VIII.] VARIETY OF LANGUAGES IN MINAHASA. 175 



Should a Dutchman wish to plant coffee, he is permitted to do 

 so, the system being only a Government monopoly as far as the 

 natives are concerned. He is allowed to take up land at a rental 

 of one guilder per houw, and pays a head tax of a dollar on his 

 coolies. The wages of the latter are six guilders a month, and a 

 catty (1| lbs.) of rice per diem. Every adult male is, however, 

 compelled to give thirty-six days in the year to the service of the 

 Government, for road repair and work of a like nature, or else to 

 pro\dde a substitute. 



Mr. Van de Yen told us a curious fact about the Minahasa 

 coffee. There is an insect peculiar to the district — or at least not 

 found in Java — which eats its way into the bean. The berries 

 thus attacked are much esteemed for their flavour, and are picked 

 separately and sold at a high price. We were unable to procure 

 a specimen of this grub. Still more curious is a similar fact 

 occurring in some parts of Java, for the authenticity of which the 

 Kontroleur vouched. A " species of wild cat " (probably Vivcrra 

 tangalunrja) is said to eat the berry for the sake of its fleshy peri- 

 carp. The bean remains undigested, and is gathered as a great 

 delicacy. 



That the languages of the ]\Ialay Archipelago are innumerable 

 can nowhere be better realised than in the north of Celebes. Here, 

 ill a small tract of country sixty miles by twenty, more than a 

 dozen are spoken. Some of these may perhaps be more or less 

 dialectic, but the majority are said to be quite distinct, and the 

 people of the different tribes cannot make themselves understood 

 except through the medium of INIalay, although, perhaps, their 

 \dllages may be within three miles of one another. Lying as it does 

 in such a central position in the archipelago, Celebes appears to 

 have drawn its languages from several sources : from the Philippines, 

 from the Malay Islands to the west and south, from the Papuan 

 region, and, possibly, from some of the islands of North Polynesia.^ 

 But whatever may have been their origin, there is no doubt that at 



1 Wallace, "The Malay Archipelago," Seventh Edition, pp. 262 and 605. 



