t-cloth, the bright touch of colour emphasising
the deep bronze of their slight but athletic forms. The people of the
Minahasa, Christianised after the Calvinistic methods of Dutch and
German missionaries a century ago, have always been specially favoured
by the Government of Holland, and large sums are annually expended in
improving the status of this distant colony. The making of roads, the
building of schools and churches, and the improvement of social
conditions, are liberally catered for, not only for the advantage of
the Minahasa, but that no excuse may exist for any rebellion against
such paternal rule. Tribal insurrections continually recur in the great
Archipelago, where a storm in a teacup often swells into dangerous
proportions, and the peaceful adherence of the Minahasa to the powers
that be becomes an important factor in turbulent Celebes. The race, so
strangely amalgamated with alien interests, shows the apathy of a
temperament incapable of developement on foreign lines, though unable
to resist the pressure imposed upon it. The pretty _campong_ seems
silent as the grave. No native _warongs_, or restaurants, enliven the
straight roads with their merry crowds or cheerful gossip, and sellers
of food and drink, whose cries echo through the streets of Makassar,
are unknown in this northern port, where even the arrival of the
fortnightly steamer fails to excite much interest in the public mind.

A rash determination to drive across the Minahasa, and pick up the boat
at Menado, involves unimagined difficulties. Heavy waggons drawn by
brown _sappies_ (_i.e._, bullocks), which travel at the rate of two
miles an hour, suffice for native use in remote Amoerang, but at length
a dilapidated gig, with two sorry steeds harnessed in tandem fashion by
sundry bits of old rope, is produced. Having frequently experienced the
pace accomplished by many a Timor pony of emaciated and dejected
aspect, faith accepts even this unpromising team for the long drive of
thirty miles. Quaint _campongs_, with bamboo fences and curiously
arched gateways, flank the woodland road. Each little garden flames
with red poinsettia, purple convolvulus, and yellow daisies. The
latticed screens pushed back from open verandahs, show Japanese-looking
rooms, furnished with the European lamps, chairs, and tables, exported
by thousands to the Minahasa, but the same atmosphere of stagnation
broods over these quiet villages, and even the children, returning