We left Loo at six o’clock in the morning and after eight straight hours of the hardest work we had yet been called upon to do, we arrived at Cabayan. According to my own diary: “I was completely tired. The greater part of the way we rode through beautiful pine forests, but up and down hills as steep as the side of a house; across rivers, and up a waterfall.” This sounds like pretty heavy going, but my account of it written at the time was, I am sure, only slightly exaggerated. I remember distinctly that from Loo to Baguio, five full days, we walked a great part of the way; and not only did we walk, but we rendered necessary assistance to our horses which, giving out one by one, had to be dragged up the steep grades and “eased” down the opposite sides in a way that would have been highly ludicrous had we been engaged in anything but a very serious business. Only the steady old mules plodded along “without a word,” and found their own way in safety around the dangerous turns.

After leaving Bontoc we travelled down through Nueva Viscaya and into Benguet, the southermost division of the Mountain province. At Cabayan we had for camping quarters a large presidencia and schoolhouse combined, while a tent was put up and rudely equipped for bathing purposes. This was luxury indeed, and we began to think that we had left all hardship behind us; but the next night, after a seven hours’ “hike” over a terrible trail, we found shelter in a miserable hut with only one room which we all had to occupy, with Igorrote blankets for partitions.

The Igorrotes grew less and less interesting as we went along and displayed few evidences of the industry and thrift which characterise the more northern tribes. The mountains are higher and the scenes are broader and more wonderful at the southern end of the range, but the only cultivation we came upon was in the villages and along the banks of the little rushing streams. It was evident that we were approaching “civilisation.” Here and there we went through small groves of coffee trees, beautiful in a wealth of snow-white blossoms, but evidently deserted, and wretchedly ragged and unkempt.