Obliging Spanish officials.The local governor likewise showed me much obliging attention; indeed, almost without exception I have, since my return, retained the most agreeable remembrances of the Spanish officials; and, therefore, if fitting opportunity occurred, I could treat of the improprieties of the Administration with greater impartiality.
Locusts.In the afternoon of the day after my arrival at Tacloban, on a sudden there came a sound like the rush of a furious torrent; the air became dark, and a large cloud of locusts swept over the place.[2] I will not again recount that phenomenon, which has been so often described, and is essentially the same in all quarters of the globe, but will simply remark that the swarm, which was more than five hundred feet in width, and about fifty feet in depth, its extremity being lost in the forest, was not thought a very considerable one. It caused vigilance, but not consternation. Old and young eagerly endeavored to catch as many of the delicate creatures as they could, with cloths, nets, and flags, in order, as Dampier relates, “to roast them in an earthen pan over fire until their legs and wings drop off, and their heads and backs assume the color of boiled crabs;” after which process he says they had a pleasant taste. In Burma at the present day, they are considered as delicacies at the royal court.[3]
Plan for their extermination.The locusts are one of the greatest plagues of the Philippines, and sometimes destroy the harvest of entire provinces. The Legislación Ultramarina (iv. 504) contains a special edict respecting the extirpation of these devastating pests. As soon as they appear, the population of the invaded localities are to be drawn out in the greatest possible numbers, under the conduct of the authorities, in order to effect their destruction. The most approved means for the attainment of this object are set forth in an official document referring to the adoption of extraordinary measures in cases of public emergency; and in this the locusts are placed midway between sea-pirates and conflagrations. Of the various means that have been contrived against the destructive creatures, that, at times, appear in incredible numbers, but have been as frequently ineffectual as otherwise, only a few will be now mentioned. On April 27, 1824, the Sociedad Economica determined to import the bird, the martin (Gracula sp.), “which feeds by instinct on locusts.” In the autumn of the following year the first consignment arrived from China; in 1829 a second; and in 1852 again occurs the item of $1,311 for martins.
Tacloban to Tanauan.On the following day I proceeded with the priest of Dagami (there are roads in Leyte) from Tacloban southwards to Palos and Tanauan, two flourishing places on the east coast. Hardly half a league from the latter place, and close to the sea, a cliff of crystal lime rock rises up out of the sandy plain, which was level up to this point. It is of a greyish-green quartzose chlorite schist, from which the enterprising Father had endeavored, with a perseverance worthy of better success, to procure lime by burning. After an ample breakfast in the convent, we proceeded in the afternoon to Dagami, and, on the next day, to Burauen.[4]
A pleasing people.The country was still flat. Coco-groves and rice-fields here and there interrupted the thick forest; but the country is thinly inhabited, and the people appear more cheerful, handsomer, and cleaner than those of Samar. South of Burauen rises the mountain ridge of Manacagan, on the further slope of which is a large solfatara, which yields sulphur for the powder manufactory in Manila, and for commerce. A Spanish sailor accompanied me. Where the road passed through swamp we rode on carabaos. The pace of the animals is not unpleasant, but the stretching across the broad backs of the gigantic carabaos of the Philippines is very fatiguing. A quarter of an hour beyond Burauen we crossed the Daguitan, which flows south-west to north-east, and is a hundred feet broad, its bed being full of large volcanic blocks; and, soon after, a small river in a broad bed; and, some hundred paces farther, one of a hundred and fifty feet in breadth; the two latter being arms of the Burauen. They flow from west to east, and enter the sea at Dulag. The second arm was originated only the preceding year, during a flood.
The height of hospitality.We passed the night in a hut on the northern slope of the Manacagan, which the owner, on seeing us approach, had voluntarily quitted, and with his wife and child sought other lodgings. The customs of the country require this when the accommodation does not suffice for both parties; and payment for the same is neither demanded nor, except very rarely, tendered.
Up the Manacagan.About six o’clock on the following morning we started; and about half-past six climbed, by a pleasant path through the forest, to the ridge of the Manacagan, which consists of trachytic hornblende; and about seven o’clock we crossed two small rivers flowing north-west, and then, by a curve, reached the coast at Dulag. From the ridge we caught sight, towards the south, of the great white heaps of débris of the mountain Danan glimmering through the trees. About nine o’clock we came through the thickly-wooded crater of the Kasiboi, and, further south, to some sheds in which the sulphur is smelted.
Sulphur.The raw material obtained from the solfatara is bought in three classes: firstly, sulphur already melted to crusts; secondly, sublimated, which contains much condensed water in its interstices; and thirdly, in the clay, which is divided into the more or less rich, from which the greatest quantity is obtained. Coconut oil, which is thrown into flat iron pans holding six arrobas, is added to the sulphurous clay, in the proportion of six quarts to four arrobas, and it is melted and continually stirred. The clay which floats on the surface, now freed from the sulphur, being skimmed off, fresh sulphurous clay is thrown into the cauldron, and so on. In two or three hours six arrobas of sulphur, on an average, may be obtained in this manner from twenty-four arrobas of sulphurous clay, and, poured into wooden chests, it is moulded into blocks of about four arrobas. Half the oil employed is recovered by throwing the clay which has been saturated with it into a frame formed by two narrow bamboo hurdles, placed at a sharp angle. The oil drops into a sloping gutter of bamboo which is placed underneath, and from that flows into a pot. The price of the sulphur at Manila varies between Prices.$1.25 and $4.50 per picul. I saw the frames, full of clay, from which the oil exuded; but the operation itself I did not, unfortunately, then witness, and I cannot explain in what manner the oil is added. From some experiments made on a small scale, therefore under essentially different conditions, and never with the same material, it appeared that the oil accelerates the separation of the sulphur, and retards the access of the air to the sulphur. In these experiments, the sulphur contained in the bottom of the crucible was always colored black by the separation of charcoal from the oil, and it was necessary to purify it by distillation beforehand. Of this, however, the smelters at Leyte made no mention, and they even had no apparatus for the purpose, while their sulphur was of a pure yellow color.
Hot spring.Some hundreds of paces further south, a hot spring (50° R.),[5] twelve feet broad, flows from the east, depositing silicious sinter at its edges.
A solfatara.As we followed a ravine stretching from north to south, with sides one hundred to two hundred feet in height, the vegetation gradually ceased, the rock being of a dazzling white, or colored by sublimated sulphur. In numerous places thick clouds of vapor burst from the ground, with a strong smell of sulphurated water. At some thousand paces further, the ravine bends round to the left (east), and expands itself to the bay; and here numerous silicious springs break through the loose clay-earth, which is permeated with sulphur. This solfatara must formerly have been much more active than it is now. The ravine, which has been formed by its destruction of the rock, and is full of lofty heaps of débris, may be one thousand feet in breadth, and quite five times as long. At the east end there are a number of small, boiling quagmires, which, on forcing a stick into the matted ground, send forth water and steam. In some deep spots further west, grey, white, red, and yellow clays have been deposited in small beds over each other, giving them the appearance of variegated marls.