The Few Days That I Spent Here, I Wandered Through The Narrow Lanes And Collected A Few Birds And Butterflies.

These lanes were very dusty at the time, and were hemmed in with an uninteresting shrubby growth on each side.

The country round Florida Blanca was for the most part covered with rice-fields, which, at the time of my visit, were parched and covered with short stubble, this being the dry season. I was not very successful in my collecting, and looked forward to my visit to the mountains, which I could see in the distance, and which appeared well covered with damp-looking forests. I noticed quantities of white egrets, which settled on the backs of the water buffaloes. I would often pass these water buffaloes with their heads sticking out of a way-side pond of mud and water. They were generally used for drawing the curious wagons of the country, which were rather like those one sees in Mexico, with solid wooden wheels. Generally when I met these water buffaloes out of harness, they were horribly afraid of me and stampeded, at the same time making the most extraordinary noises, something between a squeak and a short blast on a penny trumpet. They are usually stupid-looking brutes, but this showed that they were intelligent enough to distinguish between me and a Filipino. The pigs here had three pieces of wood round their necks fastened together to form a triangle, an excellent idea, as it prevented them from breaking through the fences. The day following my arrival was a Sunday, and the church, a large building of stone and galvanized iron, was almost opposite the American's house. I watched the people going to early mass (the Filipinos are devout Roman Catholics). All the women wore gauzy veils thrown over their heads, white or black were the prevailing colours and sometimes red. I thought they looked very nice in them. I had asked Camilo to boil me some water, but he begged off very politely, as he had to go and put on his cassock and surplice to attend the service in the church, where he sang all alone. When he returned, I asked him to sing to me what he had sung in the church, and he at once complied, singing the "Gloria Patri" in a very clear and sweet voice. After mass was over, the church bell began to toll and an empty lighted bier came out of the church. It was preceded by three acolytes bearing a long cross and two large lighted candlesticks, and followed by a crowd of people. They were no doubt going to call at a house for the corpse. Shortly afterwards an old Filipino priest came out and got into one of the quaint covered buffalo wagons with solid wooden wheels (already mentioned), and drove slowly round by the road. It was hot and sultry, and thunder was pealing far away in the mountains. Under a clump of trees (of a kind of yellow flowering acacia), which grew just outside the large old wooden doors of the church, there was a group of village youths and loafers, and two or three men went past with their fighting cocks under their arms, Sunday afternoon out here being the great day for cock-fighting.

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