viil] TOMOHON. 171 



early morning air almost too cold to be pleasant, and though the 

 thermometer could not have been much, if at all, below 7*0° Fahr. 

 we were glad of a thick blanket. We bade our kind host and 

 hostess adieu after a cup of excellent coffee, and continued our 

 journey. Nothing can be more absolutely neat and clean than 

 these Minahasa villages. Indeed their perfection of tidiness would 

 be almost irritating were it not for the beauty of the flowers and 

 the tropical vegetation. The roads are ditched on either side, and 

 beyond are the bamboo fences of the gardens, all aligned with the 

 greatest care and regularity. Above them, topped down with 

 whimsical preciseness to the same level, rise the hedges of coleus 

 or holly-hock, according to the fancy of the cottager. Here and 

 there the hedge is of climbing roses, but these are evidently con- 

 sidered too untidy to be adopted by the well-regulated majority. 

 As I picked a bud, and looked over into one of the gardens, which 

 seemed as carefully tended as that of a suburban villa, I felt it 

 hard to realise the fact that the owner was what an Englishman, 

 in the expressive language of his country, would term a nigger. 



Just beyond the village of Tomohon the ground is swampy, and 

 is given up to tlie cultivation of the Sagueir palm. To the wine 

 obtained by the fermentation of its juice I have alluded on a previous 

 page, but it is also largely used for making sugar. This tree 

 when young has a leaf- sheathed trunk of tolerable height, but 

 when full grown the stem is straight and smooth at the base. 

 Another palm, apparently a species of Borassus, was also growing 

 in some abundance. About a mile farther on our road we came 

 upon the first regular coffee-plantations we had seen in the hills. 

 The trees were from twelve to twenty feet high, planted very 

 closely together beneath a thin shade of tall, bare-stemmed forest- 

 trees. There was an abundance of berries, many of which were 

 turning red. The ground beneath was carefully cleared, but the 

 trees themselves were in most instances covered with moss and 

 small ferns. In other plantations we found a much better cultiva- 

 tion, the trees well pruned and planted at wider intervals. They 



