Until within a short time it has been impossible for tourists to travel with comfort in the Philippines. There was no good hotel even at Manila. This latter difficulty has now fortunately been remedied. The old carriage and cart roads were impassable during much of the year. Their place has been taken, in many provinces, by heavily surfaced automobile roads serviceable at all times. Accommodations on the inter-island boats were atrocious. They are still far from first-class, but are rapidly improving, and on a number of the steamers are now very fair. There is good prospect that a number of new and up-to-date steamers will be put on inter-island routes in the near future. Meanwhile it can safely be said that the world does not afford more attractive ground for yachting than that to be found in the Philippines. The scenery among the Calamianes Islands and in Bacuit Bay and Malampaya Sound is beautiful beyond description. That of the famous Inland Sea of Japan does not compare with it. Safe, quiet anchorages are to be found at frequent intervals, and the weather during the winter months usually leaves nothing to be desired. CHAPTER XXIX ROD, SHOTGUN AND RIFLE The Philippines offer strong attractions to the devotees of the shotgun and the rifle, and they are a fisherman's paradise. Having in my earlier days spent some four years in collecting natural history specimens in the islands I did not need to be enlightened as to the pleasure which might be had in hunting ducks, snipe, shore birds, jungle fowl, and wild pigeons; nor as to those afforded to the hunter of large game by bringing down wild carabaos, hogs, and deer, bagging an occasional man-eating crocodile, or trying to outwit the wily tamarau of Mindoro, which is one of the most difficult of all forest-inhabiting ruminants to track down and kill, and has an uncomfortable habit of hunting the hunter when molested; but now, in view of my neglected early opportunities, I must confess with shame and confusion of face that it remained for Governor-General Forbes to show me, after I had resided in the islands for sixteen years that I had been missing a sport fit for kings by not sooner taking up fishing in the sea. To one who has been even temporarily attached to a hundred-pound barracuda through the medium of a split bamboo rod, a tarpon reel, three hundred yards of line, and a good strong spoon hook, or has fought a sixty-pound tanguingui, or even a thirty-pound pampano, to a finish, it seems strange that any one should ever have characterized fishing as a "gentle art." If good old Sir Izaak Walton had struggled with a big tuna until his fingers and thumbs were blistered or skinned, and every muscle in his body was tired and sore, only to see a huge shark bite his finny prey off back of the gills when it was almost ready to gaff, it is possible that his language in discussing fishing would have been less mild, and his general attitude toward the subject less gently philosophic.