Besides the sale of foreign manufactures and merchandise in the Philippines, there exists a great outlet for it in the islands of Sooloo and Mindanao, although in the present state of society in those islands, where the insecurity of life and property is very great, the natural advantages of these countries have not been at all adequately developed. In front of Zamboanga, the last town towards the south which recognizes the authority of the Government of Manilla, is situated the island of Sooloo, which, although not of great size, is the centre of an active trade during certain months of every year, as great numbers of the natives of the neighbouring islands frequent it at those seasons, in order to dispose of the produce of their fisheries or to sell the slaves whom they have kidnapped or captured during their piratical cruizes and attacks on their neighbours, if at war with them, as some of them usually are with each other. From Manilla some small vessels are annually fitted out for the trade, which is nearly altogether in the hands of the Chinese dealers, as no persons except themselves would stand the bad treatment they are subjected to by the authorities of the place; the character of the Celestial people leading them to suffer any amount of bad usage provided they are paid for it, or can make money by it, which they somehow manage to do, even in Sooloo, although they are exposed to the almost unlimited plunder and extortion of the Sultan and Datos, or native chiefs, who, on the least occasion, or pretext for it, capture and enslave or confine them, only allowing these unfortunates to regain their very unstable liberty by presents or extortionate bribes.

The vessels engaged in the trade, being brigs or schooners, commonly start from Manilla in March or April for Antique, Yloylo, or other places, where they can complete a Sooloo cargo, after doing which they steer for Zamboanga, to report their cargoes and provide themselves with passports at the custom-house there, should they not have done so at Manilla.

It is, however, only within these few years that these facilities have been given to those engaged in the trade, as formerly the colonial ships were forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to touch at any place in the Philippines after clearing out for Sooloo from Manilla. In spite of this law, however, few of those engaged in the trade had virtue sufficient to obey it, and pass these places by, when it was so very much to their interest to complete their cargoes there, which they could not do elsewhere nearly so advantageously. And the only consequence of this absurd old prohibition against their doing so, was to involve many of them in long-pending and expensive lawsuits, which have often ruined prosperous men.

Besides those wise regulations, there existed some other forms equally sensible. For instance, the traders of Bisayao province, who send several small craft to Sooloo, which they are close to, were compelled to make a tedious voyage to Manilla against the monsoon, in order that they might report their cargo for Sooloo and get out passes, after which they had to return all the way back again, and at length were at liberty to steer for Sooloo.

However, these foolish restrictions were at length put a stop to, and the trade encouraged, by the Government establishing a custom-house at Zamboanga, where there is at all times a considerable military force.

The Sultan appears to be the most powerful nobleman in the country, rather than the sovereign monarch of it. For although the chiefs of the islands, or Datos, usually acquiesce in appearance to his will, they do so more from fear of his power at the moment than with any idea of his legitimate authority, and in effect they very seldom comply with his decrees.

The entire people are slaves owned by the Sultan and these Datos, who exercise over the unfortunate wretches the worst species of tyrannical power; for as these nobles or reguli are subject to no law but there own caprice, if any slave displeases his master, he can, without the slightest fear of having to give any account of the circumstance to a living soul, draw his kris, and murder the slave. Of course by so doing, however, he impoverishes himself, as he loses the market price of the day for a slave; or should he murder a slave belonging to some one else, a Dato is only expected to pay the amount he was considered worth by his master, or to give another one of his own in exchange for him.

But, notwithstanding all the insecurity of life and property, the Chinese annually resort to Sooloo in pursuit of gain, and occasionally as many as eight small vessels are seen there at a time, during the busy seasons, for trade, just after the changes of the monsoon.

Some of these Chinamen marry and remain in the country, although every now and then some of them are obliged to flee from it to the Philippines, where the Spanish flag protects them against their tyrannical and barbarous pillagers; for as there is no law to appeal to as a protection against the chiefs, they are quite at their mercy. The Datos themselves decide their quarrels and disputes with each other, by arming and assembling all their slaves and those of their friends who are willing to help them, and fight it out; but should their disputes run very high, or the feud last for any length of time, some powerful Dato, or the Sultan himself, interferes, and decides it finally by obliging both parties to keep the peace.

The footing on which the trade is carried on with Sooloo is rather a strange one; although regulations have at various times been arranged between the Spanish government and that court, by which, although the Sultan has formally promised to give his guarantee that all goods sold by the traders from the Philippines to the Datos shall be paid for, yet there are very few of the traders at Manilla who consider the pledge of his Highness as of much importance, as it is usually only redeemed when his own particular interest requires it. He is, in truth, generally absolutely unable to make the nobles fulfil their contracts, they being as a body very much more powerful than he is. There being little or no money in Sooloo, the trade carried on by the Chinese supercargos of the ships frequenting the port is principally transacted by barter, they giving their manufactures for the produce of their fishery, &c., and for edible birds’-nests, tortoise-shell, beche de mer, mother-of-pearl shell, wax, gold-dust, pearls, &c.

The profits of those engaged in this trade are very variable, for although their goods are all disposed of apparently at enormous prices, yet there are so many of them delivered to powerful chiefs, or to the Sultan, as presents, or sold to these dignitaries without the traders ever being able to get paid for them, that in reality the profit of the voyage may he scanty enough, although, were the guarantee of the prince to the Manilla government fulfilled, they might he very large if the prices at which they had been sold were actually paid to them.

If the debts of the Datos are not paid off at once they are allowed to stand over for another year, at which distance of time they are very seldom recoverable, good memories being very seldom met with there.

When the result of an adventure is good, the traders look upon these presents and bad debts as necessary expenses incurred to conciliate the authorities of the place, without whose good-will they would be quite unable to prosecute the trade, and in this sort of commerce the Chinese are adepts, although no Europeans could manage it, or would carry it on while upon such a footing.

The ships most suited for the trade are small vessels, of about 200 tons, and their cargoes consist of an infinite variety of goods, each lot being generally of small value. The invoices of a cargo usually cover many pages of paper, and it is no easy matter to make them up without the assistance of intelligent Chinese, who have themselves been engaged in the traffic, and are well acquainted with the place and the people to be dealt with.

Some of the principal cotton manufactures sent to that market from Manilla consist of chintz prints, jaconets and mulls, white shirtings, cambrics, bandana, kambaya, and other descriptions of handkerchiefs; also, iron and hardware, glassware, coarse China earthenware, silk, cloths, copper work, &c.

Ships are in the habit of touching at some port of the Philippines, generally the Island of Panay, there to load and fill up with rice, sugar, tobacco, oil, and several other articles in small quantities. Rice is generally taken from its being always in demand by the Sooloomen, whose habits and feelings little suit them for its production, even when the nature of the country admits of its being grown. The Chinese usually take down a large quantity of a kind of cloth made in their own country, which habit has substituted for money, a piece of it of the usual size being always reckoned as a dollar.

The Sooloomen pay for their purchases in various articles, of which the edible birds’-nests are the most valuable. They are classified by the traders as of two sorts: white, and feathered; of which, the first sort is the most valuable, being generally worth about its weight in silver, or if very good, a little more; but should its colour tend to a red or darkish tinge, it is depreciated in value and is not worth so much.

The feathered sort, called so because the edible substance, of which the Chinamen make soup, is covered by the birds’ down and feathers, is very much lower in price than the white kind, being worth nearly two dollars a pound, or I believe it is generally roughly taken as being only about one-tenth part as valuable as the white.

Tortoise-shell they collect and sell at very high prices, the bulk of it going over to supply the China market with that article, a small quantity only being annually sent to Europe.

BÊche de mer, or tripang, is a sort of fish or sea-slug, found on the coral reefs, &c., of the neighbourhood, which, when cured and dried, is generally shaped something like a cucumber.

It is minced down into a sort of thick soup by the Chinese, who are extremely fond of it,—and indeed with some reason, as when well cooked by a Chinaman, who understands the culinary art, the tripang is a capital dish, and is rather a favourite among many of the Europeans at Manilla.

There are thirty-three different varieties enumerated by the Chinese traders and others skilled in its classification; for being brought to Manilla in large quantities for that purpose, for the China market, it has become a peculiar business of itself by the dealers in it, and varies in price, according to quality, from fifteen to thirty dollars per pecul of 140 lbs. English.

The slug, when dried, is an ugly looking, dirty brown-coloured substance, very hard and rigid until softened by water and a very lengthened process of cookery, after which it becomes soft and mucilaginous.

Sometimes the slugs are found nearly two feet in length, but they are generally very much smaller, and perhaps about eight inches might be the usual size of those I have seen, their shape, as before mentioned, strongly resembling a cucumber. After being taken by the fisherman they are gutted, and then cured by exposure to the rays of the sun, after which they are smoked—over a fire, I believe—when the curing process is completed.

Shark fins, and the muscles of deer, are also exposed for sale by the Sooloo people to their Chinese visitors, by whom they are eagerly purchased for their countrymen’s cookery, both of these articles being very favourite delicacies. The first I have never tasted, although the flesh of a shark, if cut from some particular parts of his body, is far from being bad or unsavoury, if dressed by a China cook. As for the sinews of deer, they are very good, and occasionally met with at Manilla on the tables of Europeans who enjoy the reputation of having good palates.

Mother-of-pearl shell is so well known in Europe, that it is quite unnecessary to remark upon it, more than that those coming from Sooloo are by much the finest and largest shells of any hitherto known in commerce, being superior to those coming from the Persian Gulf.

Pearls are also brought from Sooloo, but they are seldom of any great size or value.

Gold is brought to Manilla from the same place, both in dust and in small bars, but not in any great quantity.

The ships engaged in this trade are generally absent about six months from Manilla, which they leave in March or April, and return to, after coasting about and disposing of all their cargoes, in September or October; no new voyages being undertaken by them until the following year.

During June and July, the most active trade is said to be carried on, as the number of traders annually frequenting the island from those in the neighbourhood, is much greater than at other times.

Besides the trade with Sooloo, a ship is absent nearly every year to Ternate, and other places of the Moluccas, where they usually manage to get their goods ashore, without paying the heavy duties which the Dutch have imposed upon them. The months of December or January being the usual time for starting for the Moluccas, these traders generally begin the busy season at Manilla by the purchase of grey shirtings and domestics, by adding which to goods very similar to those suited for Sooloo, they are enabled to have two strings to their bow, should the prices in the Moluccas be low; as they can, in that case, stand over to Sooloo in June, when they are usually able to dispose of their investments.