This long stretch terminated in a land-slide leading down into the dry,
rocky bed of a mountain stream. At the head of the slide we turned our
mounts loose, and all got down as best we could, except Mr. Forbes,
who rode down in state on his cow-pony. Once over, we crossed a
village along the edge of a rice-terrace, in which our horses sank
almost up to their knees. As the wall was fully fifteen feet high,
a fall here into the paddy below would have been most serious; it
would have been almost impossible to get one's horse out. However,
all things come to an end; we crossed the stream below by a bridge,
one at a time (for the bridge was uncertain), and found ourselves
in Talubin, where we were warmly greeted by Bishop Carroll of Vigan
and some of his priests. The Bishop, who was making the rounds of his
diocese, had only a few days before fallen off the very trail we had
just come over, and rolled down, pony and all, nearly two hundred feet,
a lucky bush catching him before he had gone the remaining fourteen
hundred or fifteen hundred.

Talubin somehow bears a poor reputation; its inhabitants have a
villainous look, owing, no doubt, in part to their being as black and
dirty as coal-heavers. This in turn is due to the habit of sleeping
in closed huts without a single exit for the smoke of the fire these
people invariably make at night, their cook-fire probably, for they
cook in their huts. However this may be, the people of this _ranchería_
showed neither pleasure nor curiosity on seeing us, and I noticed that
a Constabulary guard was present, patrolling up and down, as it were,
with bayonets fixed and never taking their eyes off the natives that
appeared. These Igorots lacked the cheerfulness and openness of our
recent friends, the Ifugaos. Their houses were not so good, built
on the ground itself, and soot-black inside. The whole village was