[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.