It will be seen that the temperature is not excessive, and that the distribution of the rainfall is favourable to agriculture and planting. The force of the monsoon is much spent when it arrives on the coast of Paragua, and the typhoons only touch the northern extremity of the island.
Volcanic phenomena are unknown, and there is no record of earthquakes.
From the lay of the island there is always one coast with calm water, whichever way the monsoon is blowing.
The troops and civil population of Puerto Princesa suffer to some extent from intermittent fevers; but the reports of the military, naval, and civil infirmaries, state that the disease is not very severe, and that it yields to treatment, and this assertion is confirmed by the reports of the French travellers, Drs. Montano and Rey and M. Alfred Marche.
The northern part of the island has been colonised from the other Philippines, and the Christian inhabitants number about 10,000 distributed amongst several small villages. The southern coasts are occupied by Mahometan Malays, who number about 6000, and the rest of this large island, except Puerta Princesa, is only populated by savages, the principal tribes being the—
| Tagbuanas, estimated to number | 6,000 |
| Tandulanos, estimated to number | 1,500 |
| Negritos, estimated to number | 500 |
| Manguianes, estimated to number | 4,000 |
| —— | |
| 12,000 |
This gives a grand total of 28,000 inhabitants, or 5.6 to the square mile. In the island of Luzon, in which extensive districts are uncultivated and unexplored, the mean density of the population in 1875, was 76.5 per square mile, and in the provinces of Batangan and Pasgasinan, which are, perhaps, the best cultivated, the density was 272 inhabitants to the square mile.
The fauna has been studied to some extent, a French collector having resided for a considerable period on the island. It comprises monkeys, pigs, civets, porcupines, flying squirrels, pheasants, and a small leopard, this latter not found in any other of the Philippines, and showing a connection with Borneo.
The island is covered with dense forests, which have been little explored.
The Inspeccion de Montes (Department of Woods and Forests) gives a list of 104 different kinds of forest-trees known to be growing there, and states that ebony abounds there more than in any other province of the Philippines. According to Wallace, the camphor-tree is found in the island.