ainst invading Americans. Not far from these earthworks was an
old nipa church, most picturesque in its decay. It was nipa within
as well as without, the floor and ceiling being of braided bamboo
and the walls of the nipa-palm. Its high altar was innocent of any
attempt at decoration save for some faded paper flowers stuck into
empty beer bottles, while the niche above was unfilled by patron
saint of any description. At the very door grazed a lean carabao,
completing a picture of the desolation and ruin in the wake of an army.

And now as to cable work, for even here, where we had expected
only to coal, the Signal Corps was kept busy, as it was found on
investigation that an old cable landing two miles up the beach at
Mabola was in such bad condition and the line so insecure that the
cable must be put directly into the Cebu office, thus avoiding the
defect of a shaky land terminal. So prisoners were engaged to dig
a trench from the office to the beach, where the cable was landed,
after which it was placed in the trench and so laid up to the very
door of the telegraph station, the lead covered wire being inserted
there into an iron tube lashed to an upright pole, and thence into
the window where the operator had his desk. Surely a novel way to lay
a shore end! It reminded one of that nice old lady's suggestion to
the London _Times_ in 1858, just after the Atlantic cable failure,
that in future it should be laid above the ocean instead of in
it, mentioning that in her opinion the rock of Gibraltar, peak of
Teneriffe, and the Andes should be used as points of suspension.

This work, coupled with the entire refitting of the office, took
several days, and meanwhile on board ship the cable was being turned
over from one tank to the other in search of faults, and numerous
experiments were made in splicing, so that much learned conversation
might be heard anent the necessity of homogeneity in core joints and
the like.

On February 3d we left Cebu for Liloan, island of Cebu, where a cable
put in eleven months before needed repairing. After a two hours' run
we anchored off our destination, which proved to be a most deserted
little hole, rich in vegetation only. There were but a few men,
commanded by a non-commissioned officer at Liloan, and as our stay
there was to be very brief, only the Signal Corps detachment went
ashore. By one o'clock the defective splice in the trench had been
cut out, a new one made, and the office over