ed from him, or any security given
in return. This system prevails not only in sugar, but in all other
articles of the agricultural produce of the islands, in the sale of
which no credit is given to the purchaser.

Sugar pays an export duty of 3 per cent. It should never be weighed
except upon a hot dry day, as if there is the least moisture in the
air it absorbs it, and adds considerably to its weight.

In connection with sugar, it may be stated, that some very good rum is
made at Manilla, although very little is exported. It is a monopoly
of the Government, who farm it out to one of the sugar clayers at
Manilla. Molasses are never shipped, but are used in Manilla for
mixing with the water given to the horses to drink, most of them
refusing to taste it unless so sweetened.

Hemp is produced from the bark of a species of the plantain-tree,
forests of which are found growing wild in some provinces of the
Philippines. The operation of making it is simple enough, the most
important of the process apparently being the separation of the
fibres from each other by an iron instrument, resembling a comb
for the hair. After drying in the sun, and undergoing several other
processes, with the minutiae of which I am unacquainted, it is made
up into bales, weighing 280 lbs. each, and in that state is shipped
for Manilla, where, after being picked more or less white, which is
dependent entirely upon the purposes it is intended to serve, and the
markets it has to be sent to, it is again pressed into bales of the
same weight as before, although of much less bulk, and is exported,
the greater quantity of it going to the United States of America,
as the export tables will show.

The best hemp is of a long and fine white fibre, very well dried, and
of a silky gloss. The dark coloured is not so well liked, and if too
bad for exportation, is generally made up into ropes for the colonial
shipping, or sent down to Singapore for transhipment to Calcutta,
where it is employed for the same purpose.

The best hemp comes from Sorsogon and Leyte, and some of the Cebu
is also very good. Albay, Camarines, Samar, Bisayas, and some other
districts, are those from which it principally comes.

The freight on hemp shipped by American vessels to the United States,
is reckoned at the rate of 40 cubic feet, or four bales of 10 feet
each, to the ton; but when shipped to Great Britain, the freight is
generally calculated at the ton of 20 cwt., or 2,240 l