[Comparison with Javan Mountain district.] The country here is strikingly similar to the remarkable mountain district of the Gelungung, described by Junghuhn; [146] yet the origin of these rising grounds differs in some degree from that of those in Java.  The latter were due to the eruption of 1822, and the great fissure in the wall of the crater of the Gelungung, which is turned towards them, shows unmistakably whence the materials for their formation were derived; but the great chasm of the Isarog opens towards the east, and therefore has no relation to the numberless hillocks on the north-west of the mountain.  Behind Maguiring they run more closely together, their summits are flatter, and their sides steeper; and they pass gradually into a gently inclined slope, rent into innumerable clefts, in the hollows of which as many brooks are actively employed in converting the angular outlines of the little islands into these rounded hillocks.  The third river behind Maguiring is larger than those preceding it; on the sixth lies the large Visita of Borobod; and on the tenth, that of Ragay.  The rice fields cease with the hill country, and on the slope, which is well drained by deep channels, only wild cane and a few groups of trees grow.  Passing by many villages, whose huts were so isolated and concealed that they might remain unobserved, we arrived at five o’clock at Tagunton; from which a road, practicable for carabao carts, and used for the transport of the abaca grown in the district, leads to Goa; and here, detained by sickness, I hired a little house, in which I lay for nearly four weeks, no other remedies offering themselves to me but hunger and repose.

[Useful friends.] During this time I made the acquaintance of some newly-converted Igorots, and won their confidence.  Without them I would have had great difficulty in ascending the mountains as well as to visit their tribe in its farms without any danger. [147] When, at last, I was able to quit Goa, my friends conducted me, as the first step, to their settlement; where, having been previously recommended and expected, I easily obtained the requisite number of attendants to take into their charge the animals and plants which were collected for me.

[A heathen Mountaineers’ settlement.] On the following morning the ascent was commenced.  Even before we arrived at the first rancho, I was convinced of the good report that had preceded me.  The master of the house came towards us and conducted us by a narrow path to his hut, after having removed the foot-lances, which projected obliquely out of the ground, but were dexterously concealed by brushwood and leaves. [148] A woman employed in weaving, at my desire, continued her occupation.  The loom was of the simplest kind.  The upper end, the chain-beam, which consists of a piece of bamboo, is fixed to two bars or posts; and the weaver sits on the ground, and to the two notched ends of a small lath, which supplies the place of the