bows, arrows, and a cooking pot. The possessor of clothes bore them
on his person. I found the women as decently clad as the Filipino
Christian women, and carrying, besides, a forest knife, or bolo. As
a mark of entire confidence, I was taken into the tobacco fields,
which were well concealed and protected by foot-lances; and they
appeared to be carefully looked after.

[The people and their crops.] The result of my familiarity with
this people, both before and after this opportunity, may be briefly
summed up: They live on the higher slopes of the mountain, never,
indeed, below 1,500 feet; each family by itself. It is difficult to
ascertain how many of them there may now be, as but little intercourse
takes place amongst them. In the part of the mountain belonging to
the district of Goa, their number is estimated at about fifty men
and twenty women, including the children: but twenty years before
the population was more numerous. Their food consists principally
of batata, besides some gabi (caladium). A little maize is likewise
cultivated, as well as some ubi (dioscorea), and a small quantity of
sugar-cane for chewing.

[Batatas.] In laying out a batata field, a wood is partially cleared,
the earth loosened with the blunt forest knife (bolo), and the bulbs
or layers then planted; and within four months the harvest begins,
and continues uninterruptedly from the time the creeping plant strikes
root and forms tubers. [Rotation of crops.] After two years, however,
the produce is so much diminished that the old plants are pulled up,
in order to make room for new ones obtained from the runners. The
field is then changed, or other fruits cultivated thereon, but with
the addition of manure. A piece of land, fifty brazas long, and thirty
wide, is sufficient for the support of a family. Only occasionally in