[A famous plantation.] Jalajala, an estate which occupies the eastern of the two peninsulas which run southward into the lake, is one of the first places visited by strangers.  It owes this preference to its beautiful position and nearness to Manila, and to the fantastic description of it by a former owner, De la Gironniere.  The soil of the peninsula is volcanic; its range of hills is very rugged, and the watercourses bring down annually a quantity of soil from the mountains, which increases the deposits at their base.  The shore-line, overgrown with grass and prickly sensitive-plants quite eight feet high, makes capital pasture for carabaos.  Behind it broad fields of rice and sugar extend themselves up to the base of the hills.  Towards the north the estate is bounded by the thickly-wooded Sembrano, the highest mountain in the peninsula; on the remaining sides it is surrounded with water.  With the exception of the flat shore, the whole place is hilly and overgrown with grass and clumps of trees, capital pasture for its numerous herds—­a thousand carabaos, one thousand five hundred to two thousand bullocks, and from six to seven hundred nearly wild horses.  As we were descending one of the hills, we were suddenly surrounded by half-a-dozen armed men, who took us for cattle-thieves, but who, to their disappointment, were obliged to forego their expected chance of a reward.

[Los Banos hot springs.] Beyond Jalajala, on the south coast of the Lagoon of Bay, lies the hamlet of Los Banos, so called from a hot spring at the foot of the Makiling volcano.  Even prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, the natives used its waters as a remedy, [64] but they are now very little patronized.  The shore of the lake is at this point, and indeed all round its circumference, so flat that it is impossible to land with dry feet from the shallowest canoe.  It is quite covered with sand mussels.  North-west of Los Banos there lies a small volcanic lake fringed with thick woods, called Dagatan (the enchanted lagoon of travellers), to distinguish it from Dagat, as the Tagals call the great Lagoon of Bay.  I saw nothing of the crocodiles which are supposed to infest it, but we flushed several flocks of wild fowl, disturbed by our invasion of their solitude.  From Los Banos I had intended to go to Lupang Puti (white earth), where, judging from the samples shown me, there is a deposit of fine white silicious earth, which is purified in Manila and used as paint.  I did not reach the place, as the guide whom I had with difficulty obtained, pretended, after a couple of miles, to be dead beat.  From the inquiries I made, however, I apprehend that it is a kind of solfatara.  Several deposits of it appear to exist at the foot of the Makiling. [65]

[Talim island.] On my return I paid a visit to the Island of Talim, which, with the exception of a clearing occupied by a few miserable huts, is uninhabited and thickly overgrown with forest and undergrowth.  In the center of the Island is the Susong-Dalaga (maiden’s bosom), a dolerite hill with a beautifully formed crest.  Upon the shore, on a bare rock, I found four eggs containing fully developed young crocodiles.  When I broke the shells the little reptiles made off.