a long cross and two large lighted candlesticks, and followed by a
crowd of people. They were no doubt going to call at a house for the
corpse. Shortly afterwards an old Filipino priest came out and got
into one of the quaint covered buffalo wagons with solid wooden wheels
(already mentioned), and drove slowly round by the road. It was hot
and sultry, and thunder was pealing far away in the mountains. Under
a clump of trees (of a kind of yellow flowering acacia), which grew
just outside the large old wooden doors of the church, there was
a group of village youths and loafers, and two or three men went
past with their fighting cocks under their arms, Sunday afternoon
out here being the great day for cock-fighting. There seemed to be
a sleepiness in the air quite in keeping with the day of the week,
and I was nearly dozing off when little Nicolas came in. I asked him
if he knew where the cook-fighting took place, and added, "you savez"
(slang for understand"). His eyes flashed, and he said, Me no savage,"
but when I explained that I did not call him a "savage," his eyes,
smiled an apology, and he willingly offered to show me the place
where the cock-fighting was to be.

On entering the large bamboo shed or theatre where the cock-fighting
took place, I was met by the old Presidente of the village, to
whom I had brought a letter from Governor Joven (the Governor of
the province), whom I had visited at Bacolor on my way hither. He
conducted me to a seat on a raised clay platform, and sat next to me
most of the time, but as the fighting progressed he got very excited,
and had to go down into the ring. I had often witnessed it before
in tropical America, but here the left feet of the cocks were armed
with large steel spurs shaped like miniature cutlasses, which before
the fight began were encased in small leather sheaths. The onlookers
worked themselves up into a state of great excitement, and there was