d their way to its main course. Steamers
of 11-feet draught have entered the Rio Grande, but the sand shoals
at the mouth are very shifty, and frequently the entrance is closed
to navigation. The river, which yearly overflows its banks, bathes
the great Cagayan Valley,--the richest tobacco-growing district in
the Colony. Immense trunks of trees are carried down in the torrent
with great rapidity, rendering it impossible for even small craft--the
_barangayanes_--to make their way up or down the river at that period.

The Rio Grande de la Pampanga rises in the same mountain and flows
in the opposite direction--southwards,--through an extensive plain,
until it empties itself by some 20 mouths into the Manila Bay. The
whole of the Pampanga Valley and the course of the river present a
beautiful panorama from the summit of Arayat Mountain, which has an
elevation of 2,877 feet above the sea level.

The whole of this flat country is laid out into embanked rice fields
and sugar-cane plantations. The towns and villages interspersed are
numerous. All the primeval forest, at one time dense, has disappeared;
for this being one of the first districts brought under European
subjection, it supplied timber to the invaders from the earliest days
of Spanish colonization.

The Rio Agno rises in a mountainous range towards the west coast
about 50 miles N.N.W. of the South Caraballo--runs southwards as
far as lat. 16 deg., where it takes a S.W. direction down to lat. 15 deg.
48'--thence a N.W. course up to lat. 16 deg., whence it empties itself by
two mouths into the Gulf of Lingayen. At the highest tides there is
a maximum depth of 11 feet of water on the sand bank at the E. mouth,
on which is situated the port of Dagupan.

The Bicol River, which flows from the Bato Lake to the Bay of San
Miguel, has sufficient depth of water to admit vessels of small
draught a few miles up from its mouth.

In _Mindanao Island_ the Butuan River or Rio Agusan rises at a distance
of about 25 miles from the southern coast and empties itself on the
northern coast, so that it nearly divides the island, and is navigable
for a few miles from the mouth.

The Rio Grande de Mindanao rises in the centre of the island and
empties itself on the west coast by two mouths, and is navigable
for some miles by light-draught steamers. It has a great number of
affluents of little importance.

The only river in _Negros Island_ of any appreciable extent is the
Danao, whi