This letter had been written more than a month, so long had it been comin' to me, and I wuz tickled enough to think that when we got to the Philippines we should see Cousin John Richard. CHAPTER XII The shore of Manila looked dretful low and flat as we come up to it some as old Shelmadine's land lays along the lake shore. So you'd think that if it rained hard and raised the water a inch it would overflow it. And the houses looked dretful low and squatty, mebby it wuz on account of earthquakes they built 'em so. Josiah thought it wuz so they could shingle 'em standin' on the ground. I inclined to the earthquakes. Our boat wuz small enough to go over the surf and up the Pasig River. The water didn't look very clean, and on it wuz floatin' what looked like little cabbage heads. Josiah thought they wuz, and sez he real excited: "Thank fortin if they have cabbages to throw away here I shall be likely to git a good biled dinner, and mebby a biled puddin' with lemon sass." But they wuzn't cabbages, they wuz some kind of a water plant that growed right there in the water. As we sailed along some queer lookin' boats, lookin' some like corn houses standin' on end, bulged out towards us from the shore. They said they wuz cargo lighters to onload ships, and mebby they wuz. And one peculiarity I see that I despised. The natives all seemed to wear their shirts over their pantaloons, hangin' loose, and some on 'em didn't have on any pantaloons, jest the shirt, and some not even that, jest a sash or so tied round about 'em. I despised the sight and sez to Josiah: "They might do as much as Adam did anyway; they might wear some leaves round 'em, there is plenty of fig trees here I spoze." And he sez: "I have been thinkin' that it is a crackin' good idee to wear the shirt over the pantaloons; it would be cool and look all right after we got used to it; the bottom of the shirt could be ruffled or trimmed with tattin or red braid, and they would look as dressy agin as I've always wore 'em." I looked daggers at him out of my eyes and sez: "What won't you take it into your head to do next, Josiah Allen?" But our attention wuz drawed off by Arvilly, who approached us. She looked skornfully at the costoom of the natives, and I hearn her say to herself: "Not much chance to canvass here." But even as she spoke her eye fell hopefully on the opposite shore, like a good book agent scanning the earth and heavens for a possible subscriber. Miss Meechim, who had come on deck with Dorothy and Robert, looked benignantly at the natives and sez: "The poor ye shall always have with you," and she put her hand in the little bag that she always wore at her side and said: "I wonder if I have got a copy of that blessed tract with me, 'The Naked Sinner Clothed and in His Right Mind.'"