206 CELEBES. [chap. 



the entrance of the easternmost inlet. We were not disappointed 

 in onr expectations, for on entering we found ourselves in a 

 beautiful little bay affording perfect shelter from every wind. 

 East and west two secondary inlets stretched back, apparently free 

 from shoals, and choosing the latter of these we anchored in twenty- 

 five fathoms about four hundred yards from shore, the water of the 

 bay being as smooth as glass. It was by far the best anchorage 

 we had met with on the coast of Celebes. 



Around the bay steep hills rose picturesquely, from a thousand 

 to fifteen hundred feet in height, clothed in thick vegetation to 

 their summits. A belt of yellow sand bordered the forest, and 

 opposite our anchorage a httle patch of Nipa palms revealed the 

 presence of a stream of fresh water. Tracing this up w^e found a 

 narrow ravine down which the little rivulet leapt clear and 

 sparkling from rock to rock, half buried here and there in a 

 wealth of greenery. No trace of human habitation, past or 

 present, was to be seen. Seldom, even in these nature-favoured 

 islands, have I seen a more pleasant spot, and if any of us had a 

 desire for a Eobinson Crusoe life, it might doubtless have been 

 passed as comfortably here as on Juan Fernandez. There is some- 

 thing wonderfully fascinating about these places. London with 

 her crowds and misery ; the squalor and teeming population of the 

 vast cities of China, seem almost to belong to another planet. Yet 

 one thinks more about them under such circumstances perhaps than 

 one would elsewhere. Surely, so long as the world has places such 

 as these, where the foot of man has rarely trod, rich in soil and 

 natural products, waiting only for the cultivator to give birth to a 

 harvest, the want and misery that meet us at every step in the 

 crowded cities of Europe should not occur. Surely, if we wish to 

 relieve that want and misery, we can do so only by adjusting our 

 population. England has land enough and to spare in every 

 quarter of the globe waiting for willing hands to work it, yet it 

 seems as if we were ready to attempt any solution of the difficulty 

 rather than the only and most obvious one. 



