Introduction: Seasons and Winds 
25 
on Dr. van der Stok’s monthly charts^). The fine season over most of the is- 
land is during the S.E. Monsoon between April and the beginning of November, 
the rainy season from November till March, when North-west or North winds 
are predominant. To this rule there are many exceptions, sometimes due to 
location, sometimes to shelter from the high mountains. 
Touching the Minahassa, Graafland writes (De Minahassa 1867 I, 1): 
“The changing of the Monsoons here takes place almost imperceptibly. One 
passes over from the East to the West Monsoon without noticing it otherwise 
than by the more or less plentiful showers and thunderstorms; and even this 
is not regular. There are years in which the West Monsoon brings so little rain 
that poor rice-harvests are the sensible result, while there are again other years 
when too much rain causes the rotting of the crop. The West or rainy season 
is calculated to be from the middle of October to the middle of April, but 
this is not at all certain”. Dr. Eiedel writes (in lit.) that during the N.W. 
Monsoon the sea is rough on the north coast of the Peninsula, which faces the 
wind, while on the south coast the wind is less heavy and blows out to sea. 
The plantations are harvested everywhere at the same time, and the rice is 
sown in October — November. There is, however, as Dr. van der Stok’s tables 
show, a marked difi’erence in rainfall between the north and south coasts of 
the Peninsula; when the N.W. Monsoon is blowing^) Manado, and Kwandang on 
the north receive two or three times as much rain as Kema and Gorontalo 
some 20 miles distant on the south. The interior of the country is mountainous, 
and, as is clear from Dr. de Hollander’s remarks on Java, the N.W. Monsoon 
is a superficial, somewhat shallow wind, and it is doubtless held hack and de- 
prived of its moisture to a great extent by the hills. During the N.W. Monsoon 
the shipping is carried on at- Kema, while during the S.E. Monsoon everything in 
this way is done at the more important settlement of Manado. Meyer arrived 
at Manado in November, 1870, having been misinformed by Mr. Wallace that 
October is the beginning of the fine season for this region. Travellers should 
go there in April and the following months, though on the south coast of the 
Minahassa, at Kema for instance, the weather is much better and even fine 
in the rainy season. September is the driest month of the year. 
The western portion of ’the N. Peninsula seems to be exposed at most 
times of the year to N. and N.W. and S.W. winds blowing out of the Celebes 
Sea, and Tontoli at the N.W. angle of the Peninsula cannot be said to have 
a rainy season, but has a tolerably equal rainfall throughout the year. 
The following tables, extracted from the “Regenwaarnemingen in Neder- 
landsch-Indie”, 1895, show the differences in rainfall and rainy days at different 
places in the N. Peninsula: 
1) See; van der Stok: Wind and Weather, Currents, Tides and Tidal Streams in the East Indian 
Archipelago (Batavia, 1897. Broad folio). 
2) The “Directory for the Indian Archipelago” 1870 p. 22, states that on that part of the island situated N. 
of the equator the N.E. Monsoon in October replaces the S.W., wrongly adding that it makes the fine season. 
Meyer & Wiglesworth, Birds of Celebes (May 4th, 1898). 
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