While we were at Vigan, and before starting on the long trip, we made an excursion to Bangued, in the province of Abra. Mrs. Bell went with us. This town, a short time before, could be reached only by raft up the Abra River, no launch ever having been built that could go through the rapids, but the establishment of an Army post made necessary the building of a piece of road which shortened the journey at the Bangued end. The first part of the trip, however, had still to be made by water and all the supplies for the soldiers were sent up on a fleet of twenty or more rafts which started out together every morning. When there was a breeze each of them would run up a sail of bright, striped Igorrote cloth.

We had a grand raft with a bamboo awning. And there were comfortable rattan chairs, to say nothing of a picnic luncheon and a carefully wrapped and jealously guarded box of ice. Ice was the rarest of all luxuries in the provincial towns of the Philippines in those days.