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In Mambulao the influence of the province on its western border is very perceptible, and Tagalog is understood almost better than Bicol; the Tagalog element being introduced amongst the population by women, who with their families come here, from Lucban and Mauban, in the pursuit of trade. They buy up gold, and import stuffs and other wares in exchange.
During the dry season of the year, the breadth of the very tortuous Bicol, at its mouth, is a little over sixty feet, and increases but very gradually. There is considerable variety of vegetation upon its banks, and in animal life it is highly attractive. They sit motionless on the trees on the bank, only their thin heads and necks, like those of tree-snakes, overtopping the leaves.
At five p.m. we left Butungan on the Bicol River, two leagues below Naga, in a falúa of twelve oars, equipped with one 6-pounder and two 4-pounders, and reinforced by armed men; and about six we reached Cabusao, at the mouth of the Bicol, whence we put to sea about nine.
Thence towards the west the Bicol dialect becomes more and more like Tagalog, and towards the east like Bisayan, until by degrees, even before reaching the boundaries of their ethnographical districts, it merges into these two kindred languages. Although the rice fields could very well give two crops yearly, they are tilled only once.
The inhabitants of the Isaróg are commonly, though mistakenly, called Igorots; and I retain the name, since their tribal relationship has not yet been accurately determined; they themselves maintaining that their ancestors always dwelt in that locality. There are some who, in the opinion of the parish priest of Camarines, speak the Bicol language in the purest manner.
Similar examples occur in Iceland and in New Zealand; but the products of the springs of Tibi are more varied, finer, and more beautiful than those of the Iceland Geysers. The Quinali, which runs into the south-eastern corner of the lake of Batu, runs out again on the north side as the Bicol River, and flows in a north-westerly direction as far as the Bay of San Miguel.
Conditions became so unbearable that Faustino Santa Ana gathered around him all Bicols who were willing to fight the Tag£logs, but the troubles were finally patched up. American troops had little difficulty in occupying Ambos Camarines and other Bicol provinces, owing to the hatred in which the Tagálogs were held. Mindoro
I had found out from the Igorots that a path could be forced through the tall canes up to the summit; but the continual rain prevented me; so I resolved to cross the Malinao, returning along the coast to my quarters, and then, freshly equipped, descend the river Bicol as far as Naga. I happened to see neither the leaves nor the blossoms, but only the bark.
On the south coast, on the other hand, is the harbor of Pasacao, into which a navigable little river, above a mile in width, discharges itself; so that the distance between this river highway and the nearest point of the Bicol River amounts to a little more than a mile.
This river is called the Bicol. The streams which give it birth are so abundant, and the slope of the sides of the valley, which is turned into one gigantic rice-field, is so gentle that in many places the lazy waters linger and form small lakes. Besides these, there is the volcano of Buhi, or Malinao, a little to the north-east of the line.
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