so numerous in the ditches, ponds, and rice-fields, that they can
be killed with a stick. When the water sinks they also retire, or,
according to Professor Semper, bore deeply into the ooze at the bottom
of the watercourses, where, protected by a hard crust of earth from
the persecutions of mankind, they sleep away the winter. This Chinese
method of fishing seems well adapted to the habits of the fish. The
circumstances that the dam is only constructed at the lower end of
the watercourse, and that it is there that the fish are to be met
with in the greatest numbers, seem to indicate that they can travel
in the ooze, and that as the brooks and ditches get dried up, they
seek the larger water channels.

[To Baliwag.] Following the Quingua in its upward and eastward
course as it meandered through a well-cultivated and luxuriantly
fertile country, past stone-built churches and chapels which grouped
themselves with the surrounding palm-trees and bamboo-bushes into
sylvan vignettes, Father Llano's four-horsed carriage brought me to
the important town of Baliwag, the industry of which is celebrated
beyond the limits of the province.

[Board houses and their furniture.] I visited several families and
received a friendly reception from all of them. The houses were built
of boards and were placed upon piles elevated five feet above the
ground. Each consisted of a spacious dwelling apartment which opened on
one side into the kitchen, and on the other on to an open space, the
azotea; a lofty roof of palm-trees spread itself above the dwelling,
the entrance to which was through the azotea. The latter was half
covered by the roof I have just mentioned. The floor was composed
of slats an inch in width, laid half that distance apart. Chairs,
tables, benches, a cupboard, a few small ornaments, a mirror, and some