smaller adjoining islands. The inhabitants of the volcanic mountain
Isarog and its immediate neighborhood speak it in the greatest
purity. Thence towards the west the Bicol dialect becomes more and
more like Tagalog, and towards the east like Bisayan, until by degrees,
even before reaching the boundaries of their ethnographical districts,
it merges into these two kindred languages.

[Rice cultivation.] In South Camarines the sowing of the rice in
beds begins in June or July, always at the commencement of the rainy
season; but in fields artificially watered, earlier, because thus the
fruit ripens at a time when, the store in the country being small,
its price is high. Although the rice fields could very well give two
crops yearly, they are tilled only once. It is planted out in August,
with intervals of a hand's-breadth between each row and each individual
plant; and within four months the rice is ripe. The fields are never
fertilized, and but seldom ploughed; the weeds and the stubble being
generally trodden into the already soaked ground by a dozen carabaos,
and the soil afterwards simply rolled with a cylinder furnished
with sharp points, or loosened with the harrow (sorod). Besides the
agricultural implements named above, there are the Spanish hatchet
(azadon) and a rake of bamboo (kag-kag) in use. The harvest is
effected in a peculiar manner. The rice which is soonest ripe is
cut for ten per cent, that is, the laborer receives for his toil the
tenth bundle for himself. At this time of year rice is very scarce,
want is imminent, and labor reasonable. The more fields, however,
that ripen, the higher become the reapers' wages, rising to twenty,
thirty, forty, even fifty per cent; indeed, the executive sometimes
consider it to be necessary to force the people to do harvest by
corporal punishment and imprisonment, in order to prevent a large
portion of the crop from rotting on the stalk. Nevertheless, in very