Amongst other works, I remember that he had tried to cut a canal from the River Vicol to the Bay of Ragay. He had excavated a portion of it, but either on his death, or from the difficulties raised by the Public Works Department, the work was abandoned.
The Franciscan friars, who held the benefices in that province, opposed him, and annoyed him in every possible way.
The present bishop, Father Arsenio Ocampo, formerly an Augustinian monk, is a clever and enlightened man, with whom I had dealings when he was Procurator-General of his Order.
I have made this digression from my subject, because so much has been said against the clergy of the Philippines, that I feel impelled to bring before my readers this instance of a bishop who constantly endeavoured to promote the interests of his province.
Nueva Cáceres possessed several schools, a hospital, a lepers’ hospital, and a training-college for school-mistresses had just been established by Bishop Gainza’s initiative.
The shops were mostly in the hands of Chinese, who did a flourishing trade in Manchester goods, patadoins, and coloured handkerchiefs.
There were several Spanish and Mestizo merchants who dealt in hemp and rice.
From Nueva Cáceres I travelled by a good road to Iriga, a town near the volcano of that name, passing close to the Isarog on my way. From Iriga I visited the country round about, and Lake Bula.
Some years after I went from Manila by sea to Tabaco, on the Pacific coast of Albay, getting a fine night view of the Mayon volcano (8272 feet) in violent eruption.
From Tabaco I drove to Tivi and visited the celebrated boiling-well and hot-springs at that place, much frequented by the natives, and sometimes by Europeans, for the cure of rheumatism and other diseases.