aborigines of the Philippines, the greater number of them being converts to Roman Catholicism, the balance adhering to the doctrines of the Reformation, or the Protestant religion.
Leaving Buena Vista, our route led through the beautiful Marquina Valley, with its immense forests of bamboo, ebony, sapan-wood, and gum-trees entwined by the bush-rope of palasan, trees teeming with the luscious mango and guava, bordering on plantations and groves of the vegetable kingdom, including the banana, plantain, sugarcane, pineapple, coffee, cinnamon, and tobacco.
From Marquina our course led into the dense forest of the San Madre Mountains. Before leaving the valley, I was detailed to handle the cargadores. This party in itself was a comedy; the only things they thought seriously of were cigarettes, salmon, and rice. I gave each of them a sobriquet,—namely, “Blinky,” Pedro, Carlo, and Pablo de Gusman. Blinky, a one-eyed dusky savage, was the hero of the drama; when he wanted anything, he would pat me
on the arm and exclaim, “El capitan, mucho bueno,” and in the same breath, “Dalle mi cigarillo.” He would then wink at the others. Blinky was familiar with the lay of the land, and was a valuable assistant when it came to questions of emergency, such as getting the cartello across a stream or a deep ravine. It was sometimes necessary in crossing a river, to unload our cargo and ship it across in a binto, a boat similar to a canoe, then float the vehicle across the best way we could.
Having been detained rather late one evening in a barrio where I had been exchanging rice, bacon, and salmon, for chickens, eggs, and vegetables, I could have made my objective point before sundown had not something unforeseen occurred; we had reached an unexpected ravine or gorge through which a torrent of water gushed; here we found it necessary to cut two bamboo trees on which to slide the cartello across on its hubs. We were having excellent success when the hubs slipped off, dumping our cargo into the stream and Pablo de Gusman with it. Luckily the native grabbed the
wheel of the cart and was saved. A rope attached to the front of the cartello was the means of our saving the greater part of the rations; but we were in a sorrowful plight, it being impossible to drag such a load up the precipitous slopes. We found it necessary to pack the cargo up piece by piece. The scene was laughable in the extreme: Blinky looked as though he had been sentenced to be shot, while the singsong chorus of native lingo, like the buzzing rabble of Italian emigrants, combined with reaching the site of our camp in the darkness, completed my baleful imbroglio. Let it suffice to say: an impatient mapping detail awaited our arrival.
The country through which we passed was one of tropical grandeur; monkeys, wild-boar, and parrots were frequently seen along the mountain ranges. At night it was interesting to watch the vampires darting hither and thither over mango-trees, nipping the delicious mangos, sometimes carrying them to their roosts for their young. These vampires resemble a bat, though much larger; the body is about the size of a kitten,
the wings measuring when fully developed six feet from tip to tip.
Albinos are frequently met with in northern Luzon; on one occasion, strange to relate, we came in contact with a small colony of this type of people, unrelated, however, as the albino is a freak of nature possessing no inherency. They were reluctant to converse, contenting themselves with looking on, as they shielded their pink eyes from the rays of the sun with a fan of the palm-leaf. The interest we Americans manifested in these people seemed greatly to amuse the Filipinos.
The Igorrote head-hunters are a wild tribe inhabiting the northern provinces. Their features are large, with kinky hair, large teeth, and black complexions. They are far below the other tribes in intellect and intelligence. The appellation “head-hunter” has its significance in the fact that the head of the enemy is taken as a relic, similar to the custom of the American Indian in scalping his victim. We watched these barbarians killing dogs for market, saw them making grasshopper pies, and, to our disgust, they