[Servant subterfuges.] The idle existence we spent in Daraga was so
agreeable to my servants and their numerous friends that they were
anxious I should stay there as long as possible; and they adopted some
very ingenious means to persuade me to do so. Twice, when everything
was prepared for a start the next morning, my shoes were stolen in the
night; and on another occasion they kidnapped my horse. When a native
has a particularly heavy load to carry, or a long journey to make,
he thinks nothing of coolly appropriating the well-fed beast of some
Spaniard; which, when he has done with it, he turns loose without
attempting to feed it, and it wanders about till somebody catches
it and stalls it in the nearest "Tribunal." There it is kept tied up
and hungry until its master claims it and pays its expenses. I had a
dollar to pay when I recovered mine, although it was nearly starved
to death, on the pretence that it had swallowed rice to that value
since it had been caught.

[Petty robberies.] Small robberies occur very frequently, but they
are committed--as an acquaintance, a man who had spent some time
in the country, informed me one evening when I was telling him my
troubles--only upon the property of new arrivals; old residents, he
said, enjoyed a prescriptive freedom from such little inconveniences. I
fancy some waggish native must have overheard our conversation, for
early the next morning my friend, the old resident, sent to borrow
chocolate, biscuits, and eggs of me, as his larder and his hen-house
had been rifled during the night.

[Daraga market.] Monday and Friday evenings were the Daraga market
nights, and in fine weather always afforded a pretty sight. The
women, neatly and cleanly clad, sat in long rows and offered their
provisions for sale by the light of hundreds of torches; and, when