CH. vn TO SANGIB ASD TALAUT 185 



closed ■without reference to the burning questions of the 

 day in the little state of Manganitu. All these questions 

 I understood were discussed at the meeting of the rajahs 

 at Taruna, and this visit of the Eesident to Manganitu was 

 purely a formal one. 



Early the next morning we parted with our kind host 

 and rejoined the ' Ternate.' 



We reached Ulu in Siauw the same day, and I went 

 ashore to %isit the beautiful and famous spring at the head 

 of the village. 



In the early history of the Sangir islands Siauw played 

 a very important part. The rajahs of the island have been 

 for centuries extremely powerful, owning considerable pro- 

 'pertj in Great Sangir and drawing levies of warriors and 

 ships from the distant Talaut and Xanusa islands. In the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was the scene of several 

 conflicts between the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the native 

 rajahs. Soon after I landed I came across a large white stone 

 slab, bearing the mOnogram of the old Dutch East Indian 

 Company and a date which was only partially legible. The 

 figures 16 and half of the figure 8 were sufficient to indicate 

 that the year the stone commemorated was within the 

 1680-1690 decade, and ' D. i. Janev ' indicated that the 

 day was New Year's day. 



Siauw was made over to the Dutch by the king of 

 Ternate in 1677, and it is probable that this stone was 

 placed there by the officers of the Company to commemorate 

 the event a few years afterwards. 



Ulu was formerly the seat of a European missionary, 

 but for some years previous to my visit there had been no 

 European on the island, and the people had to a certain 

 extent degenerated in consequence. The vUlage, however, 

 looked tolerably clean and respectable, and the deUghtful 

 bathing-place at the springs shadowed by glorious forest 



