English, American. No matter to what
nation belonged those who landed at Jala-Jala, they were received like
brothers, and with all that cordial hospitality to be found formerly
in our colonies. My visitors enjoyed full and active liberty on my
little estate; but he who was not desirous of eating alone was obliged
to remember the time of meals: during the other hours of the day one
and all followed their own inclinations. For instance, naturalists
went in pursuit of insects and birds, and made an ample harvest of
every species of plants. Persons ailing met with the assiduous care
of a physician, as well as with the kind attention and enjoyed the
company of a most amiable and well-informed mistress of the house,
who had the natural talent of enchanting all those who spent but a
short time in her society. They who liked walking might look about for
the fine views, and choose their resting-place either in the woods,
the mountains, near the cascades or the brooks, or on the beautiful
borders of the lake.

But to sportsmen Jala-Jala was really a "promised land;" there they
always found a good pack of hounds, Indians to guide them, good
stout horses to carry them across the various mountains and plains,
where the stag and wild boar were to be met with most plentifully;
and were they desirous of less fatiguing exercise, they only had to
jump into some of our light canoes, and skim over the blue waters,
shooting on their way at the hosts of aquatic birds flying around
them in all directions,--they could even land on the various small
islands situated between Jala-Jala and the isle of Talem. There
they could find a sort of sport utterly unknown in Europe--that is,
immense bats, a species of vampire, designated by naturalists by the
name of roussettes. During six months in the year, at the period of the
eastern monsoon, every tree on these little isles is covered, from the
topmost down to the lowest branch, with those huge bats, that supply
the place of the foliage which they have entirely destroyed. Muffled
up in their vast wings they sleep during the whole day, and in the
nighttime they start off in large bodies roaming about in search
of their prey. But as soon as the western monsoon has succeeded the
eastern, they disappear, and repair always to the same place,--the
eastern coast of Luzon, where they take shelter; after the monsoon
changed, they return to their former quarters.

As soon as our guests would alight upon one of