For four long years, slaughter and destruction have ravaged one of the fairest lands on earth, converting what might be a paradise into a pandemonium. What evils have these poor Tagals not suffered in that time? Arbitrary imprisonment, torture, confiscation of property, banishment to unhealthy places, military executions, bombardments, the storming and burning of towns, indiscriminate slaughter, and the bubonic plague, added to the calamities they are always exposed to--volcanic eruptions, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, locusts, epidemics. Famine seems to be the only calamity they have been free from, but even that may not be far distant. CHAPTER XIV. RESOURCES OF THE PHILIPPINES. At the Spanish conquest--Rice--the lowest use the land can be put to--How the Americans are misled--Substitutes for rice--Wheat formerly grown--Tobacco--Compañia General de Tabacos--Abacá--Practically a monopoly of the Philippines--Sugar--Coffee--Cacao--Indigo--Cocoa-nut oil--Rafts of nuts--Copra--True localities for cocoa palm groves--Summary--More sanguine forecasts--Common-sense view. Agricultural. The great wealth of the Archipelago is undoubtedly to be found in the development of its agriculture. Although the Central and Ilocan Mountains in Luzon and parts of Mindanao are rich in gold, it is the fertile land, the heavy rainfall and the solar heat, that must be utilized to permanently enrich the country. The land is there and the labour is there, and all that is wanting is capital, and a settled government that will make roads and bridges and keep them in repair, clear the rivers of obstructions and improve the ports, and above all, establish and maintain some tolerable courts of justice. The sun, the rain, the soil, and the hardy Philippine farmer will do the rest--a population equal to that of Java could live in affluence in the Philippines. The agriculture of the Philippines at the time of the first arrival of the Spaniards consisted mainly in the cultivation of rice. It is to the Spaniards that the natives owe the introduction of maize, coffee, cacao, sesame, tobacco, the indigo plant, the sweet potato, and many fruits. They also imported horses, horned cattle, and sheep. But the great development of the cultivation of sugar and hemp is almost entirely due to British capital, with some assistance from Americans. The natives probably learned from the Chinese how to terrace the hillsides and the sloping lands, and how to erect the pilápiles, or small dykes, for retaining the rain. At that time, and for centuries after, taxes were paid in paddy as they have been in Japan until quite recently.