[Batu.] In an hour and a half after leaving Polangui we reached Batu,
a village on the north-western shore of the lake of the same name. The
inhabitants, particularly the women, struck me by their ugliness
and want of cleanliness. Although they lived close to the lake, and
drew their daily drinking water from it, they never appeared to use
it for the purpose of washing. The streets of the village also were
dirty and neglected; a circumstance explained, perhaps, by the fact
of the priest being a native.
[The lake.] Towards the end of the rainy season, in November, the
lake extends far more widely than it does in the dry, and overflows
its shallow banks, especially to the south-west. A great number of
water-plants grow on its borders; amongst which I particularly noticed
a delicate seaweed [96], as fine as horse hair, but intertwined in such
close and endless ramifications that it forms a flooring strong enough
to support the largest waterfowl. I saw hundreds of them hopping about
and eating the shell fish and prawns, which swarmed amidst the meshes
of the net-like seaweed and fell an easy prey to their feathered
enemies. The natives, too, were in the habit of catching immense
quantities of the prawns with nets made for the purpose. Some they
ate fresh; and some they kept till they were putrid, like old cheese,
and then used them as a relish to swallow with their rice. These
small shell-fish are not limited to the Lake of Batu. They are caught
in shoals in both the salt and the fresh waters of the Philippine
and Indian archipelagos, and, when salted and dried by the natives,
form an important article of food, eaten either in soup or as a kind
of potted paste. They are found in every market, and are largely
exported to China. I was unable to shoot any of the waterfowl, for
the tangles of the seaweed prevented my boat from getting near them.
[A neglected product.] When I revisited the same lake in February,
I found its waters so greatly fallen that they had left a circular
belt of shore extending all around the lake, in most places nearly a
hundred feet broad. The withdrawal of the waters had compressed the
tangled seaweed into a kind of matting, which, bleached by the sun,
and nearly an inch thick, covered the whole of the shore, and hung
suspended over the stunted bushes which, on my first visit, had
been under water. I have never either seen elsewhere, or heard any
one mention, a similar phenomenon. This stuff, which could be had
for nothing, was excellent for rifle-stoppers and for the stuffing
of birds, so I took a great quantity of it with me. This time the
bird-hunting went well, too.
The native priest of Batu was full of complaints about his
parishioners, who gave him no opportunities of gaining an honest
penny. "I am never asked for a mass, sir; in fact, this is such a
miserable hole that it is shunned by Death itself. In D., where I was
for a long time coadjutor, we had our couple of burials regularly
every day at three dollars a head, and as many masses at a dollar
apiece as we had time to say, besides christenings and weddings,
which always brought a little more grist to the mill. But here
nothing takes place, and I scarcely make anything." This stagnant
state of things had induced him to turn his attention to commerce. The
average native priest, of those I saw, could hardly be called a credit
to his profession. Generally ignorant, often dissipated, and only
superficially acquainted with his duties, the greater part of his
time was given over to gambling, drinking, and other objectionable
amusements. Little care was taken to preserve a properly decorous
behavior, except when officiating in the church, when they read with
an absurd assumption of dignity, without understanding a single
word. The conventos are often full of girls and children, all of
whom help themselves with their fingers out of a common dish. The
worthy padre of Batu introduced a couple of pretty girls to me as
his two poor sisters, whom, in spite of his poverty, he supported;
but the servants about the place openly spoke of these young ladies'
babies as being the children of the priest.
[The native clergy.] The guiding principle of Spanish colonial
policy--to set one class against another, and to prevent either from
becoming too powerful--seems to be the motive for placing so many
native incumbents in the parsonages of the Archipelago. The prudence of
this proceeding, however, seems doubtful. A Spanish priest has a great
deal of influence in his own immediate circle, and forms, perhaps,
the only enduring link between the colony and the mother-country. The
native priest is far from affording any compensation for the lack
of either of these advantages. He generally is but little respected
by his flock, and certainly does nothing to attach them to Spain;
for he hates and envies his Spanish brethren, who leave him only the
very worst appointments, and treat him with contempt.
[Nabua.] I rode from Batu to Nabua over a good road in half an
hour. The country was flat, with rice-fields on both sides of the
road; but, while in Batu the rice was only just planted, in Nabua it
already was almost ripe. I was unable to obtain any explanation of
this incongruity, and know not how to account for such a difference
of climate between two hamlets situated in such close proximity to
one another, and separated by no range of hills. The inhabitants of
both were ugly and dirty, and were different in these respects from
the Tagalogs. Nabua, a place of 10,875 inhabitants, is intersected by
several small streams, whose waters, pouring down from the eastern
hills, form a small lake, which empties itself into the river
Bicol. Just after passing the second bridge beyond Nabua the road,
inclining eastwards, wends in a straight line to Iriga, a place lying
to the south-west of the volcano of the same name.
[Remontados.] I visited a small settlement of pagans situated on the
slope of the volcano. The people of the plains call them indifferently
Igorots, Cimarrons, Remontados, Infieles, or Montesinos. None
of these names, however, with the exception of the two last, are
appropriate ones. The first is derived from the term applied in the
north of the Island to the mixed descendants of Chinese and Filipino
parents. The word Cimarron (French, marrow) is borrowed from the
American slave colonies, where it denoted negroes who escaped from
slavery and lived in a state of freedom; but here it is applied to
natives who prefer a wild existence to the comforts of village life,
which they consider are overbalanced by the servitude and bondage
which accompany them. The term Remontado explains itself, and has
the same signification as Cimarron. As the difference between the
two states--on account of the mildness of the climate, and the
ease with which the wants of the natives are supplied--is far less
than it would be in Europe, these self-constituted exiles are more
frequently to be met with than might be supposed; the cause of their
separation from their fellowmen sometimes being some offence against
the laws, sometimes annoying debts, and sometimes a mere aversion to
the duties and labors of village life. Every Filipino has an innate
inclination to abandon the hamlets and retire into the solitude of
the woods, or live isolated in the midst of his own fields; and it
is only the village prisons and the priests--the salaries of the
latter are proportionate to the number of their parishioners--that
prevent him from gradually turning the pueblos into visitas, [97]
and the latter into ranchos. Until a visit to other ranchos in the
neighborhood corrected my first impression, I took the inhabitants of
the slopes of the Iriga for cross-breeds between the low-landers and
negritos. The color of their skin was not black, but a dark brown,
scarcely any darker than that of Filipinos who have been much exposed
to the sun; and only a few of them had woolly hair. The negritos whom
I saw at Angat and Mariveles knew nothing whatever about agriculture,
lived in the open air, and supported themselves upon the spontaneous
products of nature; but the half-savages of the Iriga dwell in decent
huts, and cultivate several vegetables and a little sugar-cane. No
pure negritos, as far as I could ascertain, are to be met with in
Camarines. A thickly-populated province, only sparsely dotted with
lofty hills, would be ill-suited for the residence of a nomadic
hunting race ignorant of agriculture.
[Iriga settlements.] The ranchos on the Iriga are very accessible,
and their inhabitants carry on a friendly intercourse with the
lowlanders; indeed, if they didn't, they would have been long
ago exterminated. In spite of these neighborly communications,
however, they have preserved many of their own primitive manners and
customs. The men go about naked with the exception of a cloth about the
loins; and the women are equally unclad, some of them perhaps wearing
an apron reaching from the hip to the knee. [98] In the larger ranchos
the women were decently clad in the usual Filipino fashion. Their
household belongings consisted of a few articles made of bamboo, a
few calabashes of coconut-shell, and an earthen cooking-pot, and bows
and arrows. [Poison arrows.] These latter are made very carefully,
the shaft from reeds, the point from a sharp-cut bamboo, or from a
palm-tree, with one to three sharp points. In pig-hunting iron-pointed
poison arrows are used. [Crucifixes.] Although the Igorots are not
Christians, they decorate their huts with crucifixes, which they use
as talismans. If they were of no virtue, an old man remarked to me, the
Spaniards would not employ them so numerously. [99] The largest rancho
I visited was nominally under the charge of a captain, who, however,
had little real power. At my desire he called to some naked boys idly
squatting about on the trees, who required considerable persuasion
before they obeyed his summons; but a few small presents--brazen
earrings and combs for the women, and cigars for the men--soon put
me on capital terms with them.
[Mt. Iriga.] After a vain attempt to reach the top of the Iriga volcano
I started for Buhi, a place situated on the southern shore of the lake
of that name. Ten minutes after leaving Iriga I reached a spot where
the ground sounded hollow beneath my horse's feet. A succession of
small hillocks, about fifty feet high, bordered each side of the road;
and towards the north I could perceive the huge crater of the Iriga,
which, in the distance, appeared like a truncated cone. I had the
curiosity to ascend one of the hillocks, which, seen from its summit,
looked like the remains of some former crater, which had probably
been destroyed by an earthquake and split up into these small mounds.
[Advertising.] When I got to Buhi the friendly priest had it
proclaimed by sound of drum that the newly-arrived strangers wished
to obtain all kinds of animals, whether of earth, of air, or of water;
and that each and all would be paid for in cash. The natives, however,
only brought us moths, centipedes, and other vermin, which, besides
enabling them to have a good stare at the strangers, they hoped to
turn into cash as extraordinary curiosities.
[A church procession.] The following day I was the spectator of a
gorgeous procession. First came the Spanish flag, then the village
kettle-drums, and a small troop of horsemen in short jackets and
shirts flying in the wind, next a dozen musicians, and finally, as
the principal figure, a man carrying a crimson silk standard. The
latter individual evidently was deeply conscious of his dignified
position, and his countenance eloquently expressed the quantity of
palm wine he had consumed in honor of the occasion. He sat on his
horse dressed out in the most absurd manner in a large cocked hat
trimmed with colored paper instead of gold lace, with a woman's cape
made of paper outside his coat, and with short, tight-fitting yellow
breeches and immense white stockings and shoes. Both his coat and his
breeches were liberally ornamented with paper trimmings. His steed,
led by a couple of cabezas, was appointed with similar trappings. After
marching through all the streets of the village the procession came
to a halt in front of the church.
[Papal concessions to Spain.] This festival is celebrated every year
in commemoration of the concession made by the Pope to the King of
Spain permitting the latter to appropriate to his own use certain
revenues of the Church. The Spanish Throne consequently enjoys the
right of conferring different indulgences, even for serious crimes, in
the name of the Holy See. This right, which, so to speak, it acquired
wholesale, it sells by retail to its customers (it formerly disposed
of it to the priests) in the estanco, and together with its other
monopolies, such as tobacco, brandy, lottery tickets, stamped paper,
etc., all through the agency of the priests; without the assistance
of whom very little business would be done. The receipts from the
sale of these indulgences have always been very fluctuating. In 1819
they amounted to $15,930; in 1839 to $36,390; and in 1860 they were
estimated at $58,954. In the year 1844-5 they rose to $292,115. The
cause of this large increase was that indulgences were then rendered
compulsory; so many being alloted to each family, with the assistance
and under the superintendence of the priests and tax-collectors who
received a commission of five and eight per cent on the gross amount
collected. [100]
[Lake Buhi.] The Lake of Buhi (300 feet above the sea-level) presents
an extremely picturesque appearance, surrounded as it is on all sides
by hills fully a thousand feet high; and its western shore is formed by
what still remains of the Iriga volcano. I was informed by the priests
of the neighboring hamlets that the volcano, until the commencement
of the seventeenth century, had been a closed cone, and that the
lake did not come into existence till half of the mountain fell in,
at the time of its great eruption. This statement I found confirmed
in the pages of the Estado Geografico:--"On the fourth of January,
1641--a memorable day, for on that date all the known volcanoes of
the Archipelago began to erupt at the same hour--a lofty hill in
Camarines, inhabited by heathens, fell in, and a fine lake sprang
into existence upon its site. The then inhabitants of the village of
Buhi migrated to the shores of the new lake, which, on this account,
was henceforward called the Lake of Buhi."
[1628 Camarines earthquake.] Perrey, in the Mémoires de l'Académie
de Dijon, mentions another outbreak which took place in Camarines in
1628: "In 1628, according to trustworthy reports, fourteen different
shocks of earthquake occurred on the same day in the province of
Camarines. Many buildings were thrown down, and from one large
mountain which the earthquake rent asunder there issued such an
immense quantity of water that the whole neighborhood was flooded,
trees were torn up by the roots, and, in one hour, from the seashore
all plains were covered with water (the direct distance to the shore
is two and one-half leagues). [101]
[A mistranslation.] It is very strange that the text given in the
footnote does not agree with A. Perrey's translation. The former does
not mention that water came out of the mountains and says just the
contrary, that trees, which were torn up by the roots, took the place
of the sea for one hour on the shore, so that no water could be seen.
[Unreliable authorities.] The data of the Estado Geografico are apt to
create distrust as the official report on the great earthquake of 1641
describes in detail the eruptions of three volcanoes, which happened at
the same time (of these two were in the South of the Archipelago and
one in Northern Luzon) while Camarines is not mentioned at all. This
suspicion is further strengthened by the fact that the same author
(Nierembergius) whose remarks on the eruptions of 1628 in Camarines
are quoted, gives in another book of his a detailed report on the
events of 1641 without mentioning this province. If one considers
the indifference of the friars toward such events in Nature, it is
not improbable that the eruptions of 1641 when a mountain fell in in
Northern Luzon and a lake took its place, has been transferred on the
Iriga. To illustrate the indifference it may be mentioned that even
the padres living at the foot of the Albay could not agree upon the
dates of its very last eruptions.
[Another attempt at mountain climbing.] When I was at Tambong, a small
hamlet on the shore of the lake belonging to the parochial district
of Buhi, I made a second unsuccessful attempt to reach the highest
point of the Iriga. We arrived in the evening at the southern point
of the crater's edge (1,041 meters above the level of the sea by my
barometrical observation), where a deep defile prevented our further
progress. Here the Igorots abandoned me, and the low-landers refused
to bivouac in order to pursue the journey on the following day; so I
was obliged to return. Late in the evening, after passing through a
coco plantation, we reached the foot of the mountain and found shelter
from a tempest with a kind old woman; to whom my servants lied so
shamelessly that, when the rain had abated, we were, in spite of
our failure, conducted with torches to Tambong, where we found the
palm-grove round the little hamlet magically illuminated with bright
bonfires of dry coconut-leaves in honor of the Conquistadores del
Iriga; and where I was obliged to remain for the night, as the people
were too timorous or too lazy to cross the rough water of the lake.
[Pineapple fiber preparations.] Here I saw them preparing the fiber
of the pine-apple for weaving. The fruit of the plants selected
for this purpose is generally removed early; a process which causes
the leaves to increase considerably both in length and in breadth. A
woman places a board on the ground, and upon it a pine-apple-leaf with
the hollow side upwards. Sitting at one end of the board, she holds
the leaf firmly with her toes, and scrapes its outer surface with a
potsherd; not with the sharp fractured edge but with the blunt side
of the rim; and thus the leaf is reduced to rags. In this manner a
stratum of coarse longitudinal fiber is disclosed, and the operator,
placing her thumb-nail beneath it, lifts it up, and draws it away
in a compact strip; after which she scrapes again until a second
fine layer of fiber is laid bare. Then, turning the leaf round, she
scrapes its back, which now lies upwards, down to the layer of fiber,
which she seizes with her hand and draws at once, to its full length,
away from the back of the leaf. When the fiber has been washed, it is
dried in the sun. It is afterwards combed, with a suitable comb, like
women's hair, sorted into four classes, tied together, and treated like
the fiber of the lupi. In this crude manner are obtained the threads
for the celebrated web nipis de [Piña.] Piña, which is considered by
experts the finest in the world. Two shirts of this kind are in the
Berlin Ethnographical Museum (Nos. 291 and 292). Better woven samples
are in the Gewerbe Museum of Trade and Commerce. In the Philippines,
where the fineness of the work is best understood and appreciated,
richly-embroidered costumes of this description have fetched more
than $1,400 each. [102]
[Rain prevents another ascent.] At Buhi, which is not sufficiently
sheltered towards the north-east, it rained almost as much as at
Daraga. I had found out from the Igorots that a path could be forced
through the tall canes up to the summit; but the continual rain
prevented me; so I resolved to cross the Malinao, returning along the
coast to my quarters, and then, freshly equipped, descend the river
Bicol as far as Naga.
[Mountaineers' arrow poison.] Before we parted the Igorots prepared
for me some arrow poison from the bark of two trees. I happened
to see neither the leaves nor the blossoms, but only the bark. A
piece of bark was beaten to pieces, pressed dry, wetted, and again
pressed. This was done with the bare hand, which, however, sustained
no injury. The juice thus extracted looked like pea-soup, and was
warmed in an earthen vessel over a slow fire. During the process it
coagulated at the edges; and the coagulated mass was again dissolved,
by stirring it into the boiling fluid mass. When this had reached
the consistency of syrup, a small quantity was scraped off the inner
surface of a second piece of bark, and its juice squeezed into the
vessel. This juice was a dark brown color. When the mass had attained
the consistency of a thin jelly, it was scraped out of the pot with
a chip and preserved on a leaf sprinkled with ashes. For poisoning
an arrow they use a piece of the size of a hazel-nut, which, after
being warmed, is distributed uniformly over the broad iron point;
and the poisoned arrow serves for repeated use.
[Sapa river.] At the end of November I left the beautiful lake of
Buhi, and proceeded from its eastern angle for a short distance up
the little river Sapa [103], the alluvial deposits of which form
a considerable feature in the configuration of the lake. Across a
marshy meadow we reached the base of the Malinao or Buhi mountain,
the slippery clay of the lower slope merging higher up into volcanic
sand. [Leeches.] The damp undergrowth swarmed with small leeches;
I never before met with them in such numbers. These little animals,
no stouter when streched out than a linen thread, are extraordinarily
active. They attach themselves firmly to every part of the body,
penetrating even into the nose, the ears, and the eyelids, where,
if, they remain unobserved, they gorge themselves to such excess that
they become as round as balls and look like small cherries. While they
are sucking no pain is felt; but afterwards the spots attacked often
itch the whole day long. [104] [Fig-trees.] In one place the wood
consisted for the most part of fig-trees, with bunches of fruit quite
six feet in length hanging from the stems and the thicker branches;
and between the trees grew ferns, aroids, and orchids. After nearly
six hours' toil we reached the pass (841 meters above the sea level),
and descended the eastern slope. The forest on the eastern side of
the mountain is still more magnificent than that on the west. From a
clearing we obtained a fine view of the sea, the Island of Catanduanes,
and the plain of Tabaco. [Prison as hotel.] At sunset we reached Tibi,
where I quartered myself in the prison. This, a tolerably clean place,
enclosed with strong bamboos, was the most habitable part of a long
shed which supplied the place of the tribunal destroyed in a storm two
years before. At Tibi I had an opportunity of sketching Mount Malinao
(called also Buhi and Takit), which from this side has the appearance
of a large volcano with a distinct crater. From the lake of Buhi it
is not so clearly distinguishable.
[Igabo hot spring.] Not far from Tibi, exactly north-east of Malinao,
we found a small hot spring called Igabo. In the middle of a plot of
turf encircled by trees was a bare spot of oval form, nearly a hundred
paces long and seventy wide. The whole space was covered with stones,
rounded by attrition, as large as a man's head and larger. Here
and there hot water bubbled out of the ground and discharged into a
little brook; beside it some women were engaged in cooking their food,
which they suspended in nets in the hottest parts of the water. On the
lower surfaces of some of the stones a little sulphur was sublimated;
of alum hardly a trace was perceptible. In a cavity some caolin had
accumulated, and was used as a stain.
[Naglegbeng silicious springs.] From here I visited the stalactite
springs, not far distant, of Naglegbeng. [105] I had expected to
see a calcareous fountain, but found the most magnificent masses of
silica of infinite variety of form; shallow cones with cylindrical
summits, pyramidal flights of steps, round basins with ribbed margins,
and ponds of boiling water. One spot, denuded of trees, from two
to three hundred paces in breadth and about five hundred in length,
was, with the exception of a few places overgrown with turf, covered
with a crust of silicious dross, which here and there formed large
connected areas, but was generally broken up into flaky plates by the
vertical springs which pierced it. In numerous localities boiling
hot mineral water containing silica was forcing itself out of the
ground, spreading itself over the surface and depositing a crust,
the thickness of which depended on its distance from the center
point. In this manner, in the course of time, a very flat cone is
formed, with a basin of boiling water in the middle. The continuous
deposit of dross contracts the channel, and a less quantity of water
overflows, while that close to the edge of the basin evaporates and
deposits a quantity of fine silicious earth; whence the upper portion
of the cone not only is steeper than its base, but frequently assumes
a more cylindrical form, the external surface of which on account
of the want of uniformity in the overflow, is ribbed in the form
of stalactites. When the channel becomes so much obstructed that
the efflux is less than the evaporation, the water ceases to flow
over the edge, and the mineral dross, during the continual cooling
of the water, is then deposited, with the greatest uniformity, over
the inner area of the basin. When, however, the surface of the water
sinks, this formation ceases at the upper portion of the basin; the
interior wall thickens; and, if the channel be completely stopped up
and all the water evaporated, there remains a bell-shaped basin as
even as if excavated by the hand of man. The water now seeks a fresh
outlet, and bursts forth where it meets with the least obstruction,
without destroying the beautiful cone it has already erected. Many such
examples exist. In the largest cones, however, the vapors generated
acquire such power that, when the outlet is completely stopped up,
they break up the overlying crust in concentrically radiating flakes;
and the water, issuing anew copiously from the center, deposits a fresh
crust, which again, by the process we have just described is broken
up into a superimposed layer of flakes. In this manner are formed
annular layers, which in turn are gradually covered by fresh deposits
from the overflowing water. After the pyramid of layers is complete
and the outlet stopped up, the water sometimes breaks forth on the
slope of the same cone; a second cone is then formed near the first,
on the same base. In the vicinity of the silicious springs are seen
deposits of white, yellow, red, and bluish-grey clays, overlaying
one another in narrow strata-like variegated marl, manifestly the
disintegrated produce of volcanic rocks transported hither by rain
and stained with oxide of iron. These clays perhaps come from the
same rocks from the disintegration of which the silicious earth has
been formed. Similar examples occur in Iceland and in New Zealand;
but the products of the springs of Tibi are more varied, finer,
and more beautiful than those of the Iceland Geysers.
[A world wonder.] The wonderful conformations of the red cone are
indeed astonishing, and hardly to be paralleled in any other quarter
of the world. [106]