SOOLOO. 351 



The officer at the fort was a lieutenant of infantry : one of that 

 rank is stationed here for a month, after which he, with the garrison, 

 consisting of three soldiers, are relieved, from Samboangan, where the 

 Spaniards have three companies. 



Samboangan is a convict settlement, to which the native rogues, 

 principally thieves, are sent. The Spanish criminals, as I have 

 before stated in speaking of Manilla, are sent to Spain. 



The inhabitants of the island of Mindanao who are under the sub- 

 jection of Spain, are about ten thousand in number, of whom five or 

 six thousand are at or in the neighbourhood of Samboangan. The 

 original inhabitants, who dwell in the mountains and on the east coast, 

 are said to be quite black, and are represented to be a very cruel and 

 bad set; they have hitherto bid defiance to all attempts to subjugate 

 them. When the Spaniards make excursions into the interior, which 

 is seldom, they always go in large parties on account of the wild 

 beasts, serpents, and hostile natives ; nevertheless, the latter fre- 

 quently attack and drive them back. 



The little fort is considered as a sufficient protection for the fisher- 

 men and small vessels against the pirates, who inhabit the island of 

 Basillan, which is in sight from Mindanao, and forms the southern 

 side of the straits of the same name. It is said that about seven 

 hundred inhabit it. The name of Moor is given by the Spaniards to 

 all those who profess the Mohammedan religion, and by such all the 

 islands to the west of Mindanao, and known under the name of the 

 Sooloo Archipelago, are inhabited. 



The day we spent at Caldera was employed in surveying the bay, 

 and in obtaining observations for its geographical position, and for 

 magnetism. The flood tide sets to the northward and westward, 

 through the straits, and the ebb to the eastward. In the bay we 

 found it to run two miles an hour by the log, but it must be much 

 more rapid in the straits. 



At daylight on the 1st of February, we got under way to stand 

 over for the Sangboys, a small island with two sharp hills on it. One 

 and a half miles from the bay we passed over a bank, the least water 

 on which was ten fathoms on a sandy bottom, and on which a vessel 

 might anchor. The wind shortly after failed us, and we drifted with 

 the tide for some hours, in full view of the island of Mindanao, 

 which is bold and picturesque. We had thus a good opportunity of 

 measuring some of its mountain ranges, which we made about three 

 thousand feet high. 



