To the Visayan mind, death is a matter of bad luck. It is advisable to hinder it with _anting-antings_ and medallions; but when it comes, the Filipino fatalist will take it philosophically. To the boys and girls a family death is the sensation of the year. It means to them nine days of celebration, when old women gather at the house, and, beating on the floor with hands and feet, put up a hopeless wail, while dogs without howl dismally and sympathetically. And at the end of the nine days, the soul then being out of purgatory, they will have a feast. A pig and a goat will be killed, not to speak of chickens--and the meat will be served up with calabash and rice; and visitors will come and look on while the people eat at the first table; and the second table and the third are finished, and the viands still hold out. But these are placed upon the table down below, where _hoi polloi_ and the lame, blind, and halt sit down and eat. And back of all this superficiality lies the great superstitious dread by means of which the Church of Rome holds such authority. I got to know the little village very well--to join the people in their foolish celebrations and their wedding feasts. I was among them when the town was swept by cholera; when, in their ignorance, they built a dozen little shrines--just _nipa_ shelters for the Holy Virgin, decorated with red cloth and colored grass--and held processions carrying the wooden saints and burning candles. Then the locusts came, and settled on the rice-fields--a great cloud of them, with whirring wings. They rattled on the _nipa_ roofs like rain. The children took tin pans and drums and gave the enemy a noisy welcome. But the rains fell in the night, and the next morning all the ground was strewn with locusts trying heavily to fly. The ancient drum of the town-crier ushered in the day of work, and those who took this opportunity to pay their taxes gathered at the _municipio_--about a hundred ugly-looking men. They were equipped with working bolos, with their blades as sharp as scythes for cutting grass, and, looking at them, you were forcibly reminded of another day, another army with a similar accouterment. Even the _presidente_ went barefooted as he gave directions for the work. Some were dispatched for _nipa_ and bamboo, while others mowed the grass around the church. Another squad hauled heavy timbers, singing as they pulled in unison.