eep (the
school-house it was) we noticed an admiring crowd standing around the
pony, tethered under the house, and all unconscious of the admiration
he was exciting, most rudely presenting his hind-quarters to his
admirers. But that was not his intention; the crowd--half women,
by the way--wanted to be as close to the tail as possible. We left
them gesticulating and pointing and commenting, much as our own
women might while looking at crown jewels, but not so hopelessly;
for the next morning, when we next saw the pony, nearly all the hair
had been pulled out of his tail, except a few patches or tufts here
or there, tougher than the rest, and serving now merely to show what
the original dimensions must have been.

While we were undressing in came a little maiden, who marched up
to every one of us, shook hands, and said, "Good evening, sir." We
were pretty well undressed, but our lack of clothes looked perfectly
natural to her, perhaps inspired her with confidence. She said her
name was Banda, that she was thirteen, but of this she could not know,
as all these children had had ages assigned to them when they entered
the school; after greeting us all, and airing her slight stock of
English, she withdrew as properly as she had entered. A trifling
incident, perhaps not worth recording, but in reality significant,
for it marked confidence, especially as she had come in of her own
accord. We all agreed that she was very pretty.

CHAPTER VIII

Appearance of the Ilongots.--Dress.--Issue of beads and
cloth.--Warrior dance.--School work.--Absence of old women
from meeting.

The next morning we turned out early, and got our first real
"look-see." Campote is completely surrounded by mountains, the
hogback dropping off into the valley below us. About four or five
hundred people had assembled, men, women, and children. As a rule,
they were small and well built, but not so well built as the tribes
farther north. The men were fully armed with spears, bows and arrows,
shields, and head-knives; gee-strings apart, they were naked. Some of
them wore on the head the scarlet beak of the hornbill; these had taken
heads. Quite a number, both men and women, had a small cross-like
pattern tattooed on the forehead; the significance of this I did
not learn. The shield is in one piece, in longitudinal cross-section
like a very wide flat V open toward the bearer, the top terminating
in a piece rising between two scoops, one on