chap, xvii.] NATIVES OF MINAHASA. 381 



patches of rice and vegetables, or clumps of fruit-trees, 

 diversifying the otherwise unbroken forest. Their religion 

 was that naturally engendered in the undeveloped human 

 mind by the contemplation of grand natural phenomena 

 and the luxuriance, of tropical nature. The burning 

 mountain, the torrent and the lake, were the abode of their 

 deities ; and certain trees and birds were supposed to have 

 especial influence over men's actions and destiny. They 

 held wild and exciting festivals to propitiate these deities 

 or demons ; and believed that men could be changed by 

 them into animals, either during life or after death. 



Here we have a picture of true savage life ; of small 

 isolated communities at war with all around them, subject 

 to the wants and miseries of such a condition, drawing a 

 precarious existence from the luxuriant soil, and living on 

 from generation to generation, with no desire for physical 

 amelioration, and no prospect of moral advancement. 



Such was their condition down to the year 1822, when 

 the coffee-plant was first introduced, and experiments were 

 made as to its cultivation. It was found to succeed ad- 

 mirably at from fifteen hundred up to four thousand feet 

 above the sea. The chiefs of villages were induced to 

 undertake its cultivation. Seed and native instructors 

 were sent from Java ; food was supplied to the labourers 

 engaged in clearing and planting ; a fixed price was esta- 

 blished at which all coffee brought to the government col- 



