XIX
Samar.The island of Samar, which is of nearly rhomboidal outline, and with few indentations on its coasts, stretches from the north-west to the south-east from 12° 37′ to 10° 54′ N.; its mean length being twenty-two miles, its breadth eleven, and its area two hundred and twenty square miles. It is separated on the south by the small strait of San Juanico from the island of Leyte, with which it was formerly united into one province. At the present time each island has its separate governor.
Former names.By the older authors the island is called Tendaya, Ibabao, and also Achan and Filipina. In later times the eastern side was called Ibabao, and the western Samar, which is now the official denomination for the whole island, the eastern shore being distinguished as the Contracosta.[1]
Seasons and weather.As on the eastern coasts of Luzon, the north-east monsoon here exceeds that from the south-west in duration and force, the violence of the latter being arrested by the islands lying to the southwest, while the north-east winds break against the coasts of these easterly islands with their whole force, and the additional weight of the body of water which they bring with them from the open ocean. In October winds fluctuating between north-west and north-east occur; but the prevalent ones are northerly. In the middle of November the north-east is constant; and it blows, with but little intermission, from the north until April. This is likewise the rainy season, December and January being the wettest, when it sometimes rains for fourteen days without interruption. In Lauang, on the north coast, the rainy season lasts from October to the end of December. From January to April it is dry; May, June, and July are rainy; and August and September, again, are dry; so that here there are two wet and two dry seasons in the year. From October to January violent storms (baguios or typhoons) sometimes occur. Beginning generally with a north wind, they pass to the north-west, accompanied by a little rain, then back to the north, and with increasing violence to the north-east and east, where they acquire their greatest power, and then moderate to the south. Sometimes, however, they change rapidly from the east to the south, in which quarter they first acquire their greatest force.
Winds and storms.From the end of March to the middle of June inconstant easterly winds (N.E.E. and S.E.) prevail, with a very heavy sea on the east coast. May is usually calm; but in May and June there are frequent thunderstorms, introducing the south-west monsoon, which though it extends through the months of July, August, and September, is not so constant as the north-east. The last-named three months constitute the dry season, which, however, is often interrupted by thunderstorms. Not a week, indeed, passes without rain; and in many years a storm arises every afternoon. At this season of the year ships can reach the east coast; but during the north-east monsoon navigation there is impossible. These general circumstances are subject to many local deviations, particularly on the south and west coasts, where the uniformity of the air currents is disturbed by the mountainous islands lying in front of them. According to the Estado geografico of 1855, an extraordinarily high tide, called dolo, occurs every year at the change of the monsoon in September or October. It rises sometimes sixty or seventy feet, and dashes itself with fearful violence against the south and east coasts, doing great damage, but not lasting for any length of time. The climate of Samar and Leyte appears to be very healthy on the coasts; in fact, to be the best of all the islands of the archipelago. Dysentery, diarrhoea, and fever occur less frequently than in Luzon, and Europeans also are less subject to their attacks than in that place.
Only the coast settled.The civilized natives live almost solely on its coasts, and there are also Bisayans who differ in speech and manners from the Bicols in about the same degree that the latter do from the Tagalogs. Roads and villages are almost entirely wanting in the interior, which is covered with a thick wood, and affords sustenance to independent tribes, who carry on a little tillage (vegetable roots and mountain rice), and collect the products of the woods, particularly resin, honey, and wax, in which the island is very rich.
A tedious but eventful voyage.On the 3rd of July we lost sight of Legaspi, and, detained by frequent calms, crawled as far as Point Montufar, on the northern edge of Albay, then onwards to the small island of Viri, and did not reach Lauang before evening of the 5th. The mountain range of Bacon (the Pocdol of Coello), which on my previous journeys had been concealed by night or mist, now revealed itself to us in passing as a conical mountain; and beside it towered a very precipitous, deeply-cleft mountain-side, apparently the remnant of a circular range. After the pilot, an old Filipino and native of the country, who had made the journey frequently before, had conducted us, to begin with, to a wrong port, he ran the vessel fast on to the bar, although there was sufficient water to sail into the harbor conveniently.
Lauang.The district of Lauang (Lahuan), which is encumbered with more than four thousand five hundred inhabitants, is situated at an altitude of forty feet, on the south-west shore of the small island of the same name, which is separated from Samar by an arm of the Catubig. According to a widely-spread tradition, the settlement was originally in Samar itself, in the middle of the rice-fields, which continue to the present day in that place, until the repeated inroads of sea-pirates drove the inhabitants, in spite of the inconvenience attending it, to protect themselves by settling on the south coast of the little island, which rises steeply out of the sea.[2] The latter consists of almost horizontal banks of tufa, from eight to twelve inches in thickness. The strata being continually eaten away by the waves at low watermark, the upper layers break off; and thus the uppermost parts of the strata, which are of a tolerably uniform thickness, are cleft by vertical fissures, and look like the walls of a fortress. Pressed for space, the church and the convent have taken up every level bit of the rock at various heights; and the effect of this accommodation of architecture to the requirements of the ground, though not designed by the architect, is most picturesque.
Deterioration in the town.The place is beautifully situated; but the houses are not so frequently as formerly surrounded by little gardens while there is a great want of water, and foul odors prevail. Two or three scanty springs afford a muddy, brackish water, almost at the level of the sea, with which the indolent people are content so that they have just enough. Wealthy people have their water brought from Samar, and the poorer classes are sometimes compelled, by the drying-up of the springs, to have recourse to the same place. The spring-water is not plentiful for bathing purposes; and, sea-bathing not being in favor, the people consequently are very dirty. Their clothing is the same as in Luzon; but the women wear no tapis, only a camisa (a short chemise, hardly covering the breast), and a saya, mostly of coarse, stiff guinara, which forms ugly folds, and when not colored black is very transparent. But dirt and a filthy existence form a better screen than opaque garments. The inhabitants of Lauang rightly, indeed, enjoy the reputation of being very idle. Their industry is limited to a little tillage, even fishing being so neglected that frequently there is a scarcity of fish. In the absence of roads by land, there is hardly any communication by water; and trade is mostly carried on by mariners from Catbalogan, who exchange the surplus of the harvests for other produce.