s or cases varies
to an almost infinite extent, and so does the price they sell at.

The mats on which the natives all sleep are largely manufactured, and
employ a great number of people, as everybody throughout the island
uses one or more of them. Some of those made in Laguna province are
finer and better finished than any others I have seen elsewhere. They
are plain or coloured, and of all patterns, and could be manufactured
to any degree of fineness, according to the price promised to the
workmen.

Ropemaking is extensively carried on; the best cordage manufactured
in the islands being made from the fibres of the plantain-tree,
which is known in commerce by the name of Manilla hemp.

At Santa Mesa, in the neighbourhood of Manilla, the rope is spun up
by the aid of steam and good machinery, established there for the
purpose, and still carried on by an old shipmaster, who produces by
far the best rope of all that is made. It is also manufactured in
several other places by the common hand-spun process, but from being
unequally twisted when made by the hand, it is very much inferior to
what has been subjected in its manufacture to the uniform steadiness
of pull which the regularity of the steam machinery occasions, all of
which is consequently much more suited to stand a heavy strain, from
being twisted by it. The price of this rope is altogether dependent
on the price of hemp, as the value of the labour employed seldom
or never varies, although the raw material of which it is composed
constantly does; the usual addition made to the current price of hemp
being four dollars a pecul of 140 lbs. English, for the machine-made
rope, generally known as "Keating's patent cordage," supposing the
material so spun to be converted into an assorted lot of from one to
six-inch cordage.

The hemp employed in the manufacture of the patent cordage is generally
selected for its length of fibre, and lightness or whiteness of
colour; and when whale-lines are made, only the very finest lots of
hemp procurable at the time are used; but the charge for spinning
them is increased to six dollars a pecul, the extra labour being
so considerable, that even with the additional charge, the maker,
Mr. Keating, informed me that he was much better recompensed by the
larger sizes of the rope he spun than by these.

Bale or wool lashing is also made to a small extent for shipment to
Sydney, &c.; the quality of the hemp used in making it being of an