•2i2 CELEBES. [chap xtu. 



iuid in fact from any other people lq the Archipelago, 

 Tliey are of a light-brown or yellow tint, often approach- 

 ing the fairness of a European; of a rather short stature, 

 titout and well-made; of an open and pleasing counte- 

 nance, more or less disfigured as age increases hy projecting 

 cheek-bones ; and with the usual long, straight, jet-black 

 hair of the Malayan races. In some of the inhintl villages 

 where they may be supposed to bo of the purest race, both 

 men and women are i-emarkably handsome ; while nearer 

 the coasts where the purity of their blood has been de- 

 stroyed by the intermixture of other races, they approach 

 to the ordinary types of the wild inhabitants of the sur- 

 r'Hiuding countries. 



in mental and moral characteristics they are also highly 

 pt^euliar. They are remarkably (^uiet and gentle in dispo- 

 sition, submissive the authority of those they consider 

 their superiors, and easily induced to learn and adopt the 

 habits of civilized people. They are clever mechanics, aod 

 seem capable of acquiring a considerable amount of intel- 

 lectual education. 



Up to a very recent period theKc people were thorough 

 savages, and there are pei-sotis uom^ living in Menado who 

 remember a state of things identical witli that described by 

 the writera of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

 The inhabitants of the several villager were distinct tribes, 

 each under its own chief, speaking languages unintelli- 

 gible to each other, and almost always at war. They built 

 t heir hon.ses elevated upoui lofty posts to defend themselves 

 from the attacks of their enemies. They wei-e head 

 liunters like the I*yaks of Borneo, and were said to be 

 sometimes cannibals. When a chief died^ his tomb was 

 adorned with two fresh human heads ; and if those of 

 enemies could not be obtained, slaves were kOled for the 

 occasion. Human skulls were the great ornaments of the 

 chiefs' iiouses. Strips of bark were their only dress, Tlie 

 country was a patliiess wilderness, with small cultivated 

 patches of rice and vegetables, or clumps of fruit-tree^, 

 diversilying 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 



