PALAWAN. 
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with a non-luxurious barbarian, whom he might cheat more, hut with whom he would do 
less. The Chinese willingly permit the Sulus to get into their debt; this spurs the Sulu to 
work the Dusun, or leads to disputes, when the account is balanced with a stroke or two 
of the “ barong ” and by setting fire to (after looting) the store. Such was the state of trade 
in Palawan in the year 1887 A.D. 
For the occasional murders of Chinamen I have given sufficient reasons. The murder 
of the American trader was because he was being continually robbed by the Sulus, and 
getting no satisfaction from the nominal Sulu chiefs, he lost his temper one day and shot a 
Sulu: he was then set upon by some others and literally hacked into pieces. No man in 
his senses should have resorted to such severe measures, surrounded as this trader was by a 
tribe of cut-throats. 
Not far from the store is the house of an old woman who calls herself the Rajah—really, 
I suppose, the Ranee. This evening I called on her with the Chinaman, and asked her to 
assist me in visiting the mountains. The old lady is white-haired, and is, I hear, the mother 
of the Sultan of Sulu, which is perhaps true; she pretends to have a good deal of power, • 
but I afterwards discovered that the only power she possesses is over her own household, 
the rest of the Sulus not troubling themselves about her. I often used to call on this old 
lady at her request, when she either wanted to beg for something or used to ask advice as 
to her various ailments. After a long conversation, in which she described how the people 
were afraid of her—dear old thing! for it existed in her imagination only,—I found that 
she could do nothing to help me. Being of a religious turn of mind she held prayers 
twice daily; and this being the month of the Mohammedan fast, or Rhamadan, the “ Bulan 
puossa” of the Malays, chants and prayers go on all day, which are occasionally attended 
by my two Kadyan Hadjis, with whom I have agreed that they shall do no work until 
after the fast is over, that is on the 23rd. So the seven Kadyans have been sitting about 
doing nothing all day. This trying state of things became too much for Tungal, so the day 
before the fast was completed he went fishing with a cast-net and secured a fine fish, olf 
which he dined; after this he went bird-collecting as usual, to the intense amusement of 
the rest. 
21st, 22nd.—I went with the Chinaman to-day to be introduced to the various Dusuns 
who are living round about Taguso—the object of this visit being to let them know that 
we were going to collect birds in the forests, so that they need not be alarmed at our guns. 
The people visited to-day have very small houses with interlaced bamboo sides; they are 
a miserable-looking lot, but some have fine features. One of the first birds I saw to-day 
was the Palawan Titmouse (Paras amabilis). This little bird is of a bright sulphur-yellow 
with a black head and tail, the back being whitish grey; it is peculiar to this island and 
perhaps Balabac. The large Fruit-Pigeon (Carpophaga cenea) is very common, and I saw 
for the first time in my life two wild Cockatoos. 
During the night the horrible swamp-crabs have covered the ground in the store with a 
number of small mounds of filthy black mud, which they have forced up from the swamp 
beneath. Occasionally, too, a large boiled-looking lobster-like crustacean used to come out 
of its burrows in the evenings and throw out a quantity of filth, at times close to one’s bed; 
it was incomprehensible to me how the Chinese could live in such a place. My bed 
