and importance in the great days of the tobacco monopoly. It has an
imposing church built of brick, a hospital, and a Dominican college,
all of substantial construction; its streets are broad and well laid
out, but of the town itself not much can be said, as a fire swept off
most of it a few years ago. Still Filipino towns rise easily from the
ashes, and there is no reason why prosperity should not again smile
upon this ancient borough.

We tarried two or three days in Tuguegarao, waiting for river
transportation and meanwhile greatly enjoying the hospitality
so generously shown us. Major Knauber, of the Constabulary, and
Mr. Justice Campbell, of the Court of First Instance, invited me to
stay with them in a fine old Spanish house they had together. Every
evening Herr ----, of the ---- Company, had us to dinner in his
beautiful bungalow. At a grand _baile_ given us the day after our
arrival, Heiser asked me if I had not dined that day and the day before
at Herr ----'s; on my saying yes, he laughed and remarked that he had
just taken up his cook as a leper to be sent to the leper hospital
on the Island of Culion. But in the East nobody bothers about a thing
like that.

Tuguegarao is a point of departure for some interesting trips,
notably one to some limestone caves, larger than the Mammoth Cave
of Kentucky. In one of these caves, receiving light, air, and
moisture from fissures in the natural surface of the ground, palms
(cocoa and other), bamboos, and other plants and trees are growing
in natural miniature. I was told that this cave was fascinating and
that I ought to go and see it. But time was pressing; although the
commanding General had set no limit on my absence, I felt I ought now
to return. Accordingly, on the morning of the 18th, our transportation
being ready, Mr. Justice Campbell and I went aboard a motor-launch
and set out for Aparri, at the mouth of the river.

All river trips here in the East have an interest; this one proved no
exception to the general rule, though it presented nothing especially
worthy of record. But the Rio Grande is the great road of the Valley,
to such an extent, indeed, that there are no land roads to speak of. We
passed between low, muddy banks, frequently of uncertain disposition,
as though wondering how much longer they could possibly resist the wash
of the current. The stream itself is shallow, uncharted, unbeaconed;
its navigation requires constant attention, which it certai