vines, and creepers and underbrush generally, that just as no light
got in from above, so one could not see ten yards in any direction
off the trail. This effect was no doubt partly due to the shades of
evening, and to our being on the eastern slope of the mountain. And
that trail! The Ilongots, poor chaps, had done their best with it,
and the labor of construction must have been fearful. [15] But the
footing was nothing but volcanic mud, laterite, all the worse from
a recent rain. Our ponies sank over their fetlocks at every step,
and required constant urging to move at all. Compared to the one
I was riding, Bubud was a race-horse! Cootes, Strong, and I kept
together, the others having ridden on. As the day grew darker and
darker, the myriad notes of countless insects melted into one mighty,
continuous shrill note high overhead, before us, behind us, in which
not one break or intermission could be detected. Anything faster than
a walk would now have been unsafe, even if it had been possible, for
at times the ground sloped off sharply down the mountain, the footing
grew more and more uncertain, and part of the time we could not see
the trail at all. Indeed, Cootes's pony stepped in a hole and fell,
pitching Cootes clean over his head, and sending his helmet down the
mountain-side, where Cootes had to go and get it. Soon after this,
though, the forest thinned perceptibly, the trail grew better, and
we met Connor, who had turned back to see how we were getting on,
and who informed us we had only one-half hour more before us. Going
on, we were greeted by a shout of welcome from our first Ilongot,
standing in the trail, subligate, or gee-stringed, otherwise stark
naked, and armed with a spear, the sentinel of a sort of outpost,
equally naked, with which we soon came up. They were all armed, too,
spears and shields, and all insisted on shaking hands with every
one of us. You must shake hands when they offer to, an unpleasant
matter sometimes, when you notice that the man who is paying you this