ts,
every bending cane, every bonga tree, every cross. Beyond the town is
the crystal river, like a serpent asleep on a carpet of green. Here
and there, its tranquil surface is broken by rocks projecting from
its sandy bottom. In places, it is hemmed in between two high banks,
and there the rapidly rushing waters turn and twist the half-bared
roots of the overhanging shade trees. But further on it spreads itself
out again and becomes calm and peaceful.

But what always attracts attention is a peninsula of forest projecting
into this sea of cultivated land. There can be found hollow-trunked
trees, a century old, trees which die only when struck by lightning
and set on fire. They say, also, that even in that case the fire never
spreads to any other tree. This old grove is held in a certain degree
of awe, for around it have been woven many strange legends. Of these
the most probable, and consequently the least known and believed is
the following:

When the town was still a miserable group of huts, when weeds grew
in abundance in the so-called streets, and deer and wild boar roamed
about at night, there arrived one day an old Spaniard. His eyes were
deep and thoughtful and he spoke Tagalog fluently. After visiting
the different estates and peddling out some goods he inquired for
the owners of this grove, which by the way, also contained several
hot water springs. A number of persons claiming to be the owners
presented themselves, and the old man purchased from them the grove,
paying in exchange some money, jewelry and clothing. A short time
afterward he disappeared, no one knew where.

His sudden disappearance made the people think for a time that he
had been spirited away, but later on a fetid odor was noticeable
near the grove, and some shepherds, upon investigation, found the
body of the old man in a badly decomposed condition hanging from the
limb of a baliti tree. When alive the old man had terrorized many by
his deep and resonant voice, his sunken eyes and his silent laugh,
but now that he was dead, and a suicide at that, the mere mention
of his name gave the town women nightmare. Some of them threw the
jewelry that they had bought from him into the river and burned all
the clothing, and, for a long time after the body had been buried
at the foot of the baliti tree, no one cared to venture near it. All
sort of stories became current about the haunted place.

A shepherd, looking for his flock, said that he had see