Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-07-13
TRAVELLING IN LUzoN.
Ge~mes and Incidents of a JeurMey Through the Provinces of
 RiEal and EmgmRa.


 The provinces of Rizal and Laguna are more disaffected than any others ln the Island of Luzon and have been filled with ladrone bands, which still exist in a scattered condition, accord ing to the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger. The route to the volcano, Taal, lies through these provinces. There is line of steam launches-boats perhaps 90 feet in length-owned and misman- aged by Fiipinos, which takes the traveler part of the distance from Manila to Taal, passing through the whole length of the River Pasig and through the lake from which the dis trict of Laguna takes its name.
 Along the river Is 8 continuous line of native villages. the inhabitants be- ing engaged in fishing and farming. As fishermen their methods are unique. Some of the men just wade, out till their heads only are out of the water and then, takingSa lona breath, they go below and actually catch fish with their hands. This may appear to be incredible, but we
 
 with the fish; it is true that their catch was made only once out of dozen dives, but they got there at times. Others use nets, wading in the river and holding the net, which Ss sort of trap mounted on bamboo sticks, in front of them as they walk along the river bed. The fish are plentiful, or their methods would have poor results. The women do most of the farming.
 Their agriculture is extremely poor. It was the dry season and the crops were very much parched. The land is fertile plain and the river was running within few yards of the parched crops. A tenth of the energy spent in fishing, if applied to irrigation, would have given them more food than they needed, but they know nothing of irrigation. If the Lord sends them water, well; if not, then there is no water.
 The boats, managed by Filipinos, wait at different points for reasons that would not stop an American rowboat; once we were stopped in a boiling sun, in the middle of the lake, waiting for three hours for the appearance of another steamer, which had two cows to. be trans ferred to our boat. We had about 15o passengers aboard. and the Fil- ipino passengers seemed quite, con tent to wait until the boat should start, no matter how long it might be. On a recent occasion one of these boats was out in the lake all night because it had run out of coal, and in the morning the officials of the boat tried to collect another fare from the passengers, because it was "otro dia''
 We were eight hours on this twin screw launch making about 35 miles. Arriving at Calamba, military post, we found the people well enough dis posed to Americans and willing to oblige in every way. Throughout the trip we found these people far bet ter disposed to us in all places where there was or had been a military post. There was very good mill itary road from this place to Tanaa- un, where we had to change ve- hicles. It is not the terminus of the military road, but the road takes an other direction. Here there was no military post, and the behavior of the people was in marked contrast with that we had experienced in Calamba-
 The road from Ca1amba to Amba- Ion, the village nearest the volcano, was native road The ride was a wild dream, or, rather, nightmare. The vehicle, drawn by two native ponies, was the complete and perfect work of the evil one. It ratt1ed, jolted, and threatened to go to pieces. The native road was the very worst road have ever seen, and have ridden bicycle on all the by roads of Connecticut and New York states for 12 years. The| seat of the vehicle was of hardwood; the makers had mot considered tue DOS.