ot increase as it ought to do. I can
only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality, produced by neglect
while the mothers are working in the plantations, and by general
ignorance of the conditions of health in infants. Women all work, as
they have always been accustomed to do. It is no hardship to them, but
I believe is often a pleasure and relaxation. They either take their
infants with them, in which case they leave them in some shady spot on
the ground, going at intervals to give them nourishment, or they leave
them at home in the care of other children too young to work. Under
neither of these circumstances can infants be properly attended to, and
great mortality is the result, keeping the increase of population far
below the rate which the general prosperity of the country and the
universality of marriage would lead us to expect. This is a matter in
which the Government is directly interested, since it is by the increase
of the population alone that there can be any large and permanent
increase in the production of coffee. The Missionaries should take up
the question because, by inducing married women to confine themselves to
domestic duties, they will decidedly promote a higher civilization, and
directly increase the health and happiness of the whole community. The
people are so docile and so willing to adopt the manners and customs of
Europeans, that the change might be easily effected by merely showing
them that it was a question of morality and civilization, and an
essential step in their progress towards an equality with their white
rulers.

After a fortnight's stay at Rurukan, I left that pretty and interesting
village in search of a locality and climate more productive of birds and
insects. I passed the evening with the Controlleur of Tondano, and the
next morning at nine, left in a small boat for the head of the lake, a
distance of about ten miles. The lower end of the lake is bordered by
swamps and marshes of considerable extent, but a little further on, the
hills come down to the water's edge and give it very much the appearance
of a greet river, the width being about two miles. At the upper end is
the village of Kakas, where I dined with the head man in a good house
like those I have already described; and then went on to Langowan, four
miles distant over a level plain. This was the place where I had been
recommended to stay, and I accordingly unpacked my baggage and made
myself comfortable in the larg