162 CELEBES. [chap. 



for which Maros is famous, lie a considerable distance beyond the 

 village, and the path thither leads over a vast plain stretching 

 from the sea to the base of the limestone cliffs, which rise 

 with extraordinary abruptness from the level rice-fields. A 

 depression of a few feet only would submerge a vast area of 

 land, and brmg the sea to the foot of these almost vertical walls, 

 and in past ages such a condition no doubt actually existed. 

 Curious outlying rocks — islands indeed they might be called — 

 guard the entrance of the gorge from which the river debouches, 

 and near one of these we were shown the site of a battlefield 

 where the British forces encountered the natives at the beuinnino- 

 of the present century,^ 



I have seldom seen quainter scenery in the tropics than that 

 within the gorge. The perpendicular sides close in very rapidly 

 after passing the entrance, and become in some places overhanging, 

 with curious protuberant stalagmites of huge size. The level 

 bottom of the valley, clothed at first with bush and small trees, 

 soon becomes narrow and uneven, hardly admitting of a path beside 

 the little river. It is closed in by a fall of about fifty feet in 

 height, the water of which slides gracefully over a half dome of 

 smooth basaltic rock, which here, as Mr. Wallace has remarked," 

 underlies the limestone formation. Scrambling up by the side of the 

 waterfall, an upper gorge is reached, the scenery of which is very 

 pretty. The placid little stream of milky blue water flows between 

 an avenue formed by perpendicular bush-covered cliffs, and half a 

 mile beyond there is a second fall, in the basin of which we had a 

 most refreshing bathe. Still farther the gorge contracts almost to a 

 fissure, with walls of great height. 



The house in which Mr. Wallace had taken up his quarters five 

 and twenty years before still stood at the mouth of the valley, 

 although uninhabited and much out of repair. In these countries, 



^ The Dutch colonies, like the mother country, became absorbed in the French 

 Empire, and the French Governor-general of Java having capitulated to the British 

 in 1811, Celebes was also occupied. It was restored to the Dutch in 1816. 



- " Malay Archipelago, " Seventh Edition, p. 238. 



