CHAPTER XI

We enter the Mountain Province.--Payawan.--Kiangan,
its position.--Anitos.--Speech of welcome by Ifugao
chief.--Detachment of native Constabulary.--Visit of Ifugao
chiefs to our quarters.--Dancing.


We were now on the borders of the Mountain Province; literally one more
river to cross, and we should turn our backs on Nueva Vizcaya. And
with regret, for it is a beautiful smiling province, of fertile
soil, of polite and hospitable people, of lovely mountains, limpid
streams and triumphant forests. In Dampier's quaint words, spoken of
another province, but equally true of this one, "The Valleys are well
moistened with pleasant Brooks, and small Rivers of delicate Water; and
have Trees of divers sorts flourishing and green all the Year." [20]
Its people lack energy, perhaps because they have no roads; it may be
equally true that they lack roads because they have no energy. However
this may be, the province can and some day will grow coffee, tobacco,
rice, and cocoa to perfection; its savannahs will furnish pasturage
for thousands of cattle, where now some one solitary _carabao_ serves
only to mark the solitude in which he stands.

We crossed the stream about seven in the morning, May 1, and opened
out on an immense field, which we estimated at about thirty-five
hundred acres, a whole plantation in a ring fence, and offering not
the slightest suggestion of the tropics in its aspect. The ground now
broke and we went on down to a bold stream so deep that those of us
riding ponies got wet above the knees and were almost swept down by
the current. The _cogon_ grass in this river bottom was the tallest I