At eleven o’clock we reached the village where the road begins and the whole population gathered around in curious groups and gazed at us. White women were still a novelty in that region and I’m sure we looked much more peculiar to them than they looked to us. There were crowds of school children from the new American school, and one very much embarrassed little girl, who had had her English book only about four months, read some English for me very nicely. Likely as not that same little girl has by this time won a normal school certificate and is herself teaching English in an “American” school. Such is the history of many of her generation.

When we reached Bangued the young men in the command of Major Bowen, who was our host, gave up their house to the ladies, and we had three comfortable beds, with mosquito nets, in a large, airy room. It was a fine afternoon for a siesta because it rained in torrents for the rest of the day and the patter of rain on nipa thatch is a soothing sound. The young men’s house was just across from the Major’s and by evening the street was such a river that we had to be carried over for dinner. But nobody minded; and we enjoyed even the music of the native band which stationed itself down under our windows and enlivened the occasion with a wonderful medley of sound. When the band-men came upstairs for refreshments Mrs. Bell and two of the young officers ran down and tried their powers on the instruments, and I can only say that the result was joyful pandemonium.