there are serpent-tamers in this country. They are said to pipe the
serpents out of their holes, directing their movements, and stopping
and handling them at will, without being injured by them. The most
famous individual amongst them, however, had been carried off by
the sea-pirates a short time before; another had run away to the
Cimarronese in the mountains; and the third, whose reputation did not
appear to be rightly established, accompanied me on my excursion,
but did not justify the representations of his friends. He caught
two poisonous serpents, [169] which we encountered on the road, by
dexterously seizing them immediately behind the head, so that they were
incapable of doing harm; and, when he commanded them to lie still,
he took the precaution of placing his foot on their necks. In the
chase I hurt my foot so severely against a sharp-pointed branch which
was concealed by the mud that I was obliged to return to Catbalogan
without effecting my object. The inhabitants of Calbigan are considered
more active and circumspect than those on the west coast, and they are
praised for their honesty. I found them very skilful; and they seemed
to take an evident pleasure in making collections and preparing plants
and animals, so that I would gladly have taken with me a servant from
the place; but they are so reluctant to leave their village that all
the priest's efforts to induce one to ride with us were fruitless.

[A coral garden.] At a short distance north-west from Catbalogan a most
luxuriant garden of corals is to be observed in less than two fathoms,
at the ebb. On a yellow carpet of calcareous polyps and sponges,
groups of leather-like stalks, finger-thick, lift themselves up like
stems of vegetable growth; their upper ends thickly covered with polyps
(Sarcophyton pulmo Esp.), which display their roses of tentacula wide
open, and resplendent with the most beautiful varying colors, looking,
in fact, like flowers in full bloom. Very large serpulites extend