Note 5 — VII

Palm brandy. About nine o’clock, a.m., I rode from Calauan to Pila, and thence in a northeasterly direction to Santa Cruz, over even, broad, and well-kept roads, through a palm-grove a mile long and a mile and a half broad, which extends down to the very edge of the lagoons. The products of these palm trees generally are not used for the production of oil but for the manufacture of brandy. Their fruit is not allowed to come to maturity; but the buds are slit open, and the sweet sap is collected as it drips from them. It is then allowed to ferment, and subjected to distillation.5 As the sap is collected twice a day, and as the blossoms, situated at the top of the tree, are forty or fifty feet above the ground, bamboos are fastened horizontally, one above the other, from one tree to another, to facilitate the necessary ascent and descent. The sap collector stands on the lower cross-piece while he holds on to the upper.