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They contain a Celebes-Malay element and a Papuan element, along with some radical peculiarities found also in the languages of the Siau and Sanguir islands further north, and therefore, probably derived from the Philippine Islands. Physical characteristics correspond.
We afterwards called on an English merchant long settled here, who assured us that the people would be well cared for and sent back should they wish it to Sanguir, when information could be received that the volcano was once more at rest. The chief production of the district is coffee, of which we shipped a considerable quantity as freight.
It was night, we were steering to the eastward but intended soon to put about, expecting on the next tack to reach Menado, when just at daybreak we found that we were close to an island with a lofty conical peak and lower ground to the southward of it. The chart showed us that it was the island of Sanguir. A current must have set us towards it, for we supposed that we were some distance off.
The captain's great object now was to get a good offing from Sanguir. He did not intend to bear up for Menado until daylight. It was important that we should reach it without delay to land our passengers, as they would soon exhaust our water and provisions. We did our best to attend to the poor people, but they would not be comforted.
The scenery was truly magnificent, but as we thought of the eruption of Sanguir, we saw in what a moment the whole town and neighbourhood might be reduced to desolation should an eruption burst forth from the mountains which rose so grandly above our heads. We remained here four days, during which an earthquake an event of frequent occurrence took place.
Ned, who had been one of the crew, as soon as the sails were set, came up to me. "I've just heard something, sir, which may or may not be of importance," he said. "I was talking to one of the men we brought off from Sanguir, when he confessed to me that he had been on board the prahu which took me off the shore where we were wrecked.
Here there is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt begins again in North Celebes, and passes by Sian and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their northern extremity.
Wherever we touched we made inquiries about the "Amphion," but as yet we had only the information gained through Ned from the Sanguir Malay to guide us. She might have been lost at Gillolo itself, and yet the Dutch might not have heard of it, as but very irregular intercourse is kept up between the different parts of that little known island.
In Sanguir, an island north of Celebes, is a volcanic mountain from which there was a destructive eruption in 1856. The country was devastated with lava, stones and volcanic ashes, ruining a wide district and killing nearly 3,000 of the inhabitants. Mount Madrian in one of the Spice Islands, was rent in twain by a fierce eruption in 1646, and since then has remained two distinct mountains.
The people of Siau and Sanguir much resemble these, and I believe them to be perhaps immigrants from some of the islands of North Polynesia. The Papuan type will represent the remnant of the aborigines, while those of the Bugis character show the extension northward of the superior Malay races.
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