sky. Nor was this enchantment due entirely to distance, for on going
ashore in the late afternoon, we found the town even more attractive
than we had thought it from the sea.

On drawing up to the pier in the ship's launch, all were surprised to
find it built solidly of brick and stone, a rare departure in these
waters, while at one side rose a round watch-tower, the architectural
evidence of Spain's ultimate victory, after numerous and heart-breaking
failures, in establishing a fort at Sulu. Above this watch-tower, which
might have been taken bodily from the stage-setting for a melodrama,
floated Old Glory against the sunset sky; Moro fishing-boats, the
breeze in their crimson sails, dotted the flushed bay; and to the
north and east small, detached islands, tinged with a translucent
purple like the skin of a grape, faded into the horizon.

Within the town's mediaeval loopholed walls everything adds to this
picturesque effect, for the streets are laid out in broad boulevards,
with here and there a park or plaza, riotous with bloom; the houses are
large and well built, there being no nipa shacks within the four walls,
and the only church of the place is refreshingly simple in design.

During our first morning ashore we visited the market, and found it a
most interesting sight. The Moros, in their parti-coloured raiment,
were squatted on the ground in a great circle, buying or selling
fruits and vegetables, while under a covered shed at one end of the
plaza stood those dealing in fish and crustaceans of all kinds.

These marketmen were eminently good to look upon from an artistic
standpoint, and as they lounged around in groups or singly, one
longed to imprison them on canvas in all the gorgeousness of their
tropical colouring. One fishmonger, whom I especially remember,
sported a ravishing costume, consisting of bright green trousers,
skin-tight of course, a purple coat, and a high peaked hat of silver,
gilt, and crimson. He might better have been in comic opera than in
the humble occupation of selling crabs and lobsters.

The Moro women were particularly interested in the _Burnside_ feminine
contingent, but not to the extent of dogging our footsteps as did
the natives elsewhere, several American women in town having helped
satiate their curiosity. But they stared at us, nevertheless, with
a deep and absorbing interest, the quartermaster's wife, as usual,
being the cynosure of all eyes, because of her exceptional hei