Waterfall at Tondano. 259 



several times a day for a week, showing that there was some 

 very extensive disturbance beneath our portion of the earth's 

 crust. How vast the forces at work really are can only be 

 l^roperly appreciated when, after feeling their effects, we look 

 abroad over the wide expanse of hill and valley, plain and 

 mountain, and thus realize in a slight degree the immense 

 mass of matter heaved and shaken. The sensation produced 

 by an earthquake is never to be forgotten. We feel ourselves 

 in the grasp of a jjower to which the wildest fury of the winds 

 and waves are as nothing ; yet the effect is more a thrill of 

 awe than the terror which the more boisterous war of the ele- 

 ments produces. There is a mystery and an uncertainty as 

 to the amount of danger we incur, which gives greater play to 

 the imagination, and to the influences of hope and fear. These 

 remarks apply only to a moderate earthquake. A severe one 

 is the most destructive and the most horrible catastrophe to 

 which human beings can be exposed. 



A few days after the earthquake I took a walk to Tondano, 

 a large village of about 7000 inhabitants, situated at the lower 

 end of the lake of the same name. I dined with the control- 

 leur, Mr. Beusneider, who had been my guide to Tomohon. 

 He had a fine large house, in which he often received vistors ; 

 and his garden was the best for flowers which I had seen in 

 the tropics, although there was no great variety. It was he 

 who introduced the rose hedges which give such a charming 

 appearance to the villages, and to him is chiefly due the gen- 

 eral neatness and good order that everywhere prevail. I con- 

 sulted him about a fi-esh locality, as. I found Rurlikan too much 

 in the clouds, dreadfully damp and gloomy, and with a gener- 

 al stagnation of bird and insect life. He recommended me a 

 village some distance beyond the lake, near which was a large 

 forest, where he thought I should find plenty of birds. As he 

 was going himself in a few days, I decided to accompany him. 



After dinner I asked him for a guide to the celebrated 

 waterfall on the outlet stream of the lake. It is situated about 

 a mile and a half below the village, where a slight rising 

 ground closes in the basin, and evidently once formed the 

 shore of the lake. Here the river enters a gorge, very narrow 

 and tortuous, along which it rushes furiously for a short dis- 

 tance and then plunges into a great chasm, forming the head 



