the work of ten centuries into one; but at all events it takes nature as a guide, and
is therefore, more deserving of success, and more likely to succeed, than ours.
There is one point connected with this question which I think the Missionaries
might take up with great physical and moral results. In this beautiful and healthy
country, and with abundance of food and necessaries, the population does not
increase as it ought to do. I can only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality,
produced by neglect while the mothers are working in the plantations, and by
general ignorance of the conditions of health in infants. Women all work, as they
have always been accustomed to do. It is no hardship to them, but I believe is
often a pleasure and relaxation. They either take their infants with them, in
which case they leave them in some shady spot on the ground, going at intervals
to give them nourishment, or they leave them at home in the care of other
children too young to work. Under neither of these circumstances can infants be
properly attended to, and great mortality is the result, keeping the increase of
population far below the rate which the general prosperity of the country and the
universality of marriage would lead us to expect. This is a matter in which the
Government is directly interested, since it is by the increase of the population
alone that there can be any large and permanent increase in the production of
coffee. The Missionaries should take up the question because, by inducing
married women to confine themselves to domestic duties, they will decidedly
promote a higher civilization, and directly increase the health and happiness of
the whole community. The people are so docile and so willing to adopt the
manners and customs of Europeans, that the change might be easily effected by
merely showing them that it was a question of morality and civilization, and an
essential step in their progress towards an equality with their white rulers.
After a fortnight's stay at Rurúkan, I left that pretty and interesting village in
search of a locality and climate more productive of birds and insects. I passed
the evening with the Controlleur of Tondano, and the next morning at nine, left
in a small boat for the head of the lake, a distance of about ten miles. The lower
end of the lake is bordered by swamps and marshes of considerable extent, but a
little further on, the hills come down to the water's edge and give it very much
the appearance of a greet river, the width being about two miles. At the upper
end is the village of Kakas, where I dined with the head man in a good house
like those I have already described; and then went on to Langówan, four miles
distant over a level plain. This was the place where I had been recommended to
stay, and I accordingly unpacked my baggage and made myself comfortable in
the large house devoted to visitors. I obtained a man to shoot for me, and another
to accompany me the next day to the forest, where I was in hopes of finding a