The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-06-28


his food 1ntoxicant. oil, vinegar, vessels,
brushes, fish lines, ropes, fuel and wafer
A cocoanut produces fruit when 6 years
old in the Philippines. l know a young
EngiIshnan who spent about 5000 in start
ing cocoanuI grove seventeen miles from
Cavite, on LuZon. The Spanish were so
! afraid he would induce other enterprislng
British TO come and do like him that they
ruined him in a few years by all manner
OF mposts and exactions. For Instance, he
mad TO pay about 500 10 the government at
Manila before he picked his first crop. and
he had to pay an export duty of 10 per
cent. extra because he was not a native
grower.
To illustrate how marvelously fertile
IS the soil in the Philippines, let me tell
about the coffee plants. About seventy
years ago several SpaniaTds began the
| cultivation of coffee in a little valley away
at the north end of Luzon. They were
the first coffee plants ever grown OIL the
island. A little wild animal resembling
the civet of Africa "a cross between a
weasel and fox began eating and scat
| tering the growing coffee berries. In a
Few years the plants We're all over that
part OF Luzon. For years past there have
been wild coffee bushes all over the ISL
and, and all came from the civets scatter
ing Of the coffee seeds. Thousands of
pounds of coffee are gathered from the
wild bushes by the natives
Nowhere else does rice grow so prolifi-
cally as In the Philippines. The Chinese
control the rice industry of the Islands, but
the Negritos do the work There are a
dozen Chinese millionaires in Manila. and
they nave made their wealth largely in
the rice and sugar trade. Under Amer
lean management the profits of rice
growing could be easily enlarged. 1 think
am conservative in saying that by the
crude, lazy ways of harvesting 80 per cent.
OF the yield is wasted. II would make a
thrifty Yankee farmer groan to see the
reckless waste of the natives.
Tobacco grows on all the principal ISL
ands. vanilla, pepper, and cassa, which
are cultivated elsewhere in the world,
| grow Wild and in great clumps on the
| Philippine Islands. Wheat and corn may
| be grown at the extreme north of the
archipelago. Oranges, lemons, and guavas
flourish in the forests and back hills. Not
| the least horticultural science has been
| eXerted toward making superior varieties
| of tehse fruits. l have seen in the dense
| tropical forests of Mindanao thousands of
| the trees of costly woods, as logwood eb-
ony, mahogany, and iron weed. Great
| fortunes await the men who shall get a
concession TO go there and operate them.
Nayigators who visited the Philippines
| IN the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
! RES all told Of the quantity of gold the
natives had as ornaments about their
necks, wrists, and ankles, and of how the
| precious metal was dug in the river beds
oil the islands. 1 have hear mettallur-
| glsts say that the topography of the island
| OF Suiu and Gegritos indicates the pres
| ence OF gold. The Spanish have ALWAYS
| been chary about permitting foreigners
especially English and Americans, 10 en-
ter those Islands. Therefore no scientific
prospecting for gold has been done. The
! spanish, you know, are the poorest miners
OF any civilized people. They have never
| done a thing toward fostering the develop
| ments of the copper deposits on Luzon. vet
| these are known to be well worth mining
doubt If any islands have such a
countess variety of animals and flying and
creeping things as the PHILIPPINES A
stubby variety of horse, fat and furry no.
MES, are used in Manila and towns. Oxen
and a species of buffalos are used for
heaVy draught purposes The mountains
| TEEN with deer Goats swine, rabbits and
forests In all degrees of wildness. The
WHO hogs on Samar have sometimes kill
ca hatlNes. There are several hundred
NarletieS OF birds, and about twenty that
are not known elsewhere Parrots are
more common in the backwoods than rob
ms are mere. Among the forests close To
me coasts are found peculiar birds of the
sWahoW tribe. They make the strange
1000 that Chinese are so fond of-the birds
nest. Hundreds of natives earn their eola
certain
Tor these birds nests and selling them TO
me Chinese OF monkeys there are a
dozen varieties.
Bats are simply enormous They ore
OF the vampire variety. No wonder tbere
is vast deal of superstition and dread
among people in the tropics concernine
vampires They are frightfully uncanny.
nave seen vampire bats with bodies as
iarge as common house cats and with
wings that expand five feet from tin ia lin
Let any one be seated or stroAing along
some moonlight night and have one of
those black things come suddenly swoon-
ing past him, and he viii have cause for
eINous prostrauon. l knew of one of
those pats TO so sailing into the big MOTEL
dining room at Manila one evening when
Gunner was serving. 1t came as a horri-
PIE appariton. Some women tainted and
| otners shrleked as they went under the
tables. The men ran out of the room
Inc seacoast is rich in many forms of
hsh. The. natives. like the Hawaiians
know how to catch them. too An the ~
tives in the Philippines that l ever knew
about Except the rich and aristoeratic
people in Manila) are fishers They catch
a species of mullet there that is delicious
When these fish come up the coast from
the China sea in schools the natives win
abandon any occupation and even leave a
sick hammock to so out and angle off the
coast.
"A long and interesting chapter might
be written about the snakes in the Philip
pines l never heard how many varities
there are there, but there must be lots
of them. A few are poisonous but most
are water snakes and are harmless. The
most dreaded variety is a reddish brown
long, slim fellow, known as the manapo.
II is as deadly as the moccasin Of The
Southern swamps, and more venomous than
the rattlesnake. It's bitten victims die In
fifteen and twenty minutes. In the dens-
est forests of the backwoods of the islands
boa constructors art frequently found I
have heard of some on Mindanao that were
twenty-five feet long, but their usual
length is twelve feet. They have been
known to crush people to death
The natives, who have never been
away from their respective islands. and
have seen less than a dozen white people
in a lifetime, know the art of making an
intoXicant as well as the most scientific
man. In the backwOods Of the smaller and
unfrequented Philippine Islands the ma
tives make a sort of brandy from sugar
cane.
fortunately for their drinking habits
the process of making the intoxicant is
Slow and laborous. The lazy and sloveuly
native would never spend so much time