me in concentric rows, while the men peered over their shoulders. One
morning when I was taking a shower-bath in a shed made of open bamboo
work, I suddenly noticed several pairs of inquisitive eyes staring
at me through the interstices. The eyes belonged exclusively to the
gentler sex; and their owners examined me with the greatest curiosity,
making remarks upon my appearance to one another, and seeming by no
means inclined to be disturbed. Upon another occasion, when bathing in
the open air in the province of Laguna, I was surrounded by a number of
women, old, middle-aged, and young, who crowded round me while I was
dressing, carefully inspected me, and pointed out with their fingers
every little detail which seemed to them to call for special remark.

[Storm damage.] I had travelled the last part of the road to Bulusan
in wind and rain; and the storm lasted with little intermission during
the whole night. When I got up in the morning I found that part of the
roof of the tribunal had been carried away, that the slighter houses
in the hamlet were all blown down, and that almost every dwelling in
the place had lost its roof. This pleasant weather lasted during the
three days of my stay. The air was so thick that I found it impossible
to distinguish the volcano, though I was actually standing at its
foot; and, as the weather-wise of the neighborhood could hold out no
promise of a favorable change at that time of the year, I put off my
intended ascent till a better opportunity, and resolved to return. A
former alcalde, Peñeranda, was reported to have succeeded in reaching
the top fifteen years before, after sixty men had spent a couple of
months in building a road to the summit; and the ascent was said to
have taken him two whole days. But an experienced native told me that
in the dry season he thought four men were quite sufficient to open a
narrow path to the plateau, just under the peak, in a couple of days;
but that ladders were required to get on to the actual summit.