[226] This was Paul de la Gironière, a French surgeon who went to Manila in 1820, and who escaped, almost by a miracle, from the massacre of foreigners by the natives in that year. He married a Spanish lady of Manila, the Marquesa de las Salinas, and spent twenty years in the islands, where he founded a colony at Jala-Jala, and kept a large estate under cultivation, besides performing, at various times, official functions entrusted to him by the Manila government. He returned to France, where he died about 1865. He was author of a book, Aventures d'un gentilhomme breton aux îles Philippines (Paris, 1855), which had considerable vogue, and is regarded as an interesting and in many respects valuable description of the islands, their resources and people, and social conditions there. He also wrote Vingt années aux Philippines (Paris, 1853), of which an English abridgment was published in London soon afterward, called Twenty Years in the Philippines. (See Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca filipina, pp. 185-186.) An English translation with the same title was published at New York (1854), "revised and extended by the author." [227] Apparently alluding to the short-lived periodical Precios corrientes de Manila (1639-41); see VOL. LI, p. 71, note 31. [228] One of the largest and richest towns of the province of Bulacán; and both town and province are renowned for various native manufactures--hats, cigar-cases, piña fabrics, and petates (i.e., mats)--of fine quality, and often very costly. See Jagor's account (Reisen, p. 48) of the manufacture of these cigar-cases at Balivag; the fibers of which they are made are obtained from a certain species of Calamus (rattar), and the cases cost from two to fifty pesos each. It appears that the word petaca comes (as does petate, "mat") from the Mexican word petlatl, meaning "a mat." [229] "In 1848 were procured from London the steamers 'Magallanes,' 'Elcano,' and 'Reina de Castilla,' which were the first vessels of this class that were seen in Filipinas; and to their excellent services are due the rapid transformation which was wrought in the prosperity of the country, and the repression of the piracies of the Moro Malays." (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, iii, p. 87.) [230] In the Archivo general de Indias at Sevilla are MS. reports of this society's labors for a number of consecutive years. [231] Jiguilete (or xiquilite): the name given in India to the indigo shrub. The cerpentaria here mentioned is not identifiable, unless it be some other species of Indigofera, several of which are cultivated in Filipinas. The "Vanilla" is presumably a plant described by Blanco, which he calls Vanilla ovalis, greatly resembling V. aromatica, except that it lacked the fragrant odor of the latter.