reports,
which frequently remain unnoticed, that he soon loses all desire to
attempt any innovation. Estimates for large works, to carry out which
would require a considerable outlay, are invariably returned from
headquarters marked "not urgent." [Funds diverted to Spain.] The fact
is not that the colonial government is wanting in good-will, but that
the Caja de Comunidad (General Treasury) in Manila is almost always
empty, as the Spanish government, in its chronic state of bankruptcy,
borrows the money and is never in a position to return it.

[Sorsogon earthquake.] In 1840 Sorsogon suffered severely from an
earthquake, which lasted almost continuously for thirty-five days. It
raged with the greatest fury on the 21st of March. The churches, both
of Sorsogon and of Casiguran, as well as the smallest stone houses,
were destroyed; seventeen persons lost their lives, and two hundred
were injured; and the whole neighborhood sank five feet below its
former level.

[Casiguran.] The next morning I accompanied the alcalde in a falua
(felucca), manned by fourteen rowers, to Casiguran, which lies directly
south of Sorsogon, on the other side of a small bay, of two leagues
in breadth, which it took us an hour and a half to cross. The bay was
as calm as an inland lake. It is almost entirely surrounded by hills,
and its western side, which is open to the sea, is protected by the
Island of Bagalao, which lies in front of it. As soon as we landed,
we were received with salutes of cannon and music, and flags and
shirts streamed in the wind. I declined the friendly invitation of the
alcalde to accompany him any further; as to me, who had no official
business to transact, the journey seemed nothing but a continually
recurring panorama of dinners, lunches, cups of chocolate, music,
and detonations of gunpowder.

[Quicksilver.] In 1850 quicksilver was discovered on a part of the
coast now covered by the sea. I examined the reported bed of the
deposit, and it appeared to me to consist of a stratum of clay six feet
in depth, superimposed over a layer of volcanic sand and fragments
of pumice stone. An Englishman who was wrecked in this part of the
Archipelago, the same individual I met at the iron works at Angat, had
begun to collect it, and by washing the sand had obtained something
like a couple of ounces. Somebody, however, told the priest of the
district that quicksilver was a poison; and, as he himself told me,
so forcibly did he de