mail, the which, as we had seen none of it for six
weeks, was particularly welcome. But we wondered what boat had come
in in such a storm, and, the unexpected always happening, were not
wholly unprepared to learn that that disreputable old tub the _General
Blanco_ had made harbor safe and sound. It took till nearly midnight
to get the mail up and distributed, but we stayed up for it. There
were actually eight sacks of mail for our little colony, and we went
over to the tribunal and watched the mail sacks opened, and seized
on our share with avidity, while we alternately blessed and despised
the skipper of the _Blanco_ for getting caught out in the tempest.

This was not the last feat the _Blanco_ was destined to achieve during
my stay in Capiz. She had a habit of dropping into port in weather that
it seemed no boat could live in. Once she came in about two P.M. in
a tremendous sea, bringing a single American passenger--a girl of
twenty-one, a Baptist missionary. As the _Blanco_ had no cabins, the
captain was forced to lock his native passengers in the engine room,
where no doubt they contributed much to the enjoyment of the engineer
and his aids. He had the deck chair of this girl carried up on his
bridge and lashed, and she was lashed to the chair. There they two
rode out the storm. The captain said that from eleven o'clock till
two, when he made the shelter of Batan Bay, he expected his boat to
be swamped any instant, and he expressed his unqualified admiration
for the way in which this girl faced her possible doom. He concluded
with a favorite Filipino ejaculation, "Abao las Americanas," which in
this case may be freely translated as "What women the Americans are!"

The _Blanco_ is still skipping defiantly over the high seas between
Iloilo and Capiz, though after all her hairbreadth escapes she came
near ending herself in a typical way. She started out one night from
Capiz for Iloilo, a heavenly calm night, bright moonlight, and a sea
smooth as a floor. Two or three miles from the port, a large island
called Olatayan lies off the coast--a single mountain rising out
of the sea. Everybody on the _Blanco_, including the watch and the
steersman, thought it a good night for sleep, and left the _General_
to steer her own course. The _General_ made straight for Olatayan,
and ran her nose up on the beach. She stayed there two weeks, and was
beaten up by bad weather, and assistance had to be sent to get her
off. Then she had