ivalves. The road was very difficult, as the high tide forced us to
climb between the trees and thick underwood. On the way we met an
enterprising family who had left Daet with a cargo of coconuts for
Naga, and had been wrecked here; saving only one out of five tinajas
of oil, but recovering all the nuts. [137] They were living in a
small hastily-run-up hut, upon coconuts, rice, fish, and mussels,
in expectation of a favorable wind to return. There were several
varieties of shore-birds; but my gun would not go off, although
my servant, in expectation of a hunt, had cleaned it with especial
care. As he had lost the ramrod whilst cleaning it, the charge was
not withdrawn before we reached Cabusao, when it was discovered that
both barrels were full of sand to above the touchhole.

[Making palm-sugar.] The coast was still more beautiful than on the
preceding day, particularly in one place where the surge beat against a
wood of fan-palms (Corypha sp.). On the side facing the sea, in groups
or rows stood the trees, bereft of their crowns, or lying overthrown
like columns amid the vast ruins of temples (one of them was three feet
in diameter); and the sight immediately reminded me of Pompeii. I could
not account for the bareness of the trunks, until I discovered a hut in
the midst of the palms, in which two men were endeavoring to anticipate
the waves in their work of destruction by the preparation of sugar
(tunguleh). For this purpose, after stripping off the leaves (this
palm flowering at the top), the upper end of the stem is cut across,
the surface of the incision being inclined about five degrees towards
the horizon, and, near its lower edge, hollowed out to a very shallow
gutter. The juice exudes over the whole surface of the cut, with the
exception of the intersected exterior petioles, and, being collected
in the shallow channel, is conducted by a piece of banana-leaf,
two inches broad, and four inches long, into a bamboo-cane attached
to the trunk. In order to avert the rain from the saccharine issue,
which has a faint, pleasantly aromatic flavor as of barley-sugar,
all the trees which have been tapped are provided with caps formed of
bent and folded palm-leaves. The average daily produce of each tree is
four bamboos, the interior of which is about three inches and a half
in diameter. When removed, they are full to about eighteen inches;
which gives somewhat more than ten quarts daily.

[The money side.] The produce o