We got out of the river at eight o'clock, saw the three warning, red, typhoon lanterns glaring at us, and started full speed ahead for Romblon, our first calling-port, eighteen hours away. Dinner was served on deck from a large table formed by closing down the huge skylights to the regular dining-saloon below, and the eaters took far more enjoyment in their Spanish bill of fare under the awnings than they would have done had the same victuals been dished up downstairs. I say "victuals," for the word seems to be the only invention for just such combinations as were set before us, and "dished up" suggests the scooped-out-of-a-kettle process far better than "served." Spanish food is rather too mixy, too garlicky, too unfathomable for me, but as one can get used to anything I accommodated myself to the puchero (a mixture of meat, beans, sausages, cabbage, and pork), and was soon eating fish as a fifth course instead of a second. The feast began with soup and sundries, and was continued by the puchero which was merely an introduction to the fish course, the roast, and all the cheese and things that followed. Every dinner was practically the same, differing slightly in details, and the deck each time played its part as dining-room. Early breakfast came at six, late breakfast came at ten, and dinner poked along at five--a combination of meal hours which was enough to give one indigestion before touching a mouthful. During the night we all waited in vain to hear the sizzling of the typhoon that came not, and got up next morning to find the scare had been for nothing. The clouds and rain were clearing away, and the prow of the Uranus was headed directly for a region of blue sky. By breakfast-time there was hardly a cloud in the heavens, the rooster up for'ard began to crow, the mooly-cow which we were soon to eat began to moo, the islands in front drew nearer, and the scene became fairer each moment. At noon we steamed below a great mountainous island, crossed a sound between it and another group, entered a narrow channel, and at one o'clock dropped anchor in the small land-locked harbor of Romblon. Everywhere the hills fell abruptly into the water, and houses looked as if they had slid down off the steep slopes to hobnob with each other in a mass below. There was a public bath down beside a brook, where everybody came to wash, an old church, the market-place, and a prodigious long flight of steps leading up to the upper districts, where the view down back over the low nipa houses toward the bay was most extensive.