


1891.] The Island of Mindoro. 1045 
filled with crocodiles. It is apparently an old arm of the sea, cut 
off, and now draining out by the rising of the land. It is sur- 
rounded by dense forests, only broken where there are a few cabins 
of outlaws and runaway Christian Indians, and a little village of 
Mangianes, a native heathen tribe. Signs of the samarou were 
abundant, and they immediately set to work to kill some of them. 
The Indian plan was to build a stockade and enclose a tame 
buffalo, which the ¢amarou would come out to attack at night, 
when they might be shot at close quarters. They tried this sev- 
eral nights until they were nearly eaten up by mosquitoes, but 
no famarou made their appearance, and they then undertook to 
hunt them by day. Their guides were too much afraid to lead 
them directly to the game, and when they were near would run 
away. But they got several shots and wounded one or two badly, 
but rain coming on the tracks were washed out and the game 
lost ; and so, after two weeks of the hardest work and exposure, 
they returned to Calapan without the samarou, but with two wild 
boars and a large collection of water birds from lake Naujan. 
-A few days after this portion of our party left for the south, 
Mr. Moseley took a native vessel across to the coast of Luzon, on 
his way to Manila and the United States ; and Mateo and I, with 
old Juan, the cook, loaded a canoe with provisions and started up 
the coast to the north to the village at the mouth of the Catuiran 
river, where we expected to get a guide for the trip. The man 
who had been recommended to us was not yet ready, and we 
pushed on up the Catuiran. At its mouth it is wide and deep 
enough for native vessels of-considerable size to enter. The 
country near the sea was low and covered with mangroves, and 
uninhabitable ; but as we left this flowed country behind we came 
to new settlements of Christian people from Luzonand Marinduque, 
and pulling our canoe up the muddy bank below the house of one 
of these, who was recognized as an official by the government at 
Calapan, we claimed his hospitality and slung our hammocks 
under his narrow roof. These people were clearing the new and 
rich lands along the river, and raising mountain rice. The next 
day of waiting was spent in hunting along the river and through 
the deep forests around the clearings ; but little new was found, 
