CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 209 



would be either neglected or extremely costly to maintain. 

 The heerendienst is, then, the only system by which the 

 roads can be kept in a proper state of repair without over- 

 burdening the exchequer or increasing the taxation of the 

 people beyond their capabilities. If it is true that some of 

 the Dutch officials have occasionally used the heerendienst 

 for their own personal service, it is the abuse of the system 

 we should deprecate, not the system itself. 



Turning our attention for a moment from the land com- 

 munications to the sea, it seems strange that the government 

 of a nation such as the Dutch, famous for many centuries 

 for their nautical genius and their marine enterprises, should 

 have paid so little attention to the necessities of Manado as 

 a port. 



It is true that the bay is and always must be an ex- 

 ceedingly unfavourable one for the locality of a great port, 

 owing to the very limited and difficult anchorage it affords, 

 and any considerable quay works would be extremely costly. 

 But it is quite possible, at comparatively small expense, to 

 remedy two very great disadvantages from which Manado 

 suffers. The first of these is that none of the lights of the 

 town are visible from the sea. On several occasions I have 

 arrived at Manado by sea after dark, and on each occasion 



.- -. .^ 1 -„i ■•• .-...: ! g^j^y gQj^ Qj. description was to 



close to the shore. No wonder, 

 ihen, tnai the steamers which visit Manado often waste 

 hours in the bay waiting for the dayhght to show them the 

 way to their anchorage. If two lights were fixed, one at 

 the river-mouth and the other in the Negori baru, they 

 would be of great service to steamers approaching Manado 

 by night, as they would indicate to the captains at least the 

 locality of the roads. Of very great service too to mariners, 

 especially to the masters of sailing vessels, would be a few 

 firmly fixed buoys in the roads. 



