Herr Jagor, speaking of the Province of Bulacan, says the roads were good and were continuously shaded by fruit trees, cocoa and areca palms, and the aspect of this fruitful province reminded him of the richest districts in Java, but he found the pueblos here exhibited more comfort than the desas there. Mr. Gifford Palgrave says: "Not the Ægean, not the West Indian, not the Samoan, not any other of the fair island clusters by which our terraqueous planet half atones for her dreary expanses of grey ocean and monotonous desert elsewhere, can rival in manifold beauties of earth, sea, sky, the Philippine Archipelago; nor in all that Archipelago, lovely as it is through its entire extent, can any island vie with the glories of Luzon." Variety of Landscape. If I may without presumption add my testimony to that of these illustrious travellers, I would say that, having been over a great part of South America, from Olinda Point to the Straits of Magellan, from Tierra del Fuego to Panama, not only on the coasts but in the interior, from the Pampas of the Argentine and the swamps of the Gran Chaco to where "The roots of the Andes strike deep in the earth As their summits to heaven shoot soaringly forth;" having traversed the fairest gems of the Antilles and seen some of the loveliest landscapes in Japan, I know of no land more beautiful than Luzon, certainly of none possessing more varied features or offering more striking contrasts. Limestone cliffs and pinnacles, cracked and hollowed into labyrinthine caves, sharp basalt peaks, great ranges of mountains, isolated volcanic cones, cool crystalline springs, jets of boiling water, cascades, rivers, lakes, swamps, narrow valleys and broad plains, rocky promontories and coral reefs, every feature is present, except the snow-clad peak and the glacier. Vegetation. Vegetation here runs riot, hardly checked by the devastating typhoon, or the fall of volcanic ashes. From the cocoa-nut palm growing on the coral strand, from the mangrove, building its pyramid of roots upon the ooze, to the giant bamboo on the banks of the streams, and the noble mango tree adorning the plains, every tropical species flourishes in endless variety, and forests of conifers [2] clothe the summits of the Zambales and Ilocan mountains. As for the forest wealth, the trees yielding indestructible timber for ships, houses or furniture, those giving valuable drugs and healing oils, gums and pigments, varnishes, pitch and resin, dyes, sap for fermenting or distilling, oil for burning, water, vinegar, milk, fibre, charcoal, pitch, fecula, edible fungi, tubers, bark and fruits, it would take a larger book than this to enumerate them in their incredible variety. Mango Trees.