THE PLANT WORIvD 233 



to raise vegetables for the ships in the harbor. The carpenter may wait 

 for months for wood for a table or wardrobe, the people who usually bring 

 logs to the town having use for their cattle and carts on their ranches. 

 The shoemaker may be without leather for a long time, the tanner being 

 engaged planting rice, or being without tan-bark, or busy sawing boards 

 for a new house. It is impossible to go to a man with money in your 

 hand and say : "I wish to put up a house of certain dimensions. What 

 will you charge me for the work ? How soon can you do it for me ? ' ' 

 The man will answer : " Have you posts ? Have you beams and joists? 

 Have you boards for the sides and flooring ? Get them, and then we will 

 talk about it. I am too busy on my ranch to bother with looking for them." 

 If a mason comes to build a wall for you he expects to find ready for his 

 use lime, sand, and stone, and even utensils for working; and when he 

 or a carpenter comes to do a piece of work, ten to one no square or level 

 is brought. If they could level or make a right angle with the eye alone 

 it would be all right, but unfortunately they may have a piece of work 

 half finished when you discover that it is inaccurate ; and then for the 

 first time you learn that the mason or carpenter has no square or level, 

 and he asks you to borrow one for him. In constructing a house or shed 

 it may never occur to them to see that the holes for the posts are dug at 

 right angles with one another. They are likely first to dig holes, then 

 fill them up again and dig others when they find they are not at right 

 angles. It is the same way in putting on a roof — it may not occur to 

 them to find out whether the posts are all of the same height until the 

 architrave is nailed or lashed to them. As the boards are sawn by hand, 

 many of them do not have their sides parallel, and the boards composing 

 the side of a house, which should be vertical, may have their edges at 

 almost any angle. There are exceptions to this rule, and some carpen- 

 ters show evidence of doing good work as joiners. The best are Filipinos, 

 but even they do not let their trade interfere with work on their ranches. 



Thursday, October 26. — This day Don Antonio Martinez, in the 

 presence of the President of the Spanish Commission, paid to Shebata, 

 the Japanese merchant, $150 damages for not fulfilling a contract to 

 deliver to him copra. This copra was gathered by Don Antonio's employes 

 on the island of Alamagan, and was taken away from the island by 

 Captain Harrison of the schooner Esmeralda, who claimed that his 

 brother-in-law, Don Jose Portusach, had received this island as a grant 

 from the Spanish Government, and that his title to it was registered in 

 the archives of the Government. It is true that negotiations were opened 

 by the Spanish Government for the leasing of the island in question, and 

 bids were offered by several people. The lease was awarded to Jose 

 Portusach on the condition, among other things, that he should maintain 

 communication among the islands of the group by means of a vessel flying 



