1846.] ABUNDANCE OF STOCK. 99 



at three miles, and that used for pasturage on the cleared 

 hills about the same distance, making a line of country 

 twenty miles in length, and six in depth, as solely de- 

 pendent on the town of Samboanga. Throughout this 

 extent, streams of excellent water pervade, forming on an 

 average about one for each mile. The land in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the town is laid out in gardens and fields, 

 producing all the fruits and vegetables generally found 

 in these regions. Stock of all kinds exists in abundance, 

 but I am sorry to say that the scale of prices is very 

 exorbitant, particularly for bullocks and vegetables. 

 Washing is enormously expensive, and infamously exe- 

 cuted, worse than that generally performed by seamen. 

 As the colony is under surveillance, and one person alone 

 authorized to deal with strangers, this cannot create sur- 

 prise, but as this individual chose to give himself more 

 airs than became him, and capriciously impeded our 

 supplies of bullocks, I was compelled to turn him over to 

 the mercy of the higher authorities, who would not coun- 

 tenance his insolence to military authority. This conduct 

 caused a considerable reduction in his profits, and will, 

 probably, produce a stricter look out upon his proceedings 

 with future visitors. 



Our operations in this region were more particularly 

 directed to the completion of the shoals extending from 

 the Santa Cruz islands, situated about two miles imme- 

 diately to the southward of the town, and from which, 

 westerly and southerly, a very extensive bank of coral 

 projects, rendering the navigation of this channel dan- 

 gerous to strangers, but more particularly on its southern 

 side, or from a position due west from the western Santa 



H2 



