84 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



like the Tagalese about Manilla, cultivate rice for 

 present use, prepare and drink the cocoa wine, 

 chew the betel, and smoke tobacco, indolently 

 enjoying, to an advanced age*, the fruits of the 

 forest, the produce of the fertile earth, and the 

 bounty of heaven. 



And how should industry flourish ? The Gover- 

 nor of this distant part of the world receives his 

 office for only a short time as a sort of benefice. 

 He has the sole trade of the colony, that is, he re- 

 tains the considerable sums, in ready money t, which 

 Spain sends for salaries, and for that is bound to 

 give his inferior officers as little and as bad good« 

 as he pleases, t On the other hand, the Indian 

 pays no tribute, cultivates his own tobacco, and 

 ■has not to enrich the church by tithes. 



The galleons from Acapulco now touch but 

 very seldom at Guahon, and, now and then only, 

 the Americans trading on the N. W. coast of 

 America. The present Governor of the Marianas, 

 has a ship of his own, a handsome brig, with which 



an opera ballet of Montezuma performed before us, in thea- 

 trical costumes, which have been, since old times, in the college, 

 in which were the Schools of the Jesuits. 



* A robust old man, of eighty -six years four months old, lives 

 in Agafia, with his equally aged wife, the only companion of his 

 youth and age ; they have about them one hundred and thirty- 

 five descendants, down to the sixth generation. 



f About eighteen thousand piasters annually, a sum for which 

 we will, however, not vouch. 



^ Zuniga, p. 6. 



