scraping and dividing, and beating two drums, about four feet long,
eight inches in diameter, covered with leather at one end. These are
beaten with the open hand, the performer sitting on the ground with
the instrument coming up over his left thigh, and produce a muffled
and melancholy note. Mr. Forbes had some notion of buying one of
them, but was told he would be simply wasting his time, both _gansas_
and drums having an extraordinary value in the eye of their owners.

We moved on, gradually descending, rested at Santa Fé, a rest-house
and nothing else, for two or three hours, and then turned north,
following an affluent of the Magat River, by an old and poor trail,
the new one having been washed out for three hundred yards some two
or three miles ahead. And after dark we made Boné, our resting-place
for the night.



CHAPTER V

Aritao.--_Bubud_.--Dúpax.--Start for Campote.


We all slept in the school-house, for Boné is a Christianized village,
and next day, April 28th, made a late start, for it was to be a
day of easy stages. By nine o'clock, passing through an undulating
champaign country, we reached Aritao, being met at the outskirts
by _gansa_-beaters and also by the Christian school-children with
medieval-looking banners, and all in their best bibs and tuckers;
the heathen and the Christians mingling apparently on the best of
terms. Aritao is an old town, now much decayed, but showing evidences