sudden the change that we seemed to hear "the roar of sap in bough impregnated and the deafening rumor of the grass.

Manila is situated at the mouth of the Pasig River which flows into a great bay twenty-five miles in diameter, over the narrow entrance of which the great fortress of Corregidor stands guard. The traveler in the Philippines is impressed by the fact that the towns and cities are badly located. They are seldom on the coast. Even Manila is twenty-five miles from the entrance to Manila Bay. It would have been better for the moderns if Legaspi had located the city at or near Maravales at the entrance to the bay, where there is a good protected natural harbor lying under the guns of Corregidor. Such a location would have had many advantages over the present one. Nature there has furnished good water, and perfect drainage. From their residences on the mountainsides, the inhabitants would have enjoyed the cool invigorating breezes, and a view such as poets seldom imagine and painters never dare paint.

But the cities and towns of the Philippines are centuries old and their original locations were determined largely by reasons of defense. From the very earliest times the coasts were harried by sea rovers. First came the Dutch and the Portuguese, then the Malay pirates from Borneo, and ever after the Moros from the southern islands. The towns and villages shrank back from the shore in order to find protection from these ocean raiders. From the north of Luzon to the far south the coasts bear the marks of the long contest with the Moros. On many strategic points the Spaniards and Filipinos constructed the stone watch towers which still stand gray and picturesque amid the green foliage and entangled vines. For two and one-half centuries a substantial stone fort, built by the natives under the direction of a Spanish friar, on a cliff jutting into the sea, has guarded the entrance to the beautiful little harbor of Romblon. It was built of the white stone found on the island and stands today an interesting and picturesque memorial of the time when pirates' craft and sea marauders were as common as now are merchant vessels and tourists.

The entire Archipelago is mountainous, with broad valleys between the ranges and along the shores, and occasional high tablelands in the interior. The general trend of the mountains is north and south. Ordinarily the height is not great enough to be very imposing, but what is lacking in grandeur and impressiveness. is supplied by beauty of form and coloring. The tropical forests mass about the foothills and roll up the mountainsides like green waves on a sloping beach until they crown the summits with verdure. There is little of the ruggedness of the mountains of temperate climes. The soft warm mists hang about them. Strange animals live in their shadowy depths, and stranger men. Primitive, timid little people build their habitations in the branches of the great trees, hidden amid the entanglement of vines and parasitic growths. Unseen waterfalls splash and tinkle amid the silence. To climb the slopes of one of these mountain ranges beneath the great trees through whose interlacing tops the sun never penetrates, is to realize the meaning of the forest primeval.

In the interior the mountains rise often to grandeur. Mount Apo in Mindanao is more than ten thousand feet in height, while many others run from five to eight thousand feet. The scenery in the Benguet mountains is very beautiful and impressive. From the observatory on Mount Mirador the plains of Pangasanan unroll toward the great Gulf of Lingayan and the China sea. From the rest house on the summit of Santa Tomas on a clear night, the lights of Manila, one hundred fifty miles away, glow dully against the sky. About twenty of the mountains are volcanic and many others bear the marks of early activity. About a dozen have been in active eruption within historic times, while scores of others are quiescent or extinct.

Mount Mayon in Albay is one of the most beautiful mountains in all the world. A perfect cone, with a base eighty miles in circumference, it rises in the midst of a rich cultivated plain to the height of eight thousand feet. Smoke and steam float about the summit in lazy grandeur. Amid the memories of many beautiful tropical scenes, none stands out more distinctly

in my mind than a ride over the splendid road which runs entirely around the base of the mountain. A few miles from the base are the ruins of the old city of Daraga. The top of the church and convent only show above the ground to tell the story of the eruption in the early years of the last century.

Taal volcano, forty miles from Manila, rises from the center of a lake to a height of a few hundred feet. It is the most active volcano in the Archipelago. The eruption of 1873 did much damage. That of 1903 was not so bad, but in 1910 Taal eclipsed all previous records. More than a thousand people who, despite warnings, continued to live in a village at its base, lost their lives. Much damage was done to the neighboring country. The initial explosion brought half the people of Manila, forty miles away, out of their beds to see one of the most wonderful and impressive spectacles which the world has to offer.

Coral animals have aided volcanic action in building the islands. Volcanism has raised the land through the warm waters and formed thousands of islands fringed about with coral reefs.

Serious damage has often been done by earthquakes. In 1645 many churches, monasteries and public buildings in Manila were destroyed. The governor-general had to be extricated from the ruins of his palace. In 1865 Manila was again badly damaged. During certain months of the year slight quakes and tremors are so common that the people become accustomed to them and pay them little attention.

Although the islands are of volcanic origin, there are large areas of northern Luzon which are underlaid with granite, chists and the like, and several islands like Cebu and Bohol are covered with a thin layer of limestone. The elevated lakes, marshes, waterfalls and beach lines which are so common show that many changes of level have occurred within times which are, geologically speaking, recent.

The coast line is more than double that of the United States proper. The coasts are sinuous and intricate; the currents uncertain and unaccountable; the channels dangerous and tides variable. The navigator who strays from the beaten paths, un

less very familiar with the waters, takes serious chances of landing his craft upon some submerged coral reef. Even the most experienced navigators may go astray.

One evening when traveling from Sandakan, in British North Borneo, across the dangerous Sulu Sea to Siassi, my attention was called to a statement in the official sailing directions of the experience of an English ship, which had laid a course for two miles south of a small island, and in the morning found itself ten miles to the north of its objective point. It had been carried twelve miles sidewise as it were by the current. We laid the exact course of the English ship, making allowance for the current. The night was perfect and the sea quiet. At daylight our ship was several miles south of the island in a nest of reefs, the current having run from exactly the opposite point from which it was expected. A few months later the same navigator, going to the same island, laid a course which he considered a fair average, and struck the low island at full speed. Such are the uncertainties of navigation in the Sulu Sea. At times the currents seem to flow without law or reason as the wind blows where it listeth.

The animal life in the Archipelago resembles that of the surrounding regions, but shows nevertheless remarkable differences. There are fewer mammalia than in the neighboring islands of Borneo and Java. There are but two species of monkey, three of the carnivora, and but six of the deer tribe-the most interesting being the tiny mouse deer, which is no larger than a little rat terrier. Small rodents are very scarce, but there are not less than thirty species of bat. The great fruit bat, which is found in many of the southern islands, has a body as large as that of a good sized cat, with a spread of wings measuring as much as five feet. The carabao and timarau are the only large mammalia. The latter lives in Mindora, where it is the ambition and the terror of all hunters. The mountains and foothills abound in wild boar and deer. Monkeys are quite common, and travelers in the remote districts soon become familiar with them.1 1

1 In a Historia de Mindanao y Jolo (1667), by Francisca Combes, a work

Certain animals are found on certain islands and not elsewhere. Thus the timarau lives in Mindora, the porcupine in Palawan and the Calamianes Islands, and numerous other animals live within very restricted districts.

Some unpleasant animals inhabit the waters. Crocodiles are often to be seen basking in the sun along the banks of the large rivers, and furnish rare target practise from passing steamers. But they are not always in evidence. I once spent a night and part of two days in a Moro vinta traveling through marshes and rivers to reach Lake Buluan under the shadow of Mount Apo, where crocodiles were popularly supposed to feed only on ambitious hunters, but the day's hunt revealed not one crocodile. However, on the return journey through the marshes, four guns brought down from above more than five hundred fine ducks of various species.

Lizards are common and in sizes to suit all tastes. The little chirping house lizard is a sort of cricket who lives on the ceiling instead of the hearth, and earns the friendship and gratitude of his hosts by eating an astonishing quantity of flies, and other such pests. Of snakes there must be a reasonable number, although in my travels about the islands I was never so fortunate as to see even a little one. However, I was not looking for snakes. Pythons must exist because they can be seen in the museums, and many narrations of desperate encounters with them have been written. But they seem to belong generally to the prehistoric or the late Empire period, after the war had become uninteresting and while the home-land appetite for stories of adventure remained unsatiated. House snakes are also traditional, but few moderns have seen them. Formerly it is said that they were sold on the streets like parrots and canaries, for pets.2

2

which Blumentritt says has "always been considered one of the most valuable pearls of Philippine literature," it is said that wild elephants were then found on the islands.

2 "In view of the number of species known, it is a matter of some surprise that snakes are so seldom encountered by those whose business leads them into the forests or through the high grass; in fact the majority of people seem to believe that very few snakes exist here." E. L. Griffin, "Poisonous Snakes in the Philippines." Phil. Jour. of Sci., January, 1909, sec. B.