d permission
from the Governor to make a raid upon these Igorrote-Chinese and
appropriate their treasure-yielding territory. After a seven days'
march the Spanish gold-seekers and troops arrived at the deposits,
where they took up their quarters without resistance. The natives held
aloof whilst mutual offers of peace were made. When the Spaniards
thought they were in secure possession of the neighbourhood, the
natives attacked and slaughtered a number of them. The commander of the
district and the leader of the native troops were among the slain. Then
they removed the camp to a safer place; but provisions ran short and
the wet season set in, so the survivors marched back to the coast with
the resolution to renew their attempt to possess the spoil in the
following year. In the ensuing dry season they returned and erected
a fort, whence detachments of soldiers scoured the neighbourhood to
disperse the Igorrote-Chinese, but the prospectors do not appear to
have procured much gold.

Many years ago a Spanish company was formed to work a gold-mine near
the mountain of Malaguit, in the Province of Camarines Norte, but it
proved unsuccessful.

At the beginning of last century a company was founded, under the
auspices of the late Queen Christina of Spain (great-grandmother of
the present King Alfonso XIII.), which was also an utter failure. I
was told that the company had spacious offices established in Manila,
whence occasionally the employees went up to the mines, situated near
the Caraballo Mountain, as if they were going to a picnic. When they
arrived there, all denoted activity--for the feast; but the mining
work they did was quite insignificant compared with the squandered
funds, hence the disaster of the concern.

The coast of Surigao (north-east extremity of Mindanao Is.) has been
known for centuries to have gold-deposits. A few years ago it was
found in sufficiently large quantities near the surface to attract the
attention of capitalists. A sample of the washings was given to me,
but gold extraction was never taken up in an organized way in that
district. A friend of mine, a French merchant in Manila, told me in
1886 that for a long time he received monthly remittances of 4 1/2
to 5 1/2 lbs. of alluvial gold from the Surigao coast, extracted by
the natives on their own account. In the same district a Spaniard
attempted to organize labour for systematic gold-washing, but the
friars so influenced the natives against