iza girl I had been flirting with not
five minutes before; but after half an hour's worship, which, to do
them justice, was apparently of the most sincere and heartfelt kind,
the fair penitents returned to the supper room with a number of the
heretics, and afterwards, notwithstanding all their prayers, danced
with us, being quite as lively and as full of flirting as before their
visit to church. We stopped till about three o'clock in the morning,
when, being thoroughly tired of the heated rooms, my companion and I
resolved to enter the boat which had been engaged for the occasion,
and in which clothes, provender, &c., had previously been embarked,
and left under charge of a servant, Fernando, at a landing-place
from the river, near the house where we had been invited to pass the
evening. Taking the precaution to eat a hearty supper, to keep out
the night air, on arriving at the boat, and wrapping ourselves up in
our blankets, we both very speedily began to enjoy the rest necessary
for next day's exertions; and having previously secured our crew of
five picked men to pull, we were rapidly approaching the Laguna when
we awoke, and daylight had just rested on their oars next morning;
after breakfast, and a bath in the cool and delicious water of the
river above Pasig, we quickly passed by the pateros or villages for
breeding ducks, situated among the swamps at the outlets of the lake,
and the beginning of the river.

Several of these duck villages can scarcely be said to be situated on
_terra firma_, as many of the _nipa_ or attap-houses are founded on
the supporting trunks of trees growing out of the sedgy swamp. The
houses have a small lower platform of bamboo on two sides, for a
cooking-place and for landing from a boat, below and around being trees
or bamboos growing out of the water. Many of these clumps of bamboo,
some of which attain a great height, occasionally, perhaps, as much as
150 feet, are from their numbers a peculiar feature in the landscape
of the Philippines, and form some of the most beautiful objects of
luxuriant vegetation that can be imagined for a landscape. They are
found growing wild, very grand and fresh-looking in all parts of
the country, and are of many varieties, some of which any one may be
acquainted with who takes the trouble to consult the good old Padre
Blanco's book on the _flora de Filipinas_.

At the pateros, near the entrance to the Laguna, the people breed large
flocks of ducks to