nt would yield millions and blossom as the rose,
but as yet they are blighted by the uncivilized natives. A man would be
taking his life in his hands to go out into the country and try to
engage in anything. As conditions existed when I was there, bands of
hostile Filipinos were scouring the whole interior, and frequently were
bold enough to raid near the American posts, leaving devastation
wherever they went. The soil is very fertile, a warm temperature and
plenty of water to irrigate with if desired for that purpose.

The natives use the most crude implements, and have but very little
knowledge of farming, and are too indolent to put into practice what
little they do know of soils and crops. It seems to make little
difference what season they plant in. The climate is always warm, most
of the year extremely hot; too hot for an American or white man, to
labor in. It is just the climate that suits the negro. Chinese and
negroes work for fifty and sixty cents per day.

A very fine tobacco is raised, and most of it exported. A cigar factory
in Manila manufactures a great quantity of cigars.

Rice is easily raised, and is the principal food of the natives.

The rough rice is husked in a very crude way; a wooden trough, or dug
out, is used to put the rough rice in, and chunks of wood are taken in
the hands, and the rice is pounded with these until the husks are all
broken off, the rice taken out and separated from the husks.

Sugar is an important crop, and is extensively raised. No less than
fifteen sugar mills could be counted from the top of the walls of the
city of Manila.

Under improved methods of agriculture that country would be a wonderful
one in the production of sugar and rice.

The Philippines will, in all probability, become important in the near
future in the production of minerals, principally gold. There are some
very good veins of gold ore in the mountains of Luzon, some of which I
saw myself. Several pieces of stone on which gold was easily seen, were
picked up by the men of my regiment. I saw rocks with both gold and
silver in them. The men would not tell just where they had found them.
They probably thought that at some time, after their service expired,
they would return and work the places found.

I knew one man, an old, experienced miner, who would spend the Sundays
out in the hills and around the foot of them, where he was not exposed
too much to the enemy, prospecting for gold. He was success