hors, need not be here mentioned. The nutmegs here are very
large and good, but the natives do not care for propagating them, being
afraid lest the Dutch, who monopolize the spice islands, should be
induced to pay them a hostile visit. This island also produces abundance
of animals, both wild and tame, as horses, cows, buffaloes, goats, wild
hogs, deer, monkeys, and others; also guanas, lizards, snakes,
scorpions, and centipeds. These last are not thicker than a goose-quill,
but five inches long, and they sting fiercer even than scorpions. Of
tame fowl, they have only ducks and hens; but have plenty of wild birds,
as pigeons, parrots, parrakeets, turtle-doves, bats as large as our
kites, and an infinite number and variety of small birds. Their wild
hogs feed in the woods in prodigious herds, and have thick knobs growing
over their eyes. There are mountains in the interior of this island,
which afford considerable quantities of gold. Their chief fish are
bonitos, snooks, cavallies, breams, and mullets; and they have abundance
of sea-tortoises; and the island has many harbours, creeks, and rivers.

Considering the situation of this island, so near the Line, its climate
is by no means excessively hot, especially near the sea, where the
sea-breeze cools the air by day and the land-breeze at night. The wind
blows from the east between October and May, and then blows from the
west till October. The west wind produces the wet season, which is
heaviest in July and August, and, gradually lessening in September,
ceases in October, when the east wind brings fair weather, which lasts
till May. The inhabitants of this island, though all resembling each
other in colour and stature, and all Mahometans, differ considerably in
language and government. The mountaineers, or _Hillanoons_, who inhabit
the interior, and are masters of the gold-mines, are also rich in
bees-wax, both of which they exchange with the _Mindanayans_ on the
coast for foreign commodities. The _Sologus_ inhabit the N.W. end of the
island, and traffic with the inhabitants of Manilla and some other
adjacent islands, but not with the Mindanayans. The _Alfoores_ were
formerly under the same government with the Mindanayans, but were
separated from them by falling to the share of the younger children of
the sultan of Mindanao, who has of late laid claim to their allegiance.

The Mindanayans, properly so called, are of low stature, with small
limbs, little heads, straight b