This They Cheerfully Did, And Led The Way Singing In Their Peculiar Manner; It Was A Most Wild And Abandoned And Barbaric Kind Of Music, If It Could Really Be Called Music At All.

It consisted chiefly of shouting and yelling in different scales, as if the singers were overflowing with joy at the mere idea of being alive.

I would often hear them singing, or yelling like children, in the deep recesses of the forest. In fact the contentment and happiness of these little people was quite extraordinary, and I had a great affection for them. They would do almost anything for me, and their chief and I soon became great friends. He was a most amusing old fellow, and nearly always seemed to be laughing. Yet they were also the dirtiest people I had ever seen, and never washed themselves: consequently they were thick with dirt, which even their dark skins could not hide. They grew a little rice and tobacco, and the old chief always kept me well supplied with rice, which seemed of very fair quality. He also kept a few chickens and would often send me a present of some eggs, which were very acceptable. In return I would give him an old shirt or two, which he was very proud of. By the time I left, these shirts were almost the colour of his skin, and he evidently did not wish to follow my advice as to washing them. His house was a very large one for a Negrito's, and far better built than any others that I saw. When the maize which grew round my hut was ripe, the Filipino owner got several men and women up from Florida Blanca to help him to harvest it, and many of them slept underneath my hut. At nights I would generally have quite a crowd round me watching me skin my birds, and although I did not understand a word of their Pampanga dialect, their exclamations of surprise and delight when a bird was finished were quite complimentary. Poor Vic had to endure a running fire of questions as to what I was going to do with my birds and butterflies, but to judge by the way he lectured on me, he no doubt enjoyed it, and possibly told them some wonderful yarns about "My English," as he called me. One day a man at work in the maize had a bad attack of "calenturas" (malarial fever). I gave him some quinine and Epsom salts and this treatment evidently had a good effect, as the next day I was, besieged by a regular crowd of Filipinos of both sexes, who wished to consult me as to their various ills, and Vic was called in to act as interpreter. A good many of them, both men and women, took off nearly all their clothes to show me bruises and sores that they had, and I was in despair as to what treatment to recommend. At last when one old woman had parted with most of her little clothing to show me some sores, I told Vic to tell her that she had better get a good wash in the river (as she was the reverse of clean). This prescription raised a laugh, but the old lady was furious, and my medical advice was not again asked for. After the maize was cut, the owner started to sow a fresh crop without even taking out the old stalks, which had been cut off a few inches from the ground. This was the way he did it. He made holes in the ground with a hoe in one hand, and in the other hand he held a roasted cob of corn, which he kept chewing from time to time. His wife followed him, dropping a grain into each hole and filling in the soil with her feet. It would have made a good picture under the heading of "Agriculture in the Tropics"! Vic told me that they got four crops a year, so one can hardly wonder at their taking things easily. A rough bamboo fence separated the maize from a copse of bamboo jungle and forest, in which I was one day collecting with Vic, when I attempted to jump over a very low part of the fence. Vic, however, called out to me to stop, and it was lucky he did so, as otherwise the consequences would have been terrible for me. Just hidden by a few thin creepers, there had been arranged there a very neat little pig-trap, consisting of a dozen or more sharp bamboo spears firmly planted in the ground, and leaning at a slight angle towards the fence. Except for Vic's timely warning I should have been stuck through and through, as the bamboo points would stand a heavy weight without breaking, and if I had escaped being killed, I should certainly have been crippled for life. I naturally felt very angry with my neighbour for not having asked Vic to tell me about this, as the previous day when out alone I had climbed to the top of this fence and then jumped down into the creepers below; luckily I had not then noticed this low part further down.

Many of the Filipinos are very good shots with their blowpipes, and Vic possessed one. It was about nine feet in length, and possessed a sight made of a lump of wax at one end. Like the bows of the Negritos, it was made out of the trunk of a very beautiful fan-palm (LIVISTONA sp.). Two pieces of the palm-wood are hollowed out and then stuck together in a wonderfully clever fashion, so that the joins barely show. Vic was fairly good with it when shooting at birds a short distance away. His ammunition consisted of round clay pellets, which he fashioned to the right size by help of a hole in a small tin plate, which he always carried with him.

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