slightly
of turpentine, the mangosteen, king of fruits and delight of Eastern
kings, the orange, tangerine, lime and many others of the citron tribe,
the pawpaw with its luscious cinnamon-colored pulp, the durian, which
smells as bad as is tastes good, and everywhere the generous coconut
palm. Tough pliant reeds wound in and out along the ground, some of
them 500 feet or more in length. These the natives split and use to tie
their house roofs to the poles and for their water-craft and for
everything, in fact, that involves tying. In the flooded paddies
sprouted the young rice, the bread of the people, and in the trees sat
many-hued cockatoos, chiding each other in caustic tones.
Monkeys
came down to the lowest branches as we passed, to get a close peep at
the latest London fashion; several wild pigs made off in alarm before
us, recognizing the smell of bacon-eaters, and the spotted deer ran
away so fast that they almost left their spots behind. We saw only one
serpent, but that was quite enough, I think, to remind us that we were
in paradise.
As
we went along, Dicky regaled me with the story of the great fight the
Moros fought against the Americans on Mount Daho, how they climbed the
mountain with wives and children, how they build a cotta—three circles
of stout bamboo stockading—in an inaccessible place where even the
mountain guns firing day and night could not destroy it. The Americans
lost many men in this encounter, for the Moros with reckless bravery
and armed only with their home-ground double-edged knives, sallied out
time after time, using their babies as shields.
The
end of it all? There is no need really to say what happened; but the
Moro learned no lesson from it, and kept on building other cottas at
other times and places. They certainly kept the American Army in
training for its future ordeal in France.
We
had come to a part of the country which was not under cultivation. As
far as the eye could see there were no more trees, but the ground was
covered with a close shrub of a kind unknown to me. Dicky, however,
proudly displaying his supe-
