[Cebu.] Cebu (with a population of 34,000) is the chief town of the island of the same name, the seat of Government and of the bishop of the Bisayas, and within forty-eight hours from Manila by steamer.  It is as favorably situated with regard to the eatern portion of the Bisayan group as Iloilo is for the western, and is acquiring increased importance as the emporium for its products.  Sugar and tobacco are obtained from Bohol; rice from Panay; abaca from Leyte and Mindanao; and coffee, wax, Spanish cane, and mother-of-pearl from Misamis (Mindanao).  Its distance from Samar is twenty-six, from Leyte two and a half, from Bohol four, and from Negros eighteen miles.

[Cebu island.] The island of Cebu extends over seventy-five square miles.  A lofty mountain range traverses it from north to south, dividing the east from the west side, and its population is estimated at 340,000,—­4,533 to the square mile.  The inhabitants are peaceable and docile; thefts occur very seldom, and robberies never.  Their occupations are agriculture, fishing, and weaving for home consumption.  Cebu produces sugar, tobacco, maize, rice, etc., and in the mountains potatoes; but the rice produced does not suffice for their requirements, there being only a little level land, and the deficiency is imported from Panay.

[Land tenure.] The island possesses considerable beds of coal, the full yield of which may now be looked for, as the duty on export was abandoned by a decree of the 5th of May, 1869. [211] While in Luzon and Panay the land is for the most part the property of the peasantry, in Cebu it mostly belongs to the mestizos, and is let out by them, in very small allotments, upon lease.  The owners of the soil know how to keep the peasants in a state of dependence by usurious loans; and one of the results of this abuse is that agriculture in this island stands lower than in almost any other part of the archipelago. [212] [Customhouse data.] The entire value of the exports in 1868 amounted to $1,181,050; of which sugar to the value of $481,127, and abaca to the value of $378,256; went to England, abaca amounting to $112,000 to America, and tobacco to $118,260 to Spain.  The imports of foreign goods, mostly by the Chinese, come through Manila, where they purchase from the foreign import houses.  The value of these imports amounted in 1868 to $182,522; of which $150,000 were for English cotton stuffs.  The entire imports of the island were estimated at $1,243,582, and the exports at $226,898.  Among the importations were twenty chests of images, a sign of the deeply-rooted worship of the Virgin.  Formerly the products for exportation were bought up by the foreign merchants, mostly Chinese mestizos; but now they are bought direct from the producers, who thus obtain better prices in consequence of the abolition of the high brokerages.  To this and to the energy of the foreign merchants, under favorable circumstances, is the gradual improvement of agriculture principally to be ascribed.