276 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
ages have closely resembled it, the gulfs having only 
begun to be obliterated in the Tertiary period. It con¬ 
sists of a central mass, from which radiate four enormous 
arms forming three deep gulfs on the eastern side, while 
the western has a curved and nearly even coast-line. 
The northern peninsula sweeps north and east in a 
double curve for nearly 500 miles, having an average 
breadth of not more than 40 or 50 miles. The other 
peninsulas are shorter and a little wider, and the total 
area of the island is estimated at 68,200 square miles. 
Of this large island, upon which the Dutch have 
been settled for more than two centuries, very little is 
known. It is only at the extreme north and south 
points—in the Minahasa and Makassar districts—that 
any regular settlements have been formed and civilisation 
introduced. These are the great coffee districts. Else¬ 
where, for the most part, the country is a terra incognita, 
where the Dutch have not even native “ postholders.” 
Even the coast-line of the three gulfs is very little 
explored, and only roughly charted. All attempts, then, 
at estimating the population of the island cannot be other¬ 
wise than purely conjectural, although it is known to be 
scanty. It may roughly be placed at under a million. 
2. History. 
It is uncertain when Europeans first visited Celebes. 
It is stated that a few Portuguese found their way to 
Makassar shortly after the taking of Malacca, but in 
Ribero’s great map, published in Seville in 1529, no 
trace of the island is to be found, although Gilolo and 
the Moluccas are delineated. Rebello, writing forty 
years later, speaks of it in very vague terms as “ possess¬ 
ing many kings and cattle and buffaloes and goats,” and 
