ill
country, and on the slope, which is well drained by deep channels,
only wild cane and a few groups of trees grow. Passing by many
villages, whose huts were so isolated and concealed that they might
remain unobserved, we arrived at five o'clock at Tagunton; from which
a road, practicable for carabao carts, and used for the transport of
the abaca grown in the district, leads to Goa; and here, detained by
sickness, I hired a little house, in which I lay for nearly four weeks,
no other remedies offering themselves to me but hunger and repose.

[Useful friends.] During this time I made the acquaintance of some
newly-converted Igorots, and won their confidence. Without them I would
have had great difficulty in ascending the mountains as well as to
visit their tribe in its farms without any danger. [147] When, at last,
I was able to quit Goa, my friends conducted me, as the first step,
to their settlement; where, having been previously recommended and
expected, I easily obtained the requisite number of attendants to take
into their charge the animals and plants which were collected for me.

[A heathen Mountaineers' settlement.] On the following morning the
ascent was commenced. Even before we arrived at the first rancho,
I was convinced of the good report that had preceded me. The master
of the house came towards us and conducted us by a narrow path to his
hut, after having removed the foot-lances, which projected obliquely
out of the ground, but were dexterously concealed by brushwood and
leaves. [148] A woman employed in weaving, at my desire, continued
her occupation. The loom was of the simplest kind. The upper end,
the chain-beam, which consists of a piece of bamboo, is fixed to
two bars or posts; and the weaver sits on the ground, and to the two
notched ends of a small lath, which supplies the place of the weaving
beam, hooks on a wooden bow, in the arch of which the back of the
lath is fitted. Placing her feet against two pegs in the ground and
bending her back, she, by means of the bow, stretches the material
out straight. A netting-needle, longer than the breadth of the web,
serves instead of the weaver's shuttle, but it can be pushed through
only by considerable friction, and not always without breaking the
chains of threads. A lath of hard wood (caryota), sharpened like a
knife, represents the trestle, and after every stroke it is placed
upon the edge; after which the comb is pushed forward, a thread put
throu