In deep meditation I had sat with my rifle cocked for perhaps forty minutes, eagerly awaiting the shadow of a pig, and was beginning to get restless, when hark! a dull thud on the ground attracted my attention to a guava tree near by, where I saw, hanging from and partly wrapped around a low limb, an immense boa constrictor. For a moment I was hypnotized; the snake’s head was hidden by the underbrush, and in fact it was impossible to see either end of the monster; I could merely see the coils wrapped around the limb and hanging from the tree. To say that the sight of a boa constrictor excited horror in my mind is putting it mildly, for, being unable to see its head, it would have been folly to shoot with a rifle; furthermore, I imagined I was in a den of these powerful life-crushers; every moment I expected to feel myself enwrapped in the monster’s coils, and for this emergency I had drawn my knife. Another twist of this snake, and I was hitting the high places only; I leaped through the tall grass like an Igorrote head-hunter, and now, to add to my mental discomfiture, I ran on to a wild-boar, which gave a most unearthly squeal; this, followed by the report of Weismantle’s rifle, made it seem as though all the demons of hell had been turned loose. After regaining my composure, I tracked the boar by drops of blood for several hundred yards, where we found it in time to bleed it properly. When I told the marine the experience I had had, he wanted to return, but I refused to point in the direction, so the trip was postponed. After tying the feet of our game together, we cut a long bamboo pole, on which we packed it into the outpost, where it was roasted on a spit. Chess, pinocle, whist, and poker were popular games in the camp, as they are in all quarters of the army and navy, and in this way many pleasant hours were spent when off duty. The migration of locusts on the Island of Mindanao is a novel sight; approaching in the distance, they appear like a large black cloud, the forerunner of a tornado; millions upon millions of these jumping insects, totally eclipsing the sun, continue on their flight for hours, leaving leafless trees and devastated fields in the train of their route. A great character at the outpost was Corporal Jim Iddles, a Scotchman, and a great friend of mine. Jim had a keen appetite for tuber, and, growing weary of the simple life, approached me one morning with the suggestion that we take a hike to a near-by “barrio” in quest of some native sangaree. The nearest barrio was Mongahon, seven miles distant, so, slipping on our belts, with six-shooters and rifles, we hit the trail over the mountains, informing Sergeant McKenzie, who was in charge of the outpost, that we were going a short distance in the jungle to shoot a deer.