At daybreak we reached the bar of Daet, and, after two hours’ travelling, the similarly named chief city of the province of North Camarines, where we found an excellent reception at the house of the alcalde, a polished Navarrese; marred only by the tame monkey, who should have welcomed the guests of his master, turning his back towards them with studiously discourteous gestures, and going towards the door. However, upon the majordomo placing a spirit flask preserving a small harmless snake on the threshold, the monkey sprang quickly back and concealed himself, trembling, behind his master. A danceless ball.In the evening there was a ball, but there were no dancers present. Some Filipinas, who had been invited, sat bashfully at one end of the apartment and danced with one another when called upon, without being noticed by the Spaniards, who conversed together at the other end.
Spanish prejudice against bathing.Our departure hence was delayed by festivities and sudden showers for about two days, after which the spirited horses of the alcalde carried us within an hour on a level road north-west, to Talisáy, and in another hour to Indang, where a bath and breakfast were ready. Up to this time I had never seen a bath-room in the house of a Spaniard; whereas with the Northern Europeans it is never wanting. The Spaniards appear to regard the bath as a species of medicine, to be used only with caution; many, even to the present day, look upon it as an institution not quite Christian. At the time of the Inquisition frequent bathing, it is known, was a characteristic of the Moors, and certainly was not wholly free from danger. In Manila, only those who live near the Pasig are the exceptions to the rule; and there the good or bad practice prevails of whole families bathing, in the company of their friends, in the open air.
An unfortified fort.The road ends at Indáng. In two boats we went down the river till stopped by a bar, and there at a well-supplied table prepared for us by the kindness of the alcalde we awaited the horses which were being brought thither along a bad road by our servants. In the waste of Barre a tower, surrounded by two or three fishermen’s huts and as many camarines, has been erected against the Moros, who, untempted by the same, seldom go so far westward, for it consists only of an open hut covered with palm-leaves—a kind of parasol—supported on stakes as thick as one’s arm and fifteen feet high; and the two cannons belonging to it ought, for security, to be buried. We followed the sea-shore, which is composed of silicious sand, and covered with a carpet of creeping shore plants in full bloom. On the edge of the wood, to the left, were many flowering shrubs and pandanus with large scarlet-red flowers. After an hour we crossed the river Longos in a ferry, and soon came to the spur of a crystalline chain of mountains, which barred our road and extended itself into the sea as Point Longos. The horses climbed it with difficulty, and we found the stream on the other side already risen so high that we rode knee-deep in the water. After sunset we crossed singly, with great loss of time, in a miserable ferry-boat, over the broad mouth of the Pulundaga, where a pleasant road through a forest led us, in fifteen minutes, over the mountain-spur, Malanguit, which again projected itself right across our path into the sea, to the mouth of the Paracale. The long bridge here was so rotten that we were obliged to lead the horses over at wide intervals apart; and on the further side lies the place called Paracale, from which my companions continued their journey across Mauban to Manila.
Red lead.Paracale and Mambulao are two localities well known to all mineralogists, from the red lead ore occurring there. On the following morning I returned to Longos; which consists of only a few miserable huts inhabited by gold-washers, who go about almost naked, probably because they are laboring during the greater part of the day in the water; but they are also very poor.
Gold mining.The soil is composed of rubbish, decomposed fragments of crystalline rock, rich in broken pieces of quartz. The workmen make holes in the ground two and one-half feet long, two and one-half broad, and to thirty feet deep. At three feet below the surface the rock is generally found to contain gold, the value increasing down to eighteen feet of depth, and then again diminishing, though these proportions are very uncertain, and there is much fruitless search. The rock is carried out of the holes in baskets, on ladders of bamboo, and the water in small pails; but in the rainy season the holes cannot possibly be kept free from water, as they are situated on the slope of the mountain, and are filled quicker than they can be emptied. The want of apparatus for discharging water also accounts for the fact that the pits are not dug deeper.
A primitive rock breaker.The breaking of the auriferous rock is effected with two stones; of which one serves as anvil, and the other as hammer. The former, which is slightly hollowed in the center, is laid flat upon the ground; and the latter, four by eight by eight inches in dimensions, and therefore of about twenty-five pounds weight, is made fast with rattan to the top of a slender young tree, which lies in a sloping position in a fork, and at its opposite end is firmly fixed in the ground. The workman with a jerk forces the stone that serves for hammer down upon the auriferous rock, and allows it to be again carried upwards by the elasticity of the young tree.
An arrastre.The crushing of the broken rock is effected with an apparatus equally crude. A thick stake rises from the center of a circular support of rough-hewn stones (which is enclosed in a circle of exactly similar stones) having an iron pin at its top, to which a tree, bent horizontally in the middle, and downwards at the two ends, is fixed. Being set in motion by two carabaos attached in front, it drags several heavy stones, which are bound firmly to it with rattans, round the circle, and in this manner crushes the broken rock, which has been previously mixed with water, to a fine mud. The same apparatus is employed by the Mexican gold-washers, under the name of Rastra. Gold-washing.The washing-out of the mud is done by women. They kneel before a small wooden gutter filled with water up to the brim, and provided with boards, sloping downwards, in front of the space assigned to each woman; the gutter being cut out at these places in a corresponding manner, so that a very slender stream of water flows evenly across its whole breadth downwards over the board. With her hand the work-woman distributes the auriferous mud over the board, which, at the lower edge, is provided with a cross-piece; and, when the light sand is washed away, there remains a stratum consisting chiefly of iron, flint, and ore, which is taken up from time to time with a flat piece of board, and laid on one side; and at the end of the day’s work, it is washed out in a flat wooden dish (batea), and, for the last time, in a coco-shell; when, if they are lucky, a fine yellow dust shows itself on the edge.[8] During the last washing the slimy juice of the Gogo is added to the water, the fine heavy sand remaining suspended therein for a longer time than in pure water, and thus being more easily separated from the gold-dust.[9]
The clean-up.It is further to be mentioned that the refuse from the pits is washed at the upper end of the water-gutter, so that the sand adhering to the stones intended for pounding may deposit its gold in the gutter or on the washing-board. In order to melt the gold thus obtained into a lump, in which form it is bought by the dealers, it is poured into a small heart-shell (cardium), and, after being covered with a handful of charcoal, placed in a potsherd; when a woman blows through a narrow bamboo-cane on the kindled coals, and in one minute the work is completed.[10]
The result of many inquiries shows the profit per head to average not more than one and one-half reals daily. Further to the south-west from here, on the mountain Malaguit, are seen the ruins of a Spanish mining company; a heap of rubbish, a pit fifty feet deep, a large house fallen to ruin, and a stream-work four feet broad and six feet high. The mountain consists of gneiss much decomposed, with quartz veins in the stream-work, with the exception of the bands of quartz, which are of almost pure clay earth with sand.
Edible bird’s nests.On the sides hung some edible nests of the salangane, but not of the same kind as those found in the caverns on the south coast of Java. These, which are of much less value than the latter, are only occasionally collected by the Chinese dealers, who reckon them nominally at five cents each. We also found a few of the nest-building birds (Collocalia troglodytes, Gray).[11]