The guard was out with the band, and the honours were paid and the marines paraded, but soon another severe tropical storm broke, and drove some of us back to the ship while the others went on to another breakfast at the Officers' Club. This storm suggested a typhoon, but there had been no warning from the Jesuit observatory at Manila, and so we rejoined the _Crook_ out by Isola Grande and went to sea without fear. This is the rainy and typhoon season but the warnings of severe storms are so carefully given that they have lost their terrors now-a-days; and this year, so far, there hasn't been a disturbance, much to our comfort, as it has permitted the carrying out of all our plans. It is a most unusual thing for such good weather to continue. The hot season is over, and this is called the intermediate, but it is the time of rains on this coast, the seasons differing slightly on the different coasts and in the different islands. So all that night we cruised up the coast through showers of rain and lightning, passing by Bolinao Light, which we had first sighted as we approached the Philippines. Before daylight we stopped off Tagudin, and through the darkness could be seen the dim shadow of land and mountains, and a light burning on the beach as a beacon. With dawn we saw a wonderful tropical shore develop before us, of low land fringed with palm, surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges, a tiny village on the beach, and a crowd of people gathered together. Soon a surf-boat put out and brought aboard the governors of the nearby provinces--Early and Gallman, brave, ready men, who have taken these wild people in hand and become demi-gods among them--and after a bite of breakfast we were all taken ashore through the surf, very handily, and the Secretary was welcomed by a native band and the chief men of the neighbourhood and crowds of half naked natives.