he creditor as his own property;
and it was only a few years since that, upon the death of the debtor,
his children succeeded, with great difficulty, in paying the original
debt and redeeming the property. It is no uncommon thing for a native
to borrow two dollars and a half from another in order to purchase
his exemption from the forty days of annual service, and then,
failing to repay the loan punctually, to serve his creditor for a
whole year. [201]

[People of Samar and Leyte.] The inhabitants of Samar and Leyte,
who are at once idler and filthier than those of Luzon, seem to be
as much behind the Bicols as the latter are behind the Tagalogs. In
Tacloban, where a more active intercourse with Manila exists, these
qualities are less pronounced, and the women, who are agreeable,
bathe frequently. For the rest, the inhabitants of the two islands
are friendly, obliging, tractable, and peaceable. Abusive language or
violence very rarely occurs, and, in case of injury, information is
laid against the offender at the tribunal. Great purity of manners
seems to prevail on the north and west coasts, but not on the east
coast, nor in Leyte. External piety is universally conspicuous, through
the training imparted by the priests; the families are very united,
and great influence is wielded by the women, who are principally
engaged in household employments, and are tolerably skilful in weaving,
and to whom only the lighter labors of the field are assigned. The
authority of the parents and of the eldest brother is supreme, the
younger sisters never venturing to oppose it; women and children are
kindly treated.

[Leyte.] The natives of Leyte, clinging as strongly to their native
soil as those of Samar, like them, have no partiality for the sea,
though their antipathy to it is not quite so manifest as that of the
inhabitants of Samar. [202]

[Public charity not accepted.] There are no benevolent institutions
in either of the two islands. Each family maintains its own poor
and crippled, and treats them tenderly. In Catbalogan, the chief
town of the island, with five to six thousand inhabitants, there
were only eight recipients of charity; but in Albay mendicants are
not wanting. In Lauang, when a Spaniard, on a solemn festival, had
caused it to be proclaimed that he would distribute rice to the poor,
not a single applicant came forward. The honesty of the inhabitants of
Samar is much commended. Obligations are said to be contracte