life it is highly attractive.  I was particularly struck with its numerous monkeys and water-fowl. [Plotus water-fowl.] Of the latter the Plotus variety was most abundant, but difficult to shoot.  They sit motionless on the trees on the bank, only their thin heads and necks, like those of tree-snakes, overtopping the leaves.  On the approach of the boat they precipitate themselves hastily into the water; and it is not until after many minutes that the thin neck is seen rising up again at some distance from the spot where the bird disappeared.  The Plotus appears to be as rapid on the wing as it is in swimming and diving.

[Naga.] In Naga, the chief city of South Camarines, I alighted at the tribunal, from which, however, I was immediately invited by the principal official of the district—­who is famed for his hospitality far beyond the limits of his province—­to his house, where I was loaded with civilities and favors.  This universally beloved gentleman put everybody under contribution in order to enrich my collections, and did all in his power to render my stay agreeable and to further my designs.

[Nueva Caceres.] Naga is the seat of a bishopric and of the provincial government.  In official documents it is called Nueva Caceres, in honor of the Captain-General, D. Fr. de Sande, a native of Caceres, who about 1578 founded Naga (the Spanish town) close to the Filipino village.  At the beginning of the seventeenth century it numbered nearly one hundred Spanish inhabitants; at the present time it hardly boasts a dozen.  Murillo Velarde remarks (xiii, 272), in contrast to the state of things in America, that of all the towns founded in the Philippines, with the exception of Manila, only the skeletons, the names without the substance, have been preserved.  The reason is, as has been frequently shown, that up to the present time plantations, and consequently proper settlers, have been wanting.  Formerly Naga was the principal town of the whole of that district of Luzon lying to the east of Tayabas, which, on account of the increased population, was divided into the three provinces of North and South Camarines and Albay.  The boundaries of these governmental districts, those between Albay and South Camarines more especially, have been drawn very arbitrarily; although, the whole of the territory, as is shown by the map, geographically is very well defined. [Land of the Bicols.] The country is named Camarines; but it might more suitably be called the country of the Bicols, for the whole of it is inhabited by one race, the Bicol-Filipinos, who are distinguished by their speech and many other peculiarities from their neighbors, the Tagals on the west, and the Bisayans on the islands to the south and east.