rovisions at the market price, a circumstance that I was not
acquainted with on the occasion of my first trip. The traveller is
therefore in this respect perfectly independent, at least in theory,
though in practice he will often scarcely be able to avoid putting
up at the conventos in the more isolated parts of the country. In
these the priest, perhaps the only white man for miles around, is
with difficulty persuaded to miss the opportunity of housing such
a rare guest, to whom he is only too anxious to give up the best
bedroom in his dwelling, and to offer everything that his kitchen
and cellar can afford. Everything is placed before the guest in such
a spirit of sincere and undisguised friendliness, that he feels no
obligation, but on the contrary easily persuades himself that he is
doing his host a favor by prolonging his stay. Upon one occasion,
when I had determined, in spite of an invitation from the padre,
to occupy the casa real, just as I was beginning to instal myself,
the priest appeared upon the scene with the municipal officials and a
band of music which was in the neighborhood pending the preparations
for a religious festival. He made them lift me up, chair and all,
and with music and general rejoicing carried me off to his own house.

[Kupang iron-foundry.] On the following day I paid a visit to Kupang,
an iron-foundry lying to the N.N.E of Angat, escorted by two armed
men, whose services I was pressed to accept, as the district had a bad
reputation for robberies. After travelling three or four miles in a
northerly direction, we crossed the Banauon, at that time a mere brook
meandering through shingle, but in the rainy season an impetuous stream
more than a hundred feet broad; and in a couple of hours we reached the
iron-works, an immense shed lying in the middle of the forest, with
a couple of wings at each end, in which the manager, an Englishman,
who had been wrecked some years before in Samar, lived with his wife,
a pretty mestiza. If I laid down my handkerchief, my pencil, or any
other object, the wife immediately locked them up to protect them from
the kleptomania of her servants. These poor people, whose enterprise
was not a very successful one, had to lead a wretched life. Two years
before my visit a band of twenty-seven robbers burst into the place,
sacked the house, and threw its mistress, who was alone with her
maid at the time, out of the window. She fortunately alighted without
receiving any