overlord of the district, who
explained, through Governor Rogers, that he had had prepared a little
repast of which he hoped that we would deign to partake. Now, after you
know some of the secrets of Moro cooking and have had a glimpse into a
Moro kitchen, even the most robust appetite is usually dampened. But
the Governor whispered "The old man has gone to a lot of trouble to
arrange this show and if you refuse to eat his food he'll be mortally
offended," so, purely in the interests of amity, we seated ourselves at
the table, which had been set under the palms in the open. I don't know
what we ate and I don't care to know--though I admit that I had some
uneasy suspicions--but, with the uncompromising eye of the old Panglima
fixed sternly upon us, we did our best to convince him that we
appreciated his cuisine.

But the dancing which followed made us forget what we had eaten. During
the ensuing months we were to see dances in many lands--in Borneo and
Bali and Java and Siam and Cambodia--but they were all characterized by
a certain monotony and sameness. These Moro dancers, however, were in a
class by themselves. If they could be brought across the ocean and
would dance before an audience on Broadway with the same savage abandon
with which they danced before the camera under the palm-trees of
Parang, there would be a line a block long in front of the box-office.
One of the dances was symbolical of a cock-fight, the cocks being
personified by a young woman and a boy. It was sheer barbarism, of
course, but it was fascinating. And the curious thing about it was that
the hundreds of Moros who stood and squatted in a great circle, and who
had doubtless seen the same thing scores of times before, were so
engrossed in the movements of the dance, each of which had its subtle
shade of meaning, that they became utterly oblivious to our presence or
to Hawkinson's steady grinding of the camera. In the war-dance the
participants, who were Moro fighting men, and were armed with spears,
shields, and the vicious, broad-bladed knives known as _barongs_, gave
a highly realistic representation of pinning an enemy to the earth with
a spear, and with the _barong_ decapitating him. The first part of the
dance, before the passions of the savages became aroused, was, however,
monotonous and uninteresting.

"Can't you stir 'em up a little?" called Hawkinson, who, like all
camera men, demands constant action. "Tell 'em that this film costs
mon