are almost hidden, were by no means as great in this province, although
it is the garden of the Philippines, as in its Dutch prototype.

[Calumpit.] I reached Calumpit towards evening, just as a procession,
resplendent with flags and torches, and melodious with song, was
marching round the stately church, whose worthy priest, on the strength
of a letter of introduction from Madrid, gave me a most hospitable
reception. Calumpit, a prosperous place of 12,250 inhabitants, is
situated at the junction of the Quingua and Pampanga rivers, in an
extremely fruitful plain, fertilized by the frequent overflowing of
the two streams.

[Mt. Arayat.] About six leagues to the north-west of Calumpit,
Mount Arayat, a lofty, isolated, conical hill, lifts its head. Seen
from Calumpit, its western slope meets the horizon at an angle of 20°,
its eastern at one of 25°; and the profile of its summit has a gentle
inclination of from 4° to 5°.

[Picking fish.] At Calumpit I saw some Chinese catching fish in a
peculiar fashion. Across the lower end of the bed of a brook which
was nearly dried up, and in which there were only a few rivulets
left running, they had fastened a hurdle of bamboo, and thrown up a
shallow dam behind it. The water which collected was thrown over the
dam with a long-handled winnowing shovel. The shovel was tied to a
bamboo frame work ten feet high, the elasticity of which made the
work much easier. As soon as the pool was emptied, the fisherman
was easily able to pick out of the mud a quantity of small fish
(Ophiocephalus vagus). These fishes, which are provided with peculiar
organisms to facilitate respiration, at any rate, enabling them to
remain for some considerable time on dry land, are in the wet season