1891.] Geography and Travel. | 731 
General Notes. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL. 
A Visit to the Philippine Islands of Masbate and Marin- 
duqt'e.—On the first of May, 1888, after a month’s stay in the Eastern 
Philippines, we sailed from the port of Catbalogan, in the island of 
Samar, bound for the island of Masbate. Our vessel was a stout little 
brig called the ‘‘ Salvamiento,’’ built in the islands, manned by a crew 
of Indians, and commanded by a Spanish captain. Our cargo was 
abaca (manila hemp), for the Manila market, and our only fellow- 
passenger was an old Indian sergeant going up to Manila on furlough. 
The southeast trades were just beginning to blow, and we set sail at 
sundown. The month in the eastern islands had been one of the 
hardest we had passed, with the jealousy of the authorities, poor food, 
the beginning of the rainy season, and a most difficult and mountain- 
ous country to hunt over, and we were pleased enough to be once more 
turned towards the north and home. ‘The evening was pleasant, and 
we sat in the moonlight on the deck far into the night listening to the 
old sergeant’s stories, and then turned in to sleep in a shake-down of 
sails on the cabin floor. : 
The next morning found us still moving leisurely along under the 
same gentle breeze, and in the common highway from the Eastern and 
Central Philippines towards Manila. Islands were in sight on both 
sides all day, most of them more or less cultivated. In the afternoon 
we reached the southern point of Masbate, and sailed along the eastern 
shore. The country looked bare and brown enough. Most of it was 
campo, a rolling prairie, covered with coarse grass, now mee with 
drouth, and in many places blackened with fire, 
Just at night we turned into the little harbor of Palanoc and dropped 
anchor, the captain saying that he would wait and put us ashore in the 
morning, so that we might have time to hunt a house to stop in. He 
then took me ashore in his boat, and we climbed the steep bank of 
sixty or eighty feet, up to the little town, and there, guided by the 
moonlight, along a little crooked street to a low shop kept by a China- 
man, in which were an antiquated billiard table and a bar, and where 
were assembled the four or five Spaniards who made up the official 
corps of the island ; for Masbate is’a province, and Palanoc its capital. 
The captain introduced me as “ Un señor naturalista Americano,” 

