We moved on through the little town of nipa houses to visit old Dato Manilibang, whose house was not as fine as those we had seen before, but where we were admitted into two rooms. From the entrance we streaked muddy feet across the bamboo-slatted floor into his reception room, where a sort of divan occupied one side--on which the Secretary was asked to sit. Behind this cushioned seat were piled the boxes with the chief's possessions, and here he sits in state in the daytime and sleeps at night. The women, who were huddled together on one side of the room, wore bracelets and rings, and one was rather pretty. At dawn we were up and off again. What a day! We had two hours on a boat crossing a lovely lake, surrounded by mountains, on the shore of which some of the wildest Moros live. Our boat was a big launch, a sort of gunboat, which, strangely enough, the Spaniards had brought up here and sunk in the lake when the war came on, we were told, and which had been resurrected successfully. It was a steep climb up the opposite side of the lake, but most of us scrambled up on horses, till we topped the ridge and came to Camp Vickers, a station with fine air and outlook but rather small and pathetic. The picturesque Moros had gathered here to greet the Secretary, and their wail of welcome was something strange and weird. A dato would come swinging by, followed in single file by his betel-box carrier, chow bearer and slaves. Some of the chiefs rode scraggly ponies, on high saddles, with their big toes in stirrups of cord almost up under their chins, and with bells on the harness that rattled gaily. And, of course, the tom-toms kept up their endless music. We had two more hours of horseback riding--we hoped to see a boar hunt, but owing to some misunderstanding, it did not come off. Then, after a stand-up luncheon at Major Brown's, we started down the trail again in a dougherty. [Illustration: BAGOBO MAN WITH POINTED TEETH.] It was a beautiful drive through this forest on the island of Mindanao. We first crossed open grassy uplands, then dipped down through the great glades of the most tropical forest I have ever seen, with towering hard woods and tree ferns, with bamboos and clinging air plants and orchids, and there was mystery and wonder about the giant growths. The trees seemed taller than the elms of New England or the cedars of Oregon. They dripped with huge-leaved, clinging vines, which grew higgledy-piggledy, covering everything. The grass, too, with waving purple tassels, grew higher than a man's head, twice as high as the pigmy brown people who have their houses in these trees. The tree-dwellers just referred to are the Manobos and the Bagobos with pointed teeth--for Mindanao is not entirely inhabited by Moros; there are supposed to be no less than twenty-four tribes on this island alone. They build in trees, to escape the spear thrusts of their neighbours through the bamboo floors. We were to make their acquaintance later.