do all the sewing.

Being Mohammedans, they were very careful not to eat anything while
on board ship for fear of unconsciously transgressing the Holy Law,
even refusing chocolate candy because it might contain pork. They were
shown ice, but took little interest in it, nor did they seem surprised
at the cold storage rooms or the electric lighting. It is possible they
thought Americans had attained the one really great thing in having
white skins, after which all else followed as a matter of course.

The next day we went to call on the presidente and his wife. They lived
in a bare, forlorn old house, with nothing attractive about it save the
floor of the _sala_, which was of beautiful hard wood polished with
banana leaves until it would have served for a mirror. Everything
was scrupulously clean, but bespoke poverty, from the inadequate
furniture of the _sala_ to the patches and darns on the old wife's
stiffly starched skirt of _abaca_. This poverty was all the result
of the war, we were told, as much of their out of town property had
been confiscated or ruthlessly destroyed by the insurgents because
of the presidente's unswerving loyalty to the American government.

Both the presidente and his senora were delighted to see us, and while
he discoursed on politics and what the coming of the cable meant to
the people of Mindanao, the good housewife bustled about and brought
forth the greatest delicacies her larder afforded, laying them out
with proud humility on the marble topped table of the _sala_. There
were peaches and pears, canned in Japan, and served right from the
tin; there were little pink frosted cakes made in times prehistoric,
to judge from their mustiness, and carefully packed away in glass
jars for just such great occasions; there was good guava jelly and
a Muscatelle that breathed of sunny vineyards in Spain--indubitable
evidence of better days.

The house was so bare and shabby that this gastronomic outlay
seemed an unwarrantable expense, yet what could one do but accept
their hospitality in the same generous spirit in which it was
offered? So at ten o'clock of a steaming hot morning we cheerfully
stuffed ourselves on badly preserved fruits, elderly small cakes with
enamelled complexions, and tiny sips of liquid fragrance, our reward
of merit being the little senora's beaming face.

Indeed, she even stopped apologizing after a bit, and while the
presidente was toasting everybody from the "Chief Magistr