nderstood three dollars, two reals, and a half
real, or three dollars and five-sixteenth parts of a dollar.

The copper money in circulation is so scanty, as to be perfectly
inadequate for the purpose; and at the time of my leaving Manilla,
the usual charge for exchanging a dollar for copper money was a
quartillo, or the quarter of a real, worth about a penny halfpenny
of English money.

In consequence of this scarcity, the natives are in the habit of
employing cigars as money, to represent the smaller coins; and all
over the Philippines a cigar is actually the most important circulating
medium, each representing a cuarto.

At various times the scarcity of copper coins has given rise to
extensive forgeries of them, and caused a considerable depreciation
in their actual value, the false coinage being all of spurious metal.

The gold which is found at Pictas, in Misamis, and at Mambalao,
Paracala, and Surigao, is consumed in the country in ornaments, &c.,
and some of it is sent also to China. The amount annually produced
at these places is very uncertain; and the quantity exported to China
is probably a good deal more than the amount set down in the tabular
statement, it being a thing of so very easy export, that I should
suppose at least an equal number of taels are sent there privately,
to what appears in the table to have passed the Custom-house.

Its value in Manilla varies, according to quality, at from twenty
dollars a tael down to fourteen for the inferior sorts.

CHAPTER XXXV.

After travelling so far together, the reader will permit me to direct
his attention to the geographical position and natural advantages of
the Philippines, which are unequalled by any other islands in the whole
eastern Archipelago. Their vicinity to the immensely populous empire
of China is in itself enough to render them a most flourishing colony.

The Spanish and local governments are alive to the importance of this,
and appear desirous to encourage trade to a limited extent, but are
apparently anxious to hold the reins of it, and to regulate it as they
deem best for themselves, or at any time to put a stop to it entirely.

The evils arising from the changeable elements given birth to by
their interference it is difficult to over-estimate, as from the
ignorance, which prevails through all classes, of the first elements
of a commonwealth, and from their capricious notions of government, and
want of knowledge of the advant