One of the most laughable things Alila's father ever saw was a Negrito wedding. The young bride pretended to run away from her future husband. After he had caught her, they were carried up a bamboo ladder by their friends, and sprinkled with water out of a cocoanut shell. Then they came down and knelt on the ground, and an old man touched their heads together. That made them man and wife. Alila was much interested, and begged his father to tell more stories of the Negritos and other savage tribes living in the depths of the island forests. He listened to tales of the Igorrotes, who live in huts like beehives and creep into them like insects. They are people whom the white men have tried again and again to conquer and to teach of God, but they prefer to go naked and lead their own savage life. And then his father described to him some of the sights he had seen. He told him of a wonderful cave right there in his own island of Luzon. It was equal in beauty to the cave Aladdin himself had entered. Wonderful pendants of crystallised lime reached down from the lofty roof, shining like diamonds. There were pillars of the snowy lime a hundred feet in height, glittering in dazzling beauty. There were spacious halls leading one from another in this underground palace. It was a dangerous journey into this wonderful cave, but sometime Alila must go there, his father said. He should visit the volcano island, too,--an island in the middle of a lake, from which terrible floods of lava and boiling water have poured forth many times. What sorrow and destruction it has caused! A long, long time ago, the boy's father cannot tell how many years have passed, there was a terrible eruption. It lasted for many days. There were quakings of the earth and horrible sounds under ground. The air was filled with darkness save for flashes of lightning. Great columns of mud and sand arose from out the lake. Torrents of lava poured over the sides of the volcano and destroyed whole villages on the shores of the lake. Ah! it was a fearful time for the people, and few of those who were there lived to tell the story to their children. Alila's eyes grew larger as he listened to the wonders of the world around him. Yes, he would travel and see these things for himself. He was growing impatient. He could not wait much longer, for now he was nearly a man grown. Sometime, let us hope, we shall meet our little Alila. We will ask him what he himself has learned that no one else can tell us. CHAPTER XVI. THE STOUT-HEARTED SAILOR. ALTHOUGH Alila is anxious to travel and learn more of this great round world, yet his own people seldom leave their island home. Strange to say, however, white travellers from distant lands began to visit these shores hundreds of years ago. The first one to do this was a brave admiral named Ferdinand Magellan. What wonderful adventures filled the life of this man! It seems almost like a fairy tale.