a hut on
the northern slope of the Manacagan, which the owner, on seeing
us approach, had voluntarily quitted, and with his wife and child
sought other lodgings. The customs of the country require this when
the accommodation does not suffice for both parties; and payment for
the same is neither demanded nor, except very rarely, tendered.

[Up the Manacagan.] About six o'clock on the following morning we
started; and about half-past six climbed, by a pleasant path through
the forest, to the ridge of the Manacagan, which consists of trachytic
hornblende; and about seven o'clock we crossed two small rivers flowing
north-west, and then, by a curve, reached the coast at Dulag. From the
ridge we caught sight, towards the south, of the great white heaps
of debris of the mountain Danan glimmering through the trees. About
nine o'clock we came through the thickly-wooded crater of the Kasiboi,
and, further south, to some sheds in which the sulphur is smelted.

[Sulphur.] The raw material obtained from the solfatara is bought in
three classes: firstly, sulphur already melted to crusts; secondly,
sublimated, which contains much condensed water in its interstices;
and thirdly, in the clay, which is divided into the more or less
rich, from which the greatest quantity is obtained. Coconut oil,
which is thrown into flat iron pans holding six arrobas, is added to
the sulphurous clay, in the proportion of six quarts to four arrobas,
and it is melted and continually stirred. The clay which floats on
the surface, now freed from the sulphur, being skimmed off, fresh
sulphurous clay is thrown into the cauldron, and so on. In two or
three hours six arrobas of sulphur, on an average, may be obtained
in this manner from twenty-four arrobas of sulphurous clay, and,
poured into wooden chests, it is moulded into blocks of about four
arrobas. Half the oil employed is recovered by throwing the clay
which has been saturated with it into a frame formed by two narrow
bamboo hurdles, placed at a sharp angle. The oil drops into a sloping
gutter of bamboo which is placed underneath, and from that flows into a
pot. The price of the sulphur at Manila varies between [Prices.] $1.25
and $4.50 per picul. I saw the frames, full of clay, from which the
oil exuded; but the operation itself I did not, unfortunately, then
witness, and I cannot explain in what manner the oil is added. From
some experiments made on a small scale, therefore under essentially
differen