g Spanish precedent
for such customs, and all were heartily and unaffectedly hungry after
their violent exercise in the waltz and two step.

It was very late when we finally left the _baille_, amidst much
hand-shaking and many regrets that our stay in Dumaguete was so short,
while great wonder was shown by all that we should be able to sail at
daylight on the morrow, it seeming well-nigh incredible to the native
mind that so much could have been accomplished in so short a time;
for, despite the fact that we had been in Dumaguete less than two
days, everything was completed--a marvel, indeed, when one considers
the tremendous current which made the landing of the shore end a
hazardous proceeding.

To one who has never witnessed the difficulties of propelling a rowboat
through the heavy breakers of some of these Philippine coast towns,
it would be hard to appreciate the struggles of the Signal Corps to
land shore ends at the different cable stations. More than once men
were almost drowned in its accomplishment but fortunately on the
whole trip, despite many narrow escapes, not a man was seriously
injured in the performance of his duty. Once landed on the beach,
the shore end was laid in the trench dug for it, one end of the
cable entering the cable hut through a small hole in its flooring,
where after some adjustment and much shifting of plugs and coaxing of
galvanometers, the ship way out in the bay was in communication with
the land, through that tiny place, scarce larger than a sentry-box,
in which a man has barely room enough to turn around.

Each telegraph office, when finally established, looks for all the
world like a neat housekeeper's storeroom, with its shelf after shelf
of batteries, all neatly labelled like glass jars of jellies and
jams. It positively made one's mouth water to see them, and only the
rows of wires on the wall, converging into the switchboard, and from
thence to the operator's desk, where the little telegraph instruments
were so soon to click messages back and forth, could convince one
that the jars contained only "juice," as operators always call the
electric current.

When this work on shore was completed, the ship paid out a mile and a
half of cable, cut, and buoyed it, awaiting our return from the next
station, where, because of the inaccurate charts already mentioned, it
would be necessary to first take soundings before we could proceed to
lay the cable. These buoys, so large that the