Directory_and_Chronicle_1899 — Page 1016

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

556

ILOILO

tides the whole town is covered with water, but notwithstanding this, it is a very healthy place. The high ground of Guimaras forms a kind of funnel with the Panay shore, and the result is that a calm is of rare occurrence, there being almost always a breeze of some kind. The N. E. breeze blows very strongly. It is much cooler in Iloilo than in Manila. The better class of houses in Iloilo are built on strong wooden posts, two or three feet in diameter, that reach to the roof, stone walls to the first floor, with wooden windows above and an iron roof. The poorer class of dwellings are flimsy structures of nipa, built on four stout posts. The means of communication with the interior are still very inadequate, and retard the development of the port.

The principal manufacture in Iloilo for local consumption and export to Manila is that of pina, a cloth very finely made from the fibre of the nineapple leaf. Another cloth called jusi is woven from silk, and is made in white and colours. The country round Iloilo is very fertile and is extensively cultivated. The annual crop of sugar is estimated at about a million piculs. Tobacco is also largely cultivated. Rice is grown on a considerable scale, but locusts are very p'entiful in the island and often do great damage to the cane and paddy. Typhoons frequently work great havoc. Earthquakes, however, seldom occur. Iloilo is about 250 miles distant from Manila. The principal traders are Chinese mestizos, who are very numerous in the port.

The island of Negros is extremely fertile and contributes three-fourths of the sugar shipped from Iloilo, the quality of which is excellent.

Directory_and_Chronicle_1899 — Page 1016

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