requires, with the greatest circumspection
and by the slowest degrees. [120]

[Sense of smell.] The sense of smell is developed amongst the
natives to so great a degree that they are able, by smelling at the
pocket-handkerchiefs, to tell to which persons they belong ("Reisesk.,"
p. 39); and lovers at parting exchange pieces of the linen they may
be wearing, and during their separation inhale the odor of the beloved
being, besides smothering the relics with kisses. [121]

CHAPTER XV

[A scientific priest-poet.] From Naga I visited the parish priest
of Libmanan (Ligmanan), who, possessing poetical talent, and having
the reputation of a natural philosopher, collected and named pretty
beetles and shells, and dedicated the most elegant little sonnets. He
favored me with the following narrative:--

[Prehistoric remains] In 1851, during the construction of a road a
little beyond Libmanan, at a place called Poro, a bed of shells was
dug up under four feet of mould, one hundred feet distant from the
river. It consisted of Cyrenae (C. suborbicularis, Busch.), a species
of bivalve belonging to the family of Cyclades which occurs only in
warm waters, and is extraordinarily abundant in the brackish waters of
the Philippines. On the same occasion, at the depth of from one and
a half to three and a half feet, were found numerous remains of the
early inhabitants--skulls, ribs, bones of men and animals, a child's
thighbone inserted in a spiral of brass wire, several stags' horns,
beautifully-formed dishes and vessels, some of them painted, probably
of Chinese origin; striped bracelets, of a soft, gypseous, copper-red
rock, gleaming as if they were varnished; [122] small copper knives,
but no iron utensils; and several broad flat stones bored through
the middle; [123] besides a wedge of petrified wood, embedded in a
cleft branch of a tree. The place, which to this day may be easily
recognized in a hollow, might, by excavation systematically carried on,
yield many more interesting results. What was not immediately useful
was then and there destroyed, and the remainder dispersed. In spite of
every endeavor, I could obtain, through the kindness of Senor Focinos
in Naga, only one small vessel. Similar remains of more primitive
inhabitants have been found at the mouth of the Bigajo, not far from
Libmanan, in a shell-bed of the same kind; and an urn, with a human
skeleton, was found at the mouth of the Perlos, west of Sitio de Poro,
i