Travels in Samar

TRAVELS IN SÁMAR.- WEATHER.-ELECTION OF OFFICIALS.-NORTH COAST.-CÁTBA LOGAN.–THE FLYING LEMUR.–SERPENT TAMERS.-TERTIARY PETRIFACTIONE. — THE RAPIDS OF THE LOQUILÓcun.-THE MAGO.

At the present time, each island has its separate governor.

The older authors called the island Tendaya, Ybabáo, and also Achan and Philippina.

In later times, the eastern side was called Ybabáo, and the western Samar, which is now the official denomination for the whole island, the eastern shore being distinguished as the Contracosta.*

As on the eastern coasts of Luzon, the north-east monsoon here exceeds that from the south-west in duration and force, the violence of the latter being arrested by the islands lying to the southwest, while the north-east winds break against the coasts of these easterly islands with their whole force, and the additional weight of the body of water which they bring with them from the open ocean.

Island | Name | Author — | — Luzon | Luconia | Hondiv (Purchas, 605) Cebu | Suba | Albo (Journal) _ | Pigafetta | Cingapola in Zubu Albay | Ibalon | Arenas (“Memorias," 21) Tabayas | Calilaya | Arenas Batangas | Comintan | Arenas Negros | Buglas | Arenas Cebu | Sogbu | Arenas Mindoro | Mait | Arenas Basilan | Taguima | Arenas Sámar | Ybabáo | Arenas _ | Camlaia | R. Dudleo “Arcano del Mare" (Florence, 1761) _ | Achan | Hondiv Leyte | Sabura | Hondiv _ | Seilani | Albo North Leyte | Pigafetta | Baybay South Leyte | Pigafetta | Ceylon Camarines | Nebui | Hondiv Mindanao | Cesarea | B. de la Torre

In October winds fluctuating between north-west and north-east occur; but the prevalent ones are northerly. In the middle of November the north-east is constant; and it blows, with but little intermission, from the north until April.

This is likewise the rainy season, December and January being the wettest, when it sometimes rains for 14 days without interruption. In Láuang, on the north coast, the rainy season lasts from October to the end of December. From January to April it is dry; May, June, and July are rainy; and August and September, again, are dry; so that here there are two wet and two dry seasons in the year. From October to January violent storms (baguios or typhoons) sometimes occur.

Beginning generally with a north wind, they pass to the north-west, accompanied by a little rain, then back to the north, and with increasing violence to the north-east and east, where they acquire their greatest power, and then moderate to the south.

Sometimes, however, they change rapidly from the east to the south, in which quarter they first acquire their greatest force.

From the end of March to the middle of June inconstant easterly winds (N.E.E. and S.E.) prevail, with a very heavy sea on the east coast. May is usually calm; but in May and June there are frequent thunder-storms, introducing the south-west monsoon, which though it extends through the months of July, August, and September, is not so constant as the north-east.

The last-named 3 months constitute the dry season, which, however, is often interrupted by thunder-storms.

Not a week, indeed, passes without rain ; and in many years a storm arises every afternoon. At this season of the year ships can reach the east coast ; but during the north-east monsoon navigation there is impossible. These general circumstances are subject to many local deviations, particularly on the south and west coasts, where the uniformity of the air currents is disturbed by the mountainous islands lying in front of them.

According to the “ Estado geografico " of 1855, an extraordinarily high tide, called dolo, occurs every year at the change of the monsoon in September or October.

It rises sometimes sixty or seventy feet, and dashes itself with fearful violence against the south and east coasts, doing great damage, but not lasting for any length of time. The climate of Sámar and Leyté appears to be very healthy on the coasts ; in fact, to be the best of all the islands of the archipelago.

Dysentery, diarrhæa, and fever occur less frequently than in Luzon, and Europeans also are less subject to their attacks than in that place.

The resident civilised Indians live almost solely on its coasts, and there are also Bisayans who differ in speech and manners

do from the Tagalese. Roads and villages are almost entirely wanting in the interior, which is covered with a thick wood, and affords sustenance to independent tribes, who carry on a little tillage (vegetable roots and mountain rice), and collect the products of the woods, particularly resin, honey, and wax, in which the island is very rich.

On the 3rd of July we lost sight of Legaspi, and, detained by frequent calms, crawled as far as Point Montúfar, on the northern edge of Albáy, then onwards to the small island of Viri, and did not reach Láuang before the evening of the 5th.

The mountain range of Bacon (the Pocdol of Coello), which on my previous journeys had been concealed by night or mist, now revealed itself to us in passing as a conical mountain ; and beside it towered a very precipitous, deeply-cleft mountain-side, apparently the remnant of a circular range. After the pilot, an old Indian and native of the country, who had made the journey frequently before, had conducted us, to begin with, to a wrong port, he ran the vessel fast on to the bar, although there was sufficient water to sail into the harbour conveniently.

The district of Láuang (Láhuan) has more than 4,500 inhabitants. It has an altitude of 40 feet, on the south-west shore of the small island of the same name, which is separated from Sámar by an arm of the Catúbig.

According to a widely-spread tradition, the settlement was originally in Sámar itself, in the middle of the rice-fields, which continue to the present day in that place, until the repeated inroads of sea-pirates drove the inhabitants, in the face of the inconvenience attending it, to protect themselves by settling on the south coast of the little island, which rises steeply out of the sea.*

The latter consists of almost horizontal banks of tuff, from 8-12 inches thick.

The strata being continually eaten away by the waves at water-mark, the upper layers break off; and thus the uppermost parts of the strata, which are of a tolerably uniform thickness, are cleft by vertical fissures, and look like the walls of a fortress. Pressed for space, the church and the convent have taken up every level bit of the rock at various heights; and the effect of this accommodation of architecture to the requirements of the ground, though not designed by the architect, is most picturesque.

• No mention is made of it in the “Estado geogr.” of the Franciscans, published at Manila in 1855.

The place is beautifully situated. But the houses are not so frequently as formerly surrounded by little gardens, while there is a great want of water, and foul odours prevail.

Two or three scanty springs afford a muddy, brackish water, almost at the level of the sea, with which the indolent people are content so that they have just enough. Wealthy people have their water brought from Sámar, and the poorer classes are sometimes compelled, by the drying-up of the springs, to have recourse to the same place.

The spring-water is not plentiful for bathing purposes; and, sea-bathing not being in favour, the people consequently are very dirty. Their clothing is the same as in Luzon ; but the women wear no tapis, only a camisa (a short shirt, hardly covering the breast), and a saya, mostly of coarse, stiff guinara, which forms ugly folds, and when not coloured black is very transparent.

Dirt and a filthy existence form a better protection than tight garments. The inhabitants of Láuang rightly, indeed, enjoy the reputation of being very idle.

Their industry is limited to a little tillage, even fishing being so neglected that frequently there is a scarcity of fish. In the absence of roads by land, there is hardly any communication by water; and trade is mostly carried on by mariners from Catbalogan, who exchange the surplus of the harvests for other produce.