In due season we drew up at a very thick-walled stone house on the high bank just above the river, and were invited to take possession. Our "boys" got out the provisions in short order, for a late supper; our pieces of straw matting were spread out around the edges of the shining floor of the large "sala" which had been placed at our disposal for a dormitory; pillows and light coverings were duly regulated, and after eating a bit, we said good-night to our new friends and turned in on the floor to rest. I found the hardwood planks so soft after my bed at Manila that before long I arose, arranged eight chairs in facing pairs, spread out my sleeping-arrangements, and soon fell asleep in a very good improvised bed which was high enough from the floor to keep cockroaches from using me as a promenade. Thursday morning we arose early, washed ourselves on the balcony that overlooked the fashionable avenue of the village, and, as is the true Philippine custom, sprinkled the street with solutions of soapsuds. Now, as I have said before, the Thursday and Friday before Easter are tremendously sacred days in the Philippines, and no carriages of any description are permitted to move about. The little town was still as death, and the early-morning hush was only broken now and then by the weird caterwaulings of the peculiar Passion songs which the natives in these parts sing off and on during Lent. Later on, as we finished breakfast, groups of women began coming out of the various houses and directed their steps church-ward. Most of them were gorgeously dressed in all colors of the solar spectrum--with a little cloth added on--and it was instructive to see an expensively gowned Indian woman emerge from a shabby little nipa hut that didn't look as if it could incubate such starched freshness. For the dresses that some of these people wear are costly; and even their piña neckerchiefs often cost $100. After breakfast we went down to the river and got into five hollowed-out tree-trunks, preparatory to the start up into the mountain-gorges. It was worse than riding a bicycle, trying to balance one of the crazy affairs, and for a few moments I feared my camera and I would get wet. However, nobody turned turtle, and we were paddled up between the high cocoanut-fringed banks of the wonderfully clear river before the early morning sun had looked over the mountains into whose cool heart we were going.