n and believed, seems to be this. When the town was still
a collection of miserable huts with the grass growing abundantly in
the so-called streets, at the time when the wild boar and deer roamed
about during the nights, there arrived in the place one day an old,
hollow-eyed Spaniard, who spoke Tagalog rather well. After looking
about and inspecting the land, he finally inquired for the owners of
this wood, in which there were hot springs. Some persons who claimed to
be such presented themselves, and the old man acquired it in exchange
for clothes, jewels, and a sum of money. Soon afterward he disappeared
mysteriously. The people thought that he had been spirited away,
when a bad odor from the neighboring wood attracted the attention of
some herdsmen. Tracing this, they found the decaying corpse of the
old Spaniard hanging from the branch of a balete tree. [51] In life
he had inspired fear by his deep, hollow voice, his sunken eyes, and
his mirthless laugh, but now, dead by his own act, he disturbed the
sleep of the women. Some threw the jewels into the river and burned the
clothes, and from the time that the corpse was buried at the foot of
the balete itself, no one willingly ventured near the spot. A belated
herdsman looking for some of his strayed charges told of lights that
he had seen there, and when some venturesome youths went to the place
they heard mournful cries. To win the smiles of his disdainful lady,
a forlorn lover agreed to spend the night there and in proof to wrap
around the trunk a long piece of rattan, but he died of a quick fever
that seized him the very next day. Stories and legends still cluster
about the place.

A few months after the finding of the old Spaniard's body there
appeared a youth, apparently a Spanish mestizo, who said that
he was the son of the deceased. He established himself in the
place and devoted his attention to agriculture, especially the
raising of indigo. Don Saturnino was a silent young man with a
violent disposition, even cruel at times, yet he was energetic and
industrious. He surrounded the grave of his father with a wall,
but visited it only at rare intervals. When he was along in years,
he married a young woman from Manila, and she became the mother of
Don Rafael, the father of Crisostomo. From his youth Don Rafael was a
favorite with the country people. The agricultural methods introduced
and encouraged by his father spread rapidly, new settlers poured in,
the Chines