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The fleet left this island on February 3, and anchored on the thirteenth near the island of Cebú. Peace was made with the natives of one of the islands. Inquiries were made for Bernardo de la Torre, one of the captains of the Villalobos expedition, and they were given to understand that he was north from there. The natives, while professing friendship, brought their visitors but little food.
Supplies occasionally come from Guayaquil of a quality very similar to that of Cebu. All the efforts hitherto made to send cocoa to Spain, without its deteriorating in quality, by getting spotted, &c., have been unsuccessful. Coffee.
Yet in a few days thereafter that very road became unsafe for an unarmed American, while the people who had greeted us with such childlike confidence and delight were preparing a warmer reception for the Americans under the able leadership of a Cebu villain, who had incited them to insurrection by playing upon their so-called religious belief, this in many instances being merely fetishism of the worst kind.
Cebu and Negros are the largest receiving stations. In the center of the town is the plaza or park. Here, after getting things in order, a pole was set, and the stars and stripes unfurled to the breeze. The quarters of our soldiers were near the park and so our boys had a pleasant place to lounge when off duty in the early morning or evening.
At several places in Luzon, and in Cebu, &c., the natives make a species of cloth from the plantain-tree, known by the names of Medrinaque and Guiara cloths. The former description is in the greatest consumption, being stouter and more valuable than the other sort, and is mostly all bought up by the natives themselves, although a small portion of it is also exported.
Despite our several visits to Cebu, few of us found cause to change our first opinion as to its unpleasantness. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more uninteresting, bedraggled, down-at-the-heel place than this.
And now as to cable work, for even here, where we had expected only to coal, the Signal Corps was kept busy, as it was found on investigation that an old cable landing two miles up the beach at Mabola was in such bad condition and the line so insecure that the cable must be put directly into the Cebu office, thus avoiding the defect of a shaky land terminal.
The best hemp comes from Sorsogon and Leyte, and some of the Cebu is also very good. Albay, Camarines, Samar, Bisayas, and some other districts, are those from which it principally comes.
The bishop of Sinopolis is coming from Cebu, his patience quite exhausted with the follies and impertinences of Don Diego de Aguilar, who has worn out that unfortunate community with his extravagant actions, all originating in his insatiable greed. The ecclesiastical ruler of Cagayan is the bishop of Troya.
Although the cane is cultivated to a greater or less extent throughout all the islands, there are four descriptions of sugar well known in commerce, grown in the Philippines, and these come respectively from the districts of Pampanga, Pangasinan, Cebu, and Saal, after which districts they are named; and the growth of other places producing similar sugars to any of these descriptions, usually passes under one of these names in the market, although Yloylo is sometimes, though rarely, distinguished as a separate quality.
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