arve if they
do not exert themselves, that they will undergo hard labour in the
fields under the broiling sun.

CHAPTER XIX.

Very few of the native Indians or Mestizos are possessed of much
wealth, according to British ideas of the term, although there are some
of the latter class who are considered among themselves as very well
off, if their savings amount to from five to twenty thousand dollars;
and when they reach fifty thousand dollars, they are looked upon as
rich capitalists.

In Manilla, there are one or two of these Mestizo traders whose
fortunes amount to more than this; but such occurances are rare,
and are seldom heard of. Many of these amounts have been collected
together by their possessors by their engaging in a sort of usurious
money-lending or banking business with the poverty-struck cultivators
of the soil, by advancing seed to many of them for their paddy fields,
and making the hard condition of exacting in return about one half
of the produce of the ensuing crop. But perhaps these money-lenders
are, to a certain extent, necessary to supply the wants of an
improvident and careless race, these habits being besetting sins of
the Indian character; yet there can be little doubt that the money
acquired by such a usurious repayment of the sums advanced, does
an immense deal of harm, and lessens the natural independence of
the Indians who are so unfortunate as to fall into the clutches of
the money-lender. Should a poor Indian, the possessor of a patch of
paddy-land capable of producing very little more than is required to
feed his family, once run short of seed, he has a very hard battle to
fight with the soil before he is able to get that debt cleared off,
should his neighbours be too poor to assist him, as he must then have
recourse to the usurer. For although, through his greater efforts and
improved cultivation, he may produce much more paddy than his land
had done before, yet he is seldom able to save enough for seed from
the moiety of the produce which his appetite restricted to live upon,
as the other half must go to repay the usurer who advanced him seed,
or money to purchase it.

I have seldom heard of Europeans engaging in this business, for which
their nature and habits are much less suitable than those Mestizo
capitalists who devote themselves to the traffic.

These debts are frequently contracted by the Indians in emulating the
splendour of some richer neighbour on their patron s