south the country is mountainous, with
groups of fine volcanic peaks 6,000 or 7,000 feet high, forming grand and picturesque back-
grounds to the landscape.
The inhabitants of Minahasa (as this part of Celebes is called) differ much from those of all
the rest of the island, and in fact from any other people in the Archipelago. They are of a
light-brown or yellow tint, often approaching the fairness of a European; of a rather short
stature, stout and well-made; of an open and pleasing countenance, more or less disfigured as
age increases by projecting cheek-bones; and with the usual long, straight, jet-black hair of
