By sea to Cabusao.A four-oared baroto, hired at this place, as the weather was favorable, was to have conveyed us in two hours to Cabusao, the port of Naga; but the wind swung round, and a storm ensued. Thoroughly wet and not without loss, we ran to Barceloneta, a visita situated at a third of the distance. The intelligent Teniente of Colasi, whom we met here, also confirmed the fact of the rapid growth of the little peak.
Unreliable excuses.In opposition to my wish to ascend the mountain, great obstacles were said to exist when every one would be occupied in preparations for the Easter festival, which would hardly occur during the succeeding weeks. As these objections did not convince me, a more substantial reason was discovered the next morning. Inland shoes are excellent for the mud, and particularly for horseback; but for climbing mountains, or rough ground, they would not last a day; and the one remaining pair of strong European shoes, which I reserved for particular purposes, had been given away by my servant, who did not like climbing mountains, on the pretext they were very much too heavy for me.
A shipwrecked family.The shore from Barceloneta to Cabusao is of the same character as the Daet-Colasi but running north and south; the ground, sandy clay, is covered with a thick stratum of broken bivalves. The road was very difficult, as the high tide forced us to climb between the trees and thick underwood. On the way we met an enterprising family who had left Daet with a cargo of coconuts for Naga, and had been wrecked here; saving only one out of five tinajas of oil, but recovering all the nuts.[1] They were living in a small hastily-run-up hut, upon coconuts, rice, fish, and mussels, in expectation of a favorable wind to return. There were several varieties of shore-birds; but my gun would not go off, although my servant, in expectation of a hunt, had cleaned it with especial care. As he had lost the ramrod whilst cleaning it, the charge was not withdrawn before we reached Cabusao, when it was discovered that both barrels were full of sand to above the touchhole.
Making palm-sugar.The coast was still more beautiful than on the preceding day, particularly in one place where the surge beat against a wood of fan-palms (Corypha sp.). On the side facing the sea, in groups or rows stood the trees, bereft of their crowns, or lying overthrown like columns amid the vast ruins of temples (one of them was three feet in diameter); and the sight immediately reminded me of Pompeii. I could not account for the bareness of the trunks, until I discovered a hut in the midst of the palms, in which two men were endeavoring to anticipate the waves in their work of destruction by the preparation of sugar (tunguleh). For this purpose, after stripping off the leaves (this palm flowering at the top), the upper end of the stem is cut across, the surface of the incision being inclined about five degrees towards the horizon, and, near its lower edge, hollowed out to a very shallow gutter. The juice exudes over the whole surface of the cut, with the exception of the intersected exterior petioles, and, being collected in the shallow channel, is conducted by a piece of banana-leaf, two inches broad, and four inches long, into a bamboo-cane attached to the trunk. In order to avert the rain from the saccharine issue, which has a faint, pleasantly aromatic flavor as of barley-sugar, all the trees which have been tapped are provided with caps formed of bent and folded palm-leaves. The average daily produce of each tree is four bamboos, the interior of which is about three inches and a half in diameter. When removed, they are full to about eighteen inches; which gives somewhat more than ten quarts daily.
The money side.The produce of each tree of course is very unequal. Always intermittent, it ceases completely after two months—at the utmost, three months; but, the proportion of those newly cut to those cut at an earlier date being the same, the yield of the incisions is about equal. The juice of thirty-three palms, after evaporation in an iron pan immediately upon each collection, produces one ganta, or (there being four such collections) four gantas, daily; the weekly result being twenty gantas, or two tinajas of sugar, each worth two dollars and a half on the spot. This statement, derived from the people themselves, probably shows the proportion somewhat more unfavorable than it really is; still, according to the opinion of an experienced mestizo, the difference cannot be very considerable. Assuming the above figures as correct, however, one of these magnificent trees would give about one dollar and two-thirds, or, after deducting the laborers’ wages one real per diem, about a thaler and two-thirds; not a large sum truly; but it is some consolation to know that, even if man did not interfere, these trees would in process of time fall victims to the breakers, and that, even if protected against external ravages, they are doomed to natural extinction after once producing fruit.
Neglected roads.Cabusao lies in the southern angle of San Miguel Bay which is, almost on every side, surrounded by high mountains, and affords good anchorage for ships. From here I repaired across Naga to the south coast. Four leagues from Naga, in the heart of Ragay, on the southern border of Luzon, is the small but deep harbor of Pasacao; and two hours by water conducted us to the intermediate Visita Pamplona, whence the route is pursued by land. The still-existing remnant of the old road was in a miserable condition, and even at that dry season of the year scarcely passable; the bridges over the numerous little ditches were broken down, and in many places, right across the road, lay large stones and branches of trees which had been brought there years before to repair the bridges, and, having been unused, have ever since continued to obstruct the road.
A French planter.In Quitang, between Pamplona and Pasacao, where two brooks unite themselves into one little river debouching at the latter place, a young Frenchman had established a hacienda. He was contented and hopeful, and loudly praised the industry and friendliness of his people. Probably because they make fewer exactions, foreigners, as a rule, seem to agree better with the natives than Spaniards. Of these exactions, the bitterest complaints are rife of the injustice of the demands made upon the lower classes in the settlement of their wages; which, if they do not immediately find the necessary hands for every employment, do not correspond with the enhanced value of the products; and, according to them, the natives must even be driven from public employments, to labor in their service.[2]
The Filipino as a laborer.The Filipino certainly is more independent than the European laborer, because he has fewer wants and, as a native landowner, is not compelled to earn his bread as the daily laborer of another; yet, with reference to wages, it may be questioned whether any colony whatever offers more favorable conditions to the planter than the Philippines. In Dutch India, where the prevalence of monopoly almost excludes private industry, free laborers obtain one-third of a guilder—somewhat more than one real, the usual wages in the wealthy provinces of the Philippines (in the poorer it amounts to only the half); and the Javanese are not the equals of the Filipinos, either in strength, or intelligence, or skill; and the rate of wages in all the older Slave States is well known. For the cultivation of sugar and coffee, Mauritius and Ceylon are obliged to import foreign laborers at great expense, and to pay them highly; and yet they are successful.
Pasacao.From Quitang to Pasacao the road was far worse than it had heretofore been; and this is the most important road in the province! Before reaching Pasacao, evident signs are visible, on the denuded sides of the limestone, of its having been formerly washed by the sea. Pasacao is picturesquely situated at the end of the valley which is intersected by the Itulan, and extends from Pamplona, between wooded mountains of limestone, as far as the sea. The ebb tides here are extremely irregular. From noon to evening no difference was observable, and, when the decrease just became visible, the tide rose again. Immediately to the south, and facing the district, the side of a mountain, two thousand feet high and above one thousand feet broad, had two years ago given way to the subterranean action of the waves. The rock consists of a tough calcareous breccia, full of fragments of mussels and corals; but, being shoeless, I could not remain on the sharp rock sufficiently long to make a closer examination.
A beautiful coast.For the same reason, I was obliged to leave the ascent of the Yamtik, which I had before vainly attempted from Libmanan, unaccomplished from this point, although I had the advantage of the company of an obliging French planter in a boat excursion in a north-westerly direction along the coast. Here our boat floated along over gardens of coral, swarming with magnificently colored fishes; and after two hours we reached a cavern in the limestone, Suminabang, so low that one could stir in it only by creeping; which contained a few swallows and bats. On the Calebayan river, on the further side of Point Tanaun, we came upon a solitary shed, our night-quarters. Here the limestone range is interrupted by an isolated cliff on the left bank of the little river, consisting of a crystalline rock chiefly composed of hornblende; which moreover, on the side exposed to the water, is surrounded completely by limestone.