At a short distance from the town was a Government Sugar Plantation, which I visited. If sugar planting could flourish anywhere, it surely should have done so here, for the land cost nothing, the convicts did all the unskilled labour and the machinery was paid for by the Government. Yet the blighting influence of the official mind succeeded even here in causing the place to be run at a loss. The sugar badly prepared was shipped to Manila to be sold at a reduced price, and sugar for the troops and general use was imported from other parts.
The governor of the island, during the later period of Spanish rule, has usually been a naval officer, and as the communications are principally by sea, and any punitive operations have to be performed by the gun-boat flotilla, this would seem to be a precedent the United States might follow with advantage.
Tagbanúa Alphabet.
Communicated to F. H. Sawyer by Fray Lorenzo Zapater, Missionary at Inagáhuan, Palawan.
| Q q | Ng ng | ||
| P p | uo | ||
| O or U o or u | G g | ||
| E or I e or i | N n | ||
| D d | M m | ||
| C c | T t | ||
| B b | S s | ||
| A a | L or R l or r |
Vowels.
| a |
| ia |
| o |
| ua |
| e i |
N.B.—The Roman letters are to be pronounced as in Spanish and the Tagbanúa correspondingly, Ah, bay, say, day, aye or ee, o or oo, pay, ku, etc.