Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

Sunday, December 31st.—At 8 A. M. attended the native church, where the missionary preaches. It was well filled, and the attention manifested by all was highly commendable. At the close of the service four or five couples were married; the pastor, after performing the ceremony, explaining to the husbands that they must support their wives, and not, like the Alfura, who are heathens, live in idleness, and expect their wives to support them. A controleur, who had been stationed in the interior, back of Gorontalo, now arrived at Langowan, on his way to Kema, having been transferred, at his request, to Sumatra. We should therefore be companions on the steamer all the way to Java, which was especially agreeable to me, as he spoke English well, and no one not born in Holland can ever learn to pronounce the harsh gutturals of the Dutch language with perfect ease and accuracy. From Langowan 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 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 unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon;

At 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 fall 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 in 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, and that I could not expect to reach the bottom with that, for all the fishermen who live on its shores declare that it “has no bottom,” that is, is unfathomable. It would be something to know that it was more than twelve hundred feet deep—so a coolie was ordered to carry the line. From Kakas we rowed over a short distance toward the high shore opposite, that being said to be one of the immeasurable places. A heavy sinker was put on, and the whole line cleared, so that it would run out freely to the last foot. I gave the man at the bow the command, and the cord began to rattle over the boat’s side, when suddenly it stopped short. “Is the sinker off?” “No, it’s on the bottom.” “How many fathoms are out.” “Eleven fathoms and five feet.” After this we sounded eight times, and the deepest water, which was near the middle, between the two high capes, is only twelve fathoms and two feet. The water not only proved shallow, but the bottom was found to be as even as the lowland at the northern and southern ends of the lake. The basin is therefore only a slight depression in the lower part of the plateau. The only fishes known in this lake are the same three species already mentioned as existing in the sulphurous waters of Lake Linu. Reaching the large village of Tondano, at the northern end of the lake, I was kindly received by the controleur, who had accompanied me already from Tomohon to Sonder. A heavy rain set in, and I was obliged to defer the rest of my journey till the next day.

January 2d.—The thick rain-clouds of yesterday broke away this morning as the sun rose, and the sky is now perfectly clear. The controleur provided me with a horse, and a hukom tua accompanied me as a guide. Our course was nearly west, and soon the road became very steep, and extremely slippery from the late rain. As we rose, the view over the plateau beneath us widened, until we wound round the mountain to the little village of Rurukan, the highest négri in this land. The head of this village guided us to the top of a neighboring peak, where I found a large part of the Minahassa spread out before me like a great map. From the point where I stood, there stretched to the south a high mountain-chain, forming the western border of the lake of Tondano. A little more to the east were seen the lake far below, and the level land along a part of its shores, while on the opposite side of the lake rose the mountains that form the other end of the chain on which I was standing. This chain curves like a horseshoe, the open part being turned toward the north. At the same point where all the details of this plateau were comprised in a single view, by turning a little toward the north, I could look down the outer flanks of this elevated region away to the low, distant ocean-shore, where the blue sea was breaking into white, sparkling surf. A little farther toward the north rose the lofty peak of Mount Klabat, covered with a thick mantle of fleecy clouds, which had a hue of ermine in the bright light. This mantle was slowly raised and lowered by the invisible hand of the strong west wind. Beneath it, low on the sides of the mountain, was seen a line of trees marking the shady way I had taken from Kema to Menado. This is considered, and I believe rightly, the finest view in the archipelago, and one of the most charming in the world, because the other famous views, like that of Damascus, do not include that great emblem of infinity, the open ocean.