A.M. and Find the Town Asleep--Our Trip down the River--Scenery and
Sights by the Way--Three Buffaloes Are Brought to Drag Us over the
Mud--Digging for Gold--I Fail As an Overseer of Diggers--Results of
the Digging Unsatisfactory--The Homeward Trip.

After Christmas we settled down to humdrum work, and barring my
gold-hunting experience there was little to relieve the daily monotony
of existence. I wrote an account of the gold-hunting expedition as one
of a series of newspaper articles published in _The Manila Times_,
With the consent of the editors, I now transcribe it bodily here,
for, without any gleam of romance or adventure, the experience was
one typical of the land and of our life here, which I believe the
generous reader will be willing to accept without any attempt on my
part to embellish it with excitement and lurid writing.

Our Supervisor had gotten hold of a legend of an abandoned mine
in a mountain some four or five miles from town. According to the
native story, half a century or more before this period the mine was
worked, and considerable quantities of gold were taken out of it. But
dissensions arose between the _barrios_ that supplied the labor, and
finally the native priests ordered the shaft to be filled and closed,
and all work to cease, lest it bring a curse upon the people. They
obeyed, and the mining interests thereabouts fell into oblivion.

The Supervisor had, with native assistance, located the spot, and
made a few crude washings in which he found "color." Then he came
back to make a sluice box, and, together with a young lieutenant of
constabulary, intended to pass the Sabbath day in further investigation
of the mine's possibilities.

The occasion was too tempting. I promptly laid siege to the
Supervisor's wife, pleading that she induce her liege to let us
accompany him. As he was good-natured and the trip was short and easy,
he consented. We were to leave town in a _baroto_ at three A.M. to
get the benefit of the tide. At half-past nine the night before, the
lunch basket containing my contribution to the commissary department
was packed and suspended from the ceiling by a rope, protected by
a petroleum-soaked rag, and I went to bed to dream of gold mines,
country houses, yachts, and European travel. It was ten minutes to
three when I scrambled out in a great fright lest I should be late
and keep the others waiting. I lighted the alcohol lamp to boil the
coffee, and flew into my garment