58 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



ment for the year 1889 by over £1,000,000 sterling. 

 The variation in price of this article is enormous. Sugar 

 is the export next on the list in point of importance, 

 Panay being the principal island upon which it is grown, 

 although it is also cultivated largely in Luzon and Zebu. 

 Of late, owing to the fall in price and the manipulation 

 of the American market, this produce has been much dis- 

 couraged, and from a value of £2,600,000 in 1880 

 the total shipments of 1890 were only estimated at 

 £1,330,000, which was not far short of a milhon less 

 than the value of the 1889 crop. Much of this short- 

 coming may, however, be explained by a severe plague of 

 locusts, but the decrease in the export of many other 

 products cannot be thus accounted for. Thus indigo fell 

 from 354,500 lbs. to 37,400 lbs. in 1890, and sapan 

 wood from 5000 tons to 2800 tons in the same year. 

 Coffee, another export of importance, has suffered from 

 the ravages of an insect which attacks the heart of the 

 tree and kills it, and the 1890 shipments were only to 

 the value of £420,000 — less by £80,000 than those of 

 the preceding year. Other articles of export are hides, 

 mother-of-pearl, gum-mastic, and the perfume ylang-ylang 

 from the plant Uvaria aromatica. This is worth £9 per 

 lb. in the Paris market, and has been a good deal planted 

 lately in Luzon and Sulu Island. 



The tobacco culture of the Philippines demands a 

 separate word. The policy of Spain in the islands has 

 always been that of monopolies. Little by little she has 

 had to rehnquish them. The last to fall, in July, 1882, 

 was that of tobacco. First instituted by Governor Basco 

 in 1780, it has always been productive of difficulties. 

 The enforced culture of the plant in the chief tobacco 

 districts entailed great hardship on the natives, who 

 were unable to work their rice crops at the same time ; 



