Abstract
REPORTS have been received from M. Alfred Marche, who is travelling through the Philippine Archipelago on a scientific mission for the French Ministry of Public Instruction. During June and July last he explored the archipelago of Calamienes, situated to the south-west of Mindoro and to the north of Paluan (Paragua) Island. This archipelago is composed of three large islands, Busuanga, Calamienes or Culion, and Linacapan, and about thirty smaller ones. M. Marche first visited Culion, the inhabitants of which are Tagbannas, similar to those whom he observed in a previous journey to Paluan. These form the principal as well as the most ancient people of the peninsula, and it is probable that formerly they occupied a much larger area than they do now. A small number of them, more or less Christianised, have submitted and built a village, to which, however, they come as rarely as possible. The others are independent, and are fetish-worshippers. In Culion there is but a single Spaniard, the priest. After Culion, M. Marche visited the inland of Busuanga, where there were formerly Chinese colonies engaged in collecting birds' nests, and in trepang and pearl-fishing, both industries which no longer exist. In spite of continual rains the traveller was able to make a large collection of plants and of woods of all kinds. In Busuanga he came across the inhabitants of Agutayo, one of the Cuyos Islands. They left their home, where they could hardly get enough to bring them to Busuanga, to fish for trepang and for small prawns, which they dried in the sun, and then sold to Chinese and Indians. M. Marche was able to take measurements of a certain number of these Agutaino. He gives long and interesting ethnographical details of the Tagbannas of this island, on their marriage ceremonies, funeral rites, c. M. Marche then went in succession to the islands of Penon, Coron, Magao-Puyao, and Dibatac. In the last he observed that the hills, which are almost disafforested by the natives, and which are about two hundred metres in height, surround fertile plains in the form of a horse-shoe, more or less closed, and in the centre a depression is observable. The whole has the appearance of a funnel, and it is suggested that this is an extinct volcanic region. In the same island of Dibatac, crocodiles and boa-constrictors are very numerous, and M. Marche was able to capture one of the latter, which had swallowed a calf several months old.
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Geographical Notes . Nature 31, 137–138 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/031137b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031137b0