labor, and, chopping off the branches, built therewith, on the tops of the lopped trees, an observatory, from which I should have had a wide panoramic view, and an opportunity for taking celestial altitudes, had not everything been enveloped in a thick mist.  The neighboring volcanoes were visible only in glimpses, as well as San Miguel Bay and some lakes in the interior.  Immediately after sunset the thermometer registered 12.5 deg.  R. [151]

[The descent.] On the following morning it was still overcast; and when, about ten o’clock, the clouds became thicker, we set out on our return.  It was my intention to have passed the night in a rancho, in order next day to visit a solfatara which was said to be a day’s journey further; but my companions were so exhausted by fatigue that they asked for at least a few hours’ rest.

[Ferns and orchids.] On the upper slope I observed no palms with the exception of calamus; but polypodies (ferns) were very frequent, and orchids surprisingly abundant.  In one place all the trees were hung, at a convenient height, with flowering aerids; of which one could have collected thousands without any trouble.  The most beautiful plant was a Medinella, of so delicate a texture that it was impossible to preserve it.

[Carbonic acid spring.] Within a quarter of an hour north-east of Uacloy, a considerable spring of carbonic acid bursts from the ground, depositing abundance of calcareous sinter.  Our torches were quickly extinguished, and a fowl covered with a cigar-box died in a few minutes, to the supreme astonishment of the Igorots, to whom these phenomena were entirely new.

[Farewell to mountaineers.] On the second day of rest, my poor hosts, who had accompanied me back to Uacloy, still felt so weary that they were not fit for any undertaking.  With naked heads and bellies they squatted in the burning sun in order to replenish their bodies with the heat which they had lost during the bivouac on the summit; for they are not allowed to drink wine.  When I finally left them on the following day, we had become such good friends that I was compelled to accept a tamed wild pig as a present.  A troop of men and women accompanied me until they saw the glittering roofs of Maguiring, when, after the exchange of hearty farewells, they returned to their forests.  The natives whom I had taken with me from Goa had proved so lazy and morose that nearly the whole task of making the path through the forest had fallen upon the Igorots.  From sheer laziness they threw away the drinking water of which they were the porters; and the Igorots were obliged to fetch water from a considerable distance for our bivouac on the summit.  In all my troublesome marches, I have always done better with Cimarrons than with the civilized natives.  The former I have found obliging, trustworthy, active and acquainted with localities, while the latter generally displayed the opposite qualities.  It would, however, be