arry and remain in the country, although
every now and then some of them are obliged to flee from it to
the Philippines, where the Spanish flag protects them against their
tyrannical and barbarous pillagers; for as there is no law to appeal to
as a protection against the chiefs, they are quite at their mercy. The
Datos themselves decide their quarrels and disputes with each other,
by arming and assembling all their slaves and those of their friends
who are willing to help them, and fight it out; but should their
disputes run very high, or the feud last for any length of time,
some powerful Dato, or the Sultan himself, interferes, and decides
it finally by obliging both parties to keep the peace.

The footing on which the trade is carried on with Sooloo is rather a
strange one; although regulations have at various times been arranged
between the Spanish government and that court, by which, although
the Sultan has formally promised to give his guarantee that all goods
sold by the traders from the Philippines to the Datos shall be paid
for, yet there are very few of the traders at Manilla who consider
the pledge of his Highness as of much importance, as it is usually
only redeemed when his own particular interest requires it. He is,
in truth, generally absolutely unable to make the nobles fulfil
their contracts, they being as a body very much more powerful than
he is. There being little or no money in Sooloo, the trade carried
on by the Chinese supercargos of the ships frequenting the port is
principally transacted by barter, they giving their manufactures
for the produce of their fishery, &c., and for edible birds'-nests,
tortoise-shell, beche de mer, mother-of-pearl shell, wax, gold-dust,
pearls, &c.

The profits of those engaged in this trade are very variable, for
although their goods are all disposed of apparently at enormous prices,
yet there are so many of them delivered to powerful chiefs, or to the
Sultan, as presents, or sold to these dignitaries without the traders
ever being able to get paid for them, that in reality the profit of
the voyage may he scanty enough, although, were the guarantee of the
prince to the Manilla government fulfilled, they might he very large
if the prices at which they had been sold were actually paid to them.

If the debts of the Datos are not paid off at once they are allowed to
stand over for another year, at which distance of time they are very
seldom recoverable, good memories b