al of crackers.

Our next voyage in the _Romulus_ was unpropitious from the start. We
were detained five days in quarantine in Manila Bay. There was no
breeze, and the hot sun beat down upon the boat all day. To add
to our discomforts, there was nothing much to eat. The stock of
lady-fingers soon became exhausted, and the stock of crackers, too,
showed signs of running out. As an experiment I ordered eggs for
breakfast once--but only once. The cook had evidently tried to serve
them in disguise, believing that a large amount of cold grease would
in some way modify their taste. He did not seem to have the least
respect for old age. It was the time of cholera; the boat might have
become a pesthouse any moment. But the steward assured us that the
drinking water had been neither boiled nor filtered. There was no
ice, and no more bottled soda, the remaining bottles being spoken
for by the ship's officers. At the breakfast-table two calves and
a pig, that had been taken on for fresh meat, insisted upon eating
from the plates. The sleepy-eyed _muchacho_ was by this time grimier
than ever. Even the passengers did not have any opportunity to take
a bath. One glance at the ship's bathtub was sufficient.

It was a happy moment when we finally set out for the long rambling
voyage to the southern isles. The captain went barefooted as he paced
the bridge. A stop at one place in the Camarines gave us a chance
to go ashore and buy some bread and canned fruit from the military
commissary. How the captain and the mate scowled as we supplemented
our elaborate meals with these purchases! One of the passengers, a
miner, finally exasperated at the cabin-boy, made an attack upon the
luckless fellow, when the steward, who had been wanting an excuse to
exploit his authority, came up the hatchway bristling. In his Spanish
jargon he explained that he considered it as his prerogative to punish
and abuse the luckless boy, which he did very capably at times; that
he would tolerate no interference from the passengers. But the big
miner only looked him over like a cock-of-the-walk regarding a game
bantam. Being a Californian, the miner told the steward in English
(which that officer unfortunately did not understand) that if the
service did not presently improve, the steward and cabin-boy together
would go overboard.

Stopping at Dumaguete, Oriental Negros, where we landed several
teachers, with their trunks and furniture, upon the hot sands,
most o