Animal Myths

Animal MythsIn the fables of the Filipinos the animals often speak together in a common language. The dove, however, is the only one that comprehends human speech, and it is a creature of uncommon shrewdness and intelligence, like the hare in the Indian myths and Br’er Rabbit in the stories of our Southern negroes. Once the dove was a child. In shame and anger that its mother should refuse to give it some rice she was pounding for panapig (a sort of cake), it ran out of the cabin, took two leaves of a nipa, shaped wings from them, which it fastened to its shoulders, and fluttered into the boughs of a neighboring tree, changing, in its flight, from a child to a dove. It still calls for panapig.Darwin is read backward by the natives, for they say that the monkey was a man, long, long ago, and might have been one still but for his mañana habit, so general in the Spanish colonies. He had a partner whom he greatly vexed by his idleness, and once, when this partner was planting rice, he glanced up and saw the monkey squatted on the earth, with his face between his hands, watching the labors of the industrious member of the firm,—for nothing makes loafing sweeter than to see somebody else work. Enraged, the busy one caught up a cudgel and flung it at the monkey, who was thereupon seized with a sudden but futile activity, and started to run away. The club struck him in the rear so mightily that itentered his spinal column and stayed there, becoming his tail.In the Moro tradition of the flood—a tradition almost world-wide—Noah and his family got into a box when the forty days of rain began, and one pair of each kind of bird and beast followed them. All of the human race except Noah, his wife and children, were either drowned or changed. Those men who ran to the mountains when they saw the flood rising became monkeys; those who flung themselves into the sea became fish; the Chinese turned into hornbills; a woman who was eating seaweed and kept on eating after the waves broke over her became a dugong.In Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu the pig is held in suspicion and its flesh is not eaten. The reason for this aversion is that the first pigs were grandchildren of the great Mahomet himself, and their conversion to these lowly quadrupeds fell out in this way: When Jesus (Isa) called on Mahomet, the latter, jealous of his reputed power, bade him guess what was in the next room. Christ said that he did not wish to do so. Mahomet then commanded him to prove his ability to see through walls, and added that if he made a mistake he would kill him. Thereupon Christ answered, “There are two animals in that chamber that are like no other in the world.”“Wrong!” cried the Prophet, plucking out his sword. “They are my grandchildren. You have spoken false, and you must lose your head.”“Look and see,” insisted Christ, and Mahometflung open the chamber door, whereupon two hogs rushed out. It should be added that while the divinity of Christ is denied in some of the Oriental religions, he figures in many of them as a great and good man, gifted with supernatural power. Moros charge as one reason for killing Christians that followers of Christ disgrace and belie mankind in teaching that men could kill their own god.On Mindoro the timarau, a small buffalo that lives in the jungle, has given rise to rumors of a fierce and destructive creature that carries a single horn on his head. It is a wild and hard fighter, but it has two horns, and is not likely to injure any save those who are seeking to injure it. A creature with an armed head has lingered down from the day of Marco Polo, because in the stock of yarns assembled by that redoubtable tourist the unicorn figured. This was the rhinoceros, which is found so near the Philippines as Sumatra. The gnu of Africa is another possible ancestor of this creature, a belief in which goes back to the time of Aristotle; but the horse-like animal with a narwhal’s horn that frisks on the British arms never existed.And, speaking of horses, it is strange that centaurs should figure in the mythology of a country like Luzon; but a mile from the church at Mariveles is a hot spring beside which lived a creature that was half-horse and half-man. As in ancient Greece, there is little doubt that a belief in this being came from the wonder excited by the first horsemen.Sea-eagles in the East are large and powerful, and are believed to have long memories. According to report, a man living near Jala Jala once stole a nest of their young and carried it to his house. It was a year from that time before any retaliation was attempted. The birds then appeared above his premises, swooped down on his wife, clawed her face and beat her with their wings until she was half-dead; then picked up her babe and carried it away before the eyes of the helpless parents. Next year they came again, and another infant, a few months old, was stolen. The man tracked them to their nest, which had been built high on a cliff that no one had ever scaled before. Nerved by grief and anger, he climbed it. In the nest were the skeletons of his children. As he clung to the rock, hanging over a dizzy space and looking on these sad relics, the father bird came swooping from the sky and began to strike at him with claws and wings. In the face of such an assault the man could not descend in safety. Death was sure. He could only hope to kill his enemy, too. As the bird drew near he leaped from the rock, caught the eagle about the neck, and the two plunged down to death together.An animal god especially to be feared is Calapnitan, king of the bats. He is so powerful and capable of mischief that in exploring a cave where bats are likely to have congregated the natives will speak in the most respectful terms of this deity, for he would be sure to hear them if they spoke flippantly of him,and might swoop from the cave roof and whip their eyes out with his leathern wings or tear them with his claws. Hence they bow their heads and speak with reverence of the Lord Calapnitan’s cave, the Lord Calapnitan’s stalactite, even recognizing his temporary ownership of their clothing, arms, lights, and so on, and alluding to their own jackets as the Lord Calapnitan’s. By carefully refraining in this manner from giving offence the Filipinos have succeeded in keeping their skins entire while guiding white travellers through the caverns in their islands.Later Religious Myths and MiraclesAmong stories that date no farther back than the Spanish conquest we find the usual tales of sacred springs, of visions, and of blessed objects. The Church of the Holy Infant, in the city of Cebu, contains an image of the Christ child, about fifteen inches in height, carved in ebony, preserved in much state and loaded with a profusion of ornament. The priests tell you that it was made in heaven, thrown to the earth, and found in 1565 by a soldier who recovered from an illness when he touched it. It was taken to the convent in Cebu, where the clergy emplaced it with great ceremony, and where on the 20th of January in every year it is dressed in a field marshal’s regalia, receives a field marshal’s salute, and is worshipped by thousands ofpilgrims from all parts of the archipelago. So many women wrought themselves into an insane frenzy during these January feasts that their sacred dances, which were once a part of the ceremonies, had to be stopped. When the town was burned this statue saved itself from the flames, as did the bamboo cross near the church, which is said to be the same that was erected by the monk, Martin de Rada, on the day when the Spanish landed, more than three centuries ago. Matter-of-fact historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four thousand Chinese who had settled in and about Cebu, thus reducing themselves to a wretched state, for these Spaniards had depended on the Chinese as their servants, cooks, farmers, laborers, shoemakers, and tailors. It is worthy of note that other missionaries had shown activity, but with less result, for their methods had been more conciliatory. The Mahometanism that had been introduced by Moslem preachers from Arabia got no farther than Sulu, and the Confucianism imported by Chinamen seems to have obtained no permanent hold. Throughall changes the Holy Child remained uninjured, and he continues his good work to this day.When the Sulu pirates had fallen upon a year of such bad business that they reaped a profit of barely fifty per cent, on their investment in ships and weapons, there was great discontent among them. Prizes were few and defeats occasional. Looking back on their highest hill, as they sailed away, and fearing that when they returned it might be with but half a cargo of gold and rum and Christians, so many of them wept for the misery of this thought that to this day the height is known as Buat Timantangis, or Mount of Tears. In one dull season, when the pirates were almost mutinous because of their continued ill-fortune, it occurred to one of the captains that an image to which the Christians prayed so earnestly and with such good effect might do as much for him as for some other natives. In his barbarian mind there was no absurdity in trying to persuade a gentle Virgin or a pure-minded Saint to deliver into his hands the goods and persons of those who knelt before their effigies. A sacred image was “good medicine” for Spaniards and Tagalogs, and should, therefore, be good medicine for Mahometans. Thus, he bethought him of the statue now known as the Virgin of Antipolo, that came from Spain by way of Mexico in charge of early missionaries. To think was to act. He raided the village where it had been enshrined and attempted to carry it off; but the statue had warned the faithful of its peril, andthe marauders were met and driven off by a powerful force. The Virgin of Antipolo became one of the most influential of all the guardians of the islands, and to this day is especially besought by mothers who ask for her intercession on behalf of their sickly children. Holy water taken from her shrine will cure the sufferer, and the mother then performs a public penance in thankfulness. Before the American arrival, with its sudden imposition of new ideas on an old society, it was no uncommon thing to see on Good Friday a company of the richest women in Manila, poorly attired and with bare feet, dragging through the streets a heavy cross thirty feet in length. This was in fulfilment of vows they had made at the shrine of Antipolo.This Virgin of Antipolo is likewise known as Our Lady of Good Voyage and Peace. She arrived from Mexico in a state galleon in 1626. On the voyage she calmed a storm so quickly that the priests proclaimed her special sanctity, and ordered her to be received in Manila with salutes of bells and guns. While the Jesuits were building a church for her she would often descend from her temporary altar and stand in an antipolo tree (Astocarpus incisa). People cut pieces from this tree for charms against disease and misfortune, until Father Salazar ordered that the trunk should be its pedestal. In an early rebellion the Chinese insurgents threw the statue into the fire. Flames were all about it, yet not a hair, not a thread of lace was singed, and the body of brass wasunmarked by smoke. Angered at this defiance of their power, a Chinaman stabbed it in the face, and, curiously, the wound remains to this day in protest against the savagery that incited it. When for a second time the Virgin passed unscathed through a conflagration the Spanish infantry bore her on their shoulders about the streets, shouting in the joy of her protection. A galleon having been endangered by rocks and bars in Manila Bay, the captain borrowed this statue, prayed that it would secure the safety of his ship, and, to the wonder of all, his vessel rode proudly up to the city gates, for the Virgin had ordered that the rocks should sink deeper beneath the sea. Twice afterward she did a like service to captains who borrowed the figure as a safeguard on the long voyage to Mexico and back, for each time she suppressed great storms. At the time of the assault on Manila by the Dutch she assisted in the defeat of the strangers, though St. Mark was associated with her in the victory. He had told the governor in a dream that success should attend the Spanish arms if his people would carry the Virgin into the fight. This was done, and the Dutch lost three ships with their cargoes. She was finally domiciled in the town of Antipolo, which, beside being famous as a shrine, has been one of the most noted resorts for brigands in the Philippines. The village of four thousand people subsists largely on the money spent by pilgrims to her church.Every family in the Christian communities has alittle statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them.Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp.Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of theChurch, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,—a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter’s children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.Alitagtag, north of Bauan, became in 1595 a resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evilspirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the fields, surrounded by bright lights. Thereupon the clergy ordered that it should be adored, and from that time it became an object of worship, healing diseases, dispelling plagues, and killing locusts. When the priests at Bauan announced that they intended to move the cross to Lake Bombon, the priest of Taal, being jealous of his brothers in the other town, hired some natives to steal it and take it to his house. No sooner had the men assembled for this purpose than sheets of green fire fell about the cross, defending it from their approach, and in a frenzy of contrition they ran back, solemnly vowing that they would never make a similar attempt again. The cross was, therefore, taken to Bauan, where it did service for the people by terrorizing a band of pirates and by stopping an eruption of the Taal volcano in 1611. This peak of Taal had been a resort of devils from time immemorial, and it had been a frequent duty of the Church to pray them into silence. In the year just named Father Albuquerque headed a procession that ascended the mountain for this purpose. Near the summit he paused and lifted the cup containing the blood of Christ. Dreadful noises were heard, like the laughter of ten thousand fiends, in vaults below. Then, with a groan and crash, the earth split and two craters appeared, one filled with boiling sulphur, the other with green water. The cross was sent for. It was brought by four hundred natives. When itwas put into the priest’s hands he lifted it toward the sky and all united in prayer. During this petition, while every head was bent and all eyes were shut, the craters softly closed and Taal was as it had been before. Yet the demons still linger about the mountain. Not many years ago an Englishman tunnelled the peak for sulphur. The fiends of the volcano shook the roof down on his head and he perished. In May it has been a custom to hold a feast in honor of this cross, if the natives furnish the necessary candles and raise ten dollars for the officiating priest.Bangi, in Ilocos Norte, had a shrine in which was the image of a child with a lamb. Herbs pressed against it would cure all diseases. For years a dispute was carried on between clerical factions as to whether it represented St. John the Baptist or Christ. Bishop Miguel Garcia, having undressed it and examined it thoroughly, decided it to be a Chinese idol. Thereupon it was broken and burned as a thing unholy.Our Lady of Casaysay, in Batangas, is so esteemed that ships salute her in passing. She was found by a fisherman in his net. He took her to a cave, not knowing what to make of his strange find, and intending to keep her there probably as a treasure not to be shared by his neighbors. She astonished and disappointed him by proclaiming herself with flashing lights of beautiful color and with loud music. As these demonstrations frightened the peaceable rustics, the Virgin left her cave, visited a nativewoman, spoke kindly to her, and was thereupon provided with a shrine, where she might be adored with proper ceremony.The statue of St. Joaquin at Gusi is remarkable because every year it runs away and spends two weeks with its wooden wife, the figure of St. Ann, at Molo.Manila once had a saint that wagged its head approvingly at certain points in the sermon. This conduct drove so many women into hysterics, and crowded the church so dangerously with people who went to see the miracle, that the archbishop discountenanced its action, and ordered that it should be quiet thereafter. Quiet was easily secured by cutting the string attached to the saint’s neck. The padre was accustomed to pull this during his discourse whenever he wished his congregation to believe that the saints approved his eloquence or endorsed his doctrine.Holy water from the Conception district of Panay saves life, and San Pascual Bailon cures barrenness. A Manila milkman who was punished for selling watered milk expressed surprise at the complaints of his customers, because no wrong had been committed, inasmuch as he had used nothing but holy water, which was far superior to milk. Water from the prison well at Iloilo was held at so high a value that the prison-keeper made a fortune from it, as it was given out that Christ and the Virgin had been seen bathing in the well. Our Lady of the HolyWaters presides over the hot springs below Maquiling Mountain, an old crater. Another popular place of pilgrimage is the shrine at Tagbauang, near Iloilo, where illnesses are cured at a high mass in January.One of the last recorded appearances of the Virgin was in 1884, when a band of robbers in Tayabas killed a plantation manager, wounded several laborers, and ransacked the house of the owner. While in one of the bedrooms tying clothes, jewelry, and other loot into parcels for removal, the Virgin appeared, and standing in the door looked with severity and distress on the bandits. They immediately left their plunder and ran pell-mell from the building. Some of these robbers were arrested, but the Virgin had compassion on them for leaving the proceeds of their raid, so none was garroted or even sentenced. Some go so far as to say that the Virgin had nothing to do with their escape from punishment, alleging that the officers of the law had conspired with them, and that the Spanish courts were even worse than those of a land that shall be nameless in respect of their slowness and the facilities they offered for adjournments, retrials, and appeals on grounds that if presented in any other cause than that of a breaker of the law would be laughed to scorn. Filipino bandits often wear medals of the Virgin and saints to protect them from harm, and some are made bold by confidence in their protection. It is a belief of theirs that they will never be punished for any crime they may commit in Easter week, for the rather obscurereason that Christ pardoned the thief on the cross on Good Friday.A curious chapel on a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving an answer, prayed volubly to the Christians’ God as he swam toward the shore, and promised to erect a chapel in return for his life. His prayer was answered, for the crocodile was turned to stone, and may now be seen in the bed of the stream, while the grateful Mongol kept his word, and also joined the church.Bankiva, the Philippine Pied PiperOf nearly six hundred species of birds in the Philippines the jungle fowl, or bankiva, is best known, and is both killed and domesticated. Unlike the dove, it does not understand human speech, but it has a power over our kind that is exercised by no other animal. Once a year the spirits grant to it this power of charming, in order that both spirits and birds may be revenged on men, their constant enemies. When that day comes the Luzon mother tremblingly gathers her little ones about her and warns them not to leave their door, for young ears heed the strange, sweet music of the fowl’s voice, which grown people cannot hear. On that day thebird sings with a new note, and the flock of bankivas choose the largest, handsomest of their number to lead the march of children. On the edge of the village he gives his song, and every toddler runs delightedly to see what causes the music. Babes respond with soft, cooing notes, and will go on hands and knees if they can. They find the bankivas gathered in a little ring, spreading their tails and wings, dancing and singing in harmony, the head bird setting the air. When the children have gathered, they, too, begin to dance and sing, following the birds as they go deeper and deeper into the wood. Night falls, and with a harsh cry the bankivas fly away in all directions. The children are as if awakened from a sleep. They do not know where they are, and cannot tell which way to turn. Jungles and swamps are about them, man-eating crocodiles are watching from the water, poisonous and strangling snakes are gliding about the brush, the pythons that loop themselves from overhanging limbs are sometimes thrice the length of a man. Dread and danger are on every hand. And at home the mothers sit crying. Sometimes, though rarely, a man or woman totters back to a village bearing marks of great age, and is sure that he or she left there only the night before. These wanderers do not know where they have been. They remember only that the bankiva sang sweetly, and they followed it, as the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper.The Crab Tried to Eat the MoonAmong the fantastic stories told of snakes, water-buffalo, birds, and sharks are several that have obvious meaning. The crab figures in certain of these tales as the cause of the tides. He was an enormous creature and lived in a great hole in the bottom of a distant sea, whence he crawled twice a day, the water pouring into the hollow then, and leaving low water on the coast. When he settled back again the water was forced out and the tide was high. The relation of tides to the moon may have introduced this creature in another aspect as the moon’s enemy and cause of her eclipse, for it is related that one evening a Filipino princess walking on a beach saw with astonishment an island that had never been visible on the sea before. Her emotion was that of alarm when she saw the island approach the shore, and she hid in the shrubbery to watch. Presently she could make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people of the princess were holding a feast with songs and dances. Would they hear a signal? She placed her conch-shell horn ather lips and blew with all her strength. The monster still gnashed and grasped in expectancy at the sea’s edge, and a breeze brought through the wood a faint sound of drums. Her people had not heard. Again she blew. This time the woods were still. Her people were listening. A third blast followed, and in a few minutes the warriors swarmed upon the beach with knives, swords, and lances. While the princess was explaining to them the moon’s peril the crab made a leap into the air and darkened its face, causing an eclipse, but failing to get a hold it dropped back to the beach again, where the people fell upon it, the princess leading the attack with the war-call of her tribe. As the crab turned to see what had befallen, the princess slashed off his great left claw. With the other it crushed a soldier, but again her cresse fell and the right claw fell likewise. Then a hundred men rushed upon the creature, prodding their spears into joints of his legs and the dividing line between his back plate and belly. Others fell under his great bulk or were gnashed by his iron teeth, but in the end his shell was broken and the moon was safe. And often when the gentle pirate of the Sulus scoured the sea he uttered a prayer before an image of the princess for a bright night and an easy victim, for had it not been for her the crab would have swallowed the moon, and the sea would have been as dark as some kinds of a conscience.The Conversion of AmambarWhile roving over the waters that covered the earth the sun god saw the nymph Ursula sporting in the waves, and was smitten with a quick and mighty fondness. He nearly consumed himself in the ardor of his affection. She, however, was as cold and pure as the sea. As she swung drowsily on the billows she was like a picture painted in foam on their blue-green depth, and in breathing her bosom rose and fell like the waves themselves. As she saw the god descending she was filled with alarm, but as he took her into his strong embrace and placed his cheek to hers a new life and warmth came to her, and in their marriage the spirits of the air and water rejoiced. A son was born to them,—so beautiful a boy that the sun god made a land for him, stocked it with living creatures, adorned it with greenery and flowers, and gave it to the human race as an inheritance of joy forever. This land he called Cebu, and no land was more lovely. Lupa was the child, and from him came all the kings of Cebu, among them Amambar, the first chief of the island of whom we have definite record. In the day of his rule the group had long been peopled, and the use of tools and weapons had become known. One occasionally finds to-day the stone arrows and axes they called “lightning teeth,” and with which they worked such harm to one another in their many wars.It was an evening of March, 1521, a calm andpleasant evening, with the perfume of flowers mixed with the tonic tang of the ocean, birds flying and monkeys chattering in the wood, and a gentle surf whispering upon the beach. Amambar was walking on the shore alone. He had gone there to watch the gambols of the mermaids, when a great light whitened against the sunset. It came from a cross that had been planted just out of reach of the sea. He put his hands before his eyes that it might not dazzle him. Then, as the moon arose, he peered beneath his hands, out over the restless water, and there, against the golden globe that was lifting over the edge of the world, could be seen a flock of monster birds with gray wings, and dark men walking on their backs as they lightly rode the billows, the men sparkling and glinting as they moved, for they were arrayed in metal and bore long knives and lances that flashed like stars. Other of the company wore black robes and sang in unknown words, their voices mixing in a music never heard by Amambar before. A sparkling white cloud drooped slowly from the sky. A diamond vapor played about the cross. Out of the cloud came a melodious voice saying, “Look up, O chief!” And looking at the cross again, he saw, extended there, a bleeding figure with a compassionate face that gazed down upon him and declared, “I am Jesus Christ, son of the only God. Those whom you see in the ships are my people, who have come to these islands to rule you for your good.” Amambar fell prone on the sand and prayed for along time, not daring to open his eyes. When he regained courage and arose the cloud was gone; the ships had sailed away. He was alone.The commander of the ships was Magellan. It was one of his monks who had placed the cross on shore. Landing in Cebu later, he converted two thousand of the natives in a day by destroying the statue of Vishnu and putting that of the child Jesus in its place, though he still yielded to savage opinion in so far as he consented to confirm his friendship with the king by a heathen ceremony, each opening a vein in his arm and drinking the blood of the other. As usual, the appearance and ways of the Europeans smote the natives with wonder. They described the strangers as enormous men with long noses, who dressed in fine robes, ate stones (ship-bread), drank fire from sticks (pipes), and breathed out the smoke, commanded thunder and lightning from metal tubes, and were gods. Engaging in a wrangle between two tribes, Magellan was lured into a marsh at Mactan, and there, while watching a battle to see how great the Filipinos could be in war, he was slain with bamboo lances sharpened and hardened in fire. Amambar’s Christianity did not endure, for he so wearied of the oppression and rapacity of the strangers that when a successor to Magellan appeared he invited him to a banquet and slew him at his meat. But the cross and the statue of Christ worked miracles among the faithful for many generations.The Bedevilled Galleon“Sing hey, sing ho! The wind doth blow,And I’ll meet my love in the morning,”Sang the lookout, as he paced the forecastle of the galleon Rose of May, and peered about for signs of land against the dawn. Not that he expected to meet his love in the morning, nor for many mornings, but he had been up in his off-watch and was getting drowsy, so that he sang to keep himself awake. His was one of the first among the English ships to follow in Magellan’s track. The Philippines, or the Manillas, as they were called, had been almost reached, and it was expected that Mindanao would be sighted at break of day off the starboard bow.“Hello, forward!” bawled the man at the helm.“Ay, ay!” sang the lookout.“What d’ye make o’ yonder light?”“Light? What d’ye mean, man?” And the lookout rubbed his eyes, scanned the water close and far, and wondered if his sight was going out.“In the sky, o’ course, ye bumble-brain.”“Now, by the mass, you costard, you gave me a twist of the inwards with your lame joke.”“’Tis no joke. Will you answer?”“Why, then, ’tis the daylight, in course, and you aiming for it that steady as to drive the nose of us straight agin the sun, give he comes up where he threats to. And he’ll be here straightway, for inthese waters he comes up as he were popped outen a cohorn.”“The day! Heaven forefend! I’m holding her to the north.”“You’re holding due east. Aha! Look yonder, where the cloud is lifting. Land ho!”“Where away?” cried a mate, roused out of a forbidden doze by this talk, and blundering up to the roof of the after-castle.“Port bow, sir.”“Port bow! The fiend take us! You block! You jolterhead! Where are you fetching us?”“I’m holding her due to the north, sir, as you bade me,” faltered the steersman. “Look for yourself, if it please you, for ’tis light enough to read the card without the binnacle lamp. We’re sailing east by the sky and north by the needle. The ship’s bedevilled!”“Hold your peace, or you’ll have the crew in a fright. Head her around eight points to port, and keep her west by the card.”“Lights in, sir? The sun is up,” called the lookout.“Yes.” And the mate added in a lower tone, “’Tis the first time ever the sun came up in the north.”“What’s all this gabble?” grumbled the captain, thrusting his red and whiskered face out of the cabin. “Can’t a man have his rest when you keep the watch, Master Roaker?”“Pray, captain, come and look at the compass. Do you see the lay o’ the needle? We’re sailing west to hold north, or else the sun has missed stays over night and come up in the north himself.”“Hi, hi! That’s parlous odd. Keep her as you have her, and have out Bill, the carpenter, to see if there’s any iron overside. Nay, let her off a little more, for that’s a hard-looking piece of shore out yonder, for all of the palms and green stuff.”The watch was changed presently, the captain preferring to take the biscuit and spirits that were his breakfast on the deck. He went to the compass every minute or so, looked curiously at the draw of the sails and studied the water alongside. The carpenter had reported all sound, with no iron out of place to deflect the needle. There was a grave look on the faces of the officers, and the men talked low together as they watched them.“Strange-looking hill out yonder,” remarked a mate. “Not a tree on it, nor any green thing. ’Tis black and shining enough for the devil’s grave-stone.”“Have done with your gossip of devils,” snorted the other mate. “You’re as evil a man for a ship’s company as a whistler. You’ll be calling ill luck on us to name the fiend so often.”“Looks like shoal water forward, sir,” called the new lookout.“Right! Head her away to port yet farther. Look you, fellow, have you no inkling of your business?You’ll have us all ashore. Mary, mother! Give me the helm!” With sweat bursting from his brow the captain caught the tiller and put it hard over. The ship shook a bit, swerved, yet made side-wise toward the green patch on the sea. The land was looming large now.“’Tis not in the rudder to keep her off, sir,” called a mate who had gone forward. “’Tis the leeway she is making.”“There’s a scant breeze.”“Ay, but there must be a fearsome current.”“I see no sign of it. This water is smooth as any pond.”“But you see for yourself, she’s gaining on the shore. Look, now, how we’re passing that patch o’ water-weed.”“I think hell is under us. Have up the clerk and put him at prayers, and you fellows take in sail—each rag of it—that if we strike we may go easy. Call all hands. See that the boats are clear. She minds her helm no more than a straw. God help us!”The galleon was at the edge of the shoal spot now, and all held their breath, expecting to hear the grinding of the keel on a bank; but, no, she floated in safety.“Sound!” commanded the captain. “There may be anchorage.”“Four fathom,” called the sailor at the lead after he had made his cast.“Stand by to let go. We’ll tie up here till thetide turns or the spell’s worked out. Alive—alive, there! Get that anchor overboard.”“It be wedged agin the bulwark, captain, and needs another pair o’ hands.”“Forward all! Why, you lump, the flukes are clear. What ails you? Lift all. There!”With an united heave the sailors raised the barbed iron and cast it over the side. The faces of all dripped and went white, and their knees bent then, for the anchor flew from their hands and struck the sea quite twenty feet away,—in deep water, for the shoal was passed,—and the chain paid out like rope as the iron sank, yet not straight down. It rattled off toward the shore.“We’ve had krakens and mermaids and all variety of horrid beasts,” said one old tar, with his jaw a-shaking, “and now the foul fiend has that anchor, and is pulling us ashore with it.”The chain had run out to its length, but the anchor had found no bottom. A cracking and grinding of the links could be heard, as if a tug of war were going on between two giants that had this chain between them. Bits of rust powdered off, and the strain was tearing splinters from the timbers. A loud snap,—the chain had parted. Down went the anchor, but again not straight,—off toward the land, and one free link of the chain shot as if from a gun straight toward the shore, whizzing with ever-increasing speed until it was out of sight. The men looked at one another in amaze.“Get up the stores,” shouted the captain, “and be ready all to quit the ship.” He added to his mates, “A half hour’s the longest we can hope for. The Rose of May will be on the black cliff by that. Is the clerk praying? Good! We may get away in the boats, but we’ll end our days here in the Manillas. Alack, my Betsy! I’ll never look into her eyes again.”“She’s down a little by the head, an’t please you,” cried a sailor, running aft.“Ease her a little, then. Toss over some of the dunnage.”“Lor’! Lor’! Spare us all this day!” yelled a sailor a minute later.“What is it?”“I tried to put my knife on the rail here, while I gripped the line I was to cut, when it tugged at my hand like a live thing. In a fright I let go, and away it flew toward the shore. Oh, we’ve reached the Devil’s country. Why ever did I leave England?”“How of the compass?”“It points steady to that rock.”“Master captain! Master captain!” shouted the steward, running upon deck. “The fiend is in the after-castle, for the pans and the knives and a blunderbuss and two cutlasses that were loose have leaped against the forward panelling and stick there as if rivets were through them. ’Tis wizard’s work. Let us pray, all.”A sudden commotion was seen among the sailors at that moment. The cannon balls had rolled forward to the break of the forecastle, and the two guns themselves—the ship’s armament against the pirates of China and Sulu—were straining at their stays.“Heave over the shot. It’ll lighten her,” ordered the captain.The crew obeyed, but after the first of the balls had been lifted over the bulwarks, they had scarce the strength to cast out the rest, for amazement overcame them on seeing the shot plucked from the man’s hands and blown through the air as if sent from its gun toward the rock. The ship was leaping through the water, though the breeze was from the land. One after another the men fell on their knees and prayed loudly, the captain last of all. Suddenly he looked up, with a wondering flash in his eyes. He sprang to his feet, plucked an iron belaying-pin from its ledge, held it up, felt it pull, let go, and saw it whirl away like a leaf in a cyclone. He looked at the compass; the needle pointed straight toward the black and glistening cliff now lowering not more than half a mile ahead.“It’s the guns,” he shrieked. “Up with you. Cut away the lashings. Stave down the bulwarks. Let them go.”In the panic there was no stopping to argue or to question. The guns were freed, and they, too, went hurtling through the air, striking the rock with a clang. The captain leaped to the helm and put ithard a-starboard. The ship’s pace slackened, she curved gracefully around, and headed from the threatening coast. “Shake out all sail, lads, for we’re free at last, by God’s good grace.”Though trembling and confused, the sailors managed to hoist sail, and on a gentle wind from the east they left that coast never more to venture near it. The captain’s face lost its knots and seams, by slow degrees the color of it returned,—a color painted upon it, especially about the nose, by many winds, much sunshine, and uncounted bottles of strong waters. He wiped his brow and drew a big breath. “It comes to me, now,” he said. “We’ve not been bewitched. That hill beyond, that’s robbed us of our guns and anchor, is a magnet,—the biggest in the world.”In an earthquake, several years later, the magnet-mountain disappeared.

Animal MythsIn the fables of the Filipinos the animals often speak together in a common language. The dove, however, is the only one that comprehends human speech, and it is a creature of uncommon shrewdness and intelligence, like the hare in the Indian myths and Br’er Rabbit in the stories of our Southern negroes. Once the dove was a child. In shame and anger that its mother should refuse to give it some rice she was pounding for panapig (a sort of cake), it ran out of the cabin, took two leaves of a nipa, shaped wings from them, which it fastened to its shoulders, and fluttered into the boughs of a neighboring tree, changing, in its flight, from a child to a dove. It still calls for panapig.Darwin is read backward by the natives, for they say that the monkey was a man, long, long ago, and might have been one still but for his mañana habit, so general in the Spanish colonies. He had a partner whom he greatly vexed by his idleness, and once, when this partner was planting rice, he glanced up and saw the monkey squatted on the earth, with his face between his hands, watching the labors of the industrious member of the firm,—for nothing makes loafing sweeter than to see somebody else work. Enraged, the busy one caught up a cudgel and flung it at the monkey, who was thereupon seized with a sudden but futile activity, and started to run away. The club struck him in the rear so mightily that itentered his spinal column and stayed there, becoming his tail.In the Moro tradition of the flood—a tradition almost world-wide—Noah and his family got into a box when the forty days of rain began, and one pair of each kind of bird and beast followed them. All of the human race except Noah, his wife and children, were either drowned or changed. Those men who ran to the mountains when they saw the flood rising became monkeys; those who flung themselves into the sea became fish; the Chinese turned into hornbills; a woman who was eating seaweed and kept on eating after the waves broke over her became a dugong.In Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu the pig is held in suspicion and its flesh is not eaten. The reason for this aversion is that the first pigs were grandchildren of the great Mahomet himself, and their conversion to these lowly quadrupeds fell out in this way: When Jesus (Isa) called on Mahomet, the latter, jealous of his reputed power, bade him guess what was in the next room. Christ said that he did not wish to do so. Mahomet then commanded him to prove his ability to see through walls, and added that if he made a mistake he would kill him. Thereupon Christ answered, “There are two animals in that chamber that are like no other in the world.”“Wrong!” cried the Prophet, plucking out his sword. “They are my grandchildren. You have spoken false, and you must lose your head.”“Look and see,” insisted Christ, and Mahometflung open the chamber door, whereupon two hogs rushed out. It should be added that while the divinity of Christ is denied in some of the Oriental religions, he figures in many of them as a great and good man, gifted with supernatural power. Moros charge as one reason for killing Christians that followers of Christ disgrace and belie mankind in teaching that men could kill their own god.On Mindoro the timarau, a small buffalo that lives in the jungle, has given rise to rumors of a fierce and destructive creature that carries a single horn on his head. It is a wild and hard fighter, but it has two horns, and is not likely to injure any save those who are seeking to injure it. A creature with an armed head has lingered down from the day of Marco Polo, because in the stock of yarns assembled by that redoubtable tourist the unicorn figured. This was the rhinoceros, which is found so near the Philippines as Sumatra. The gnu of Africa is another possible ancestor of this creature, a belief in which goes back to the time of Aristotle; but the horse-like animal with a narwhal’s horn that frisks on the British arms never existed.And, speaking of horses, it is strange that centaurs should figure in the mythology of a country like Luzon; but a mile from the church at Mariveles is a hot spring beside which lived a creature that was half-horse and half-man. As in ancient Greece, there is little doubt that a belief in this being came from the wonder excited by the first horsemen.Sea-eagles in the East are large and powerful, and are believed to have long memories. According to report, a man living near Jala Jala once stole a nest of their young and carried it to his house. It was a year from that time before any retaliation was attempted. The birds then appeared above his premises, swooped down on his wife, clawed her face and beat her with their wings until she was half-dead; then picked up her babe and carried it away before the eyes of the helpless parents. Next year they came again, and another infant, a few months old, was stolen. The man tracked them to their nest, which had been built high on a cliff that no one had ever scaled before. Nerved by grief and anger, he climbed it. In the nest were the skeletons of his children. As he clung to the rock, hanging over a dizzy space and looking on these sad relics, the father bird came swooping from the sky and began to strike at him with claws and wings. In the face of such an assault the man could not descend in safety. Death was sure. He could only hope to kill his enemy, too. As the bird drew near he leaped from the rock, caught the eagle about the neck, and the two plunged down to death together.An animal god especially to be feared is Calapnitan, king of the bats. He is so powerful and capable of mischief that in exploring a cave where bats are likely to have congregated the natives will speak in the most respectful terms of this deity, for he would be sure to hear them if they spoke flippantly of him,and might swoop from the cave roof and whip their eyes out with his leathern wings or tear them with his claws. Hence they bow their heads and speak with reverence of the Lord Calapnitan’s cave, the Lord Calapnitan’s stalactite, even recognizing his temporary ownership of their clothing, arms, lights, and so on, and alluding to their own jackets as the Lord Calapnitan’s. By carefully refraining in this manner from giving offence the Filipinos have succeeded in keeping their skins entire while guiding white travellers through the caverns in their islands.Later Religious Myths and MiraclesAmong stories that date no farther back than the Spanish conquest we find the usual tales of sacred springs, of visions, and of blessed objects. The Church of the Holy Infant, in the city of Cebu, contains an image of the Christ child, about fifteen inches in height, carved in ebony, preserved in much state and loaded with a profusion of ornament. The priests tell you that it was made in heaven, thrown to the earth, and found in 1565 by a soldier who recovered from an illness when he touched it. It was taken to the convent in Cebu, where the clergy emplaced it with great ceremony, and where on the 20th of January in every year it is dressed in a field marshal’s regalia, receives a field marshal’s salute, and is worshipped by thousands ofpilgrims from all parts of the archipelago. So many women wrought themselves into an insane frenzy during these January feasts that their sacred dances, which were once a part of the ceremonies, had to be stopped. When the town was burned this statue saved itself from the flames, as did the bamboo cross near the church, which is said to be the same that was erected by the monk, Martin de Rada, on the day when the Spanish landed, more than three centuries ago. Matter-of-fact historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four thousand Chinese who had settled in and about Cebu, thus reducing themselves to a wretched state, for these Spaniards had depended on the Chinese as their servants, cooks, farmers, laborers, shoemakers, and tailors. It is worthy of note that other missionaries had shown activity, but with less result, for their methods had been more conciliatory. The Mahometanism that had been introduced by Moslem preachers from Arabia got no farther than Sulu, and the Confucianism imported by Chinamen seems to have obtained no permanent hold. Throughall changes the Holy Child remained uninjured, and he continues his good work to this day.When the Sulu pirates had fallen upon a year of such bad business that they reaped a profit of barely fifty per cent, on their investment in ships and weapons, there was great discontent among them. Prizes were few and defeats occasional. Looking back on their highest hill, as they sailed away, and fearing that when they returned it might be with but half a cargo of gold and rum and Christians, so many of them wept for the misery of this thought that to this day the height is known as Buat Timantangis, or Mount of Tears. In one dull season, when the pirates were almost mutinous because of their continued ill-fortune, it occurred to one of the captains that an image to which the Christians prayed so earnestly and with such good effect might do as much for him as for some other natives. In his barbarian mind there was no absurdity in trying to persuade a gentle Virgin or a pure-minded Saint to deliver into his hands the goods and persons of those who knelt before their effigies. A sacred image was “good medicine” for Spaniards and Tagalogs, and should, therefore, be good medicine for Mahometans. Thus, he bethought him of the statue now known as the Virgin of Antipolo, that came from Spain by way of Mexico in charge of early missionaries. To think was to act. He raided the village where it had been enshrined and attempted to carry it off; but the statue had warned the faithful of its peril, andthe marauders were met and driven off by a powerful force. The Virgin of Antipolo became one of the most influential of all the guardians of the islands, and to this day is especially besought by mothers who ask for her intercession on behalf of their sickly children. Holy water taken from her shrine will cure the sufferer, and the mother then performs a public penance in thankfulness. Before the American arrival, with its sudden imposition of new ideas on an old society, it was no uncommon thing to see on Good Friday a company of the richest women in Manila, poorly attired and with bare feet, dragging through the streets a heavy cross thirty feet in length. This was in fulfilment of vows they had made at the shrine of Antipolo.This Virgin of Antipolo is likewise known as Our Lady of Good Voyage and Peace. She arrived from Mexico in a state galleon in 1626. On the voyage she calmed a storm so quickly that the priests proclaimed her special sanctity, and ordered her to be received in Manila with salutes of bells and guns. While the Jesuits were building a church for her she would often descend from her temporary altar and stand in an antipolo tree (Astocarpus incisa). People cut pieces from this tree for charms against disease and misfortune, until Father Salazar ordered that the trunk should be its pedestal. In an early rebellion the Chinese insurgents threw the statue into the fire. Flames were all about it, yet not a hair, not a thread of lace was singed, and the body of brass wasunmarked by smoke. Angered at this defiance of their power, a Chinaman stabbed it in the face, and, curiously, the wound remains to this day in protest against the savagery that incited it. When for a second time the Virgin passed unscathed through a conflagration the Spanish infantry bore her on their shoulders about the streets, shouting in the joy of her protection. A galleon having been endangered by rocks and bars in Manila Bay, the captain borrowed this statue, prayed that it would secure the safety of his ship, and, to the wonder of all, his vessel rode proudly up to the city gates, for the Virgin had ordered that the rocks should sink deeper beneath the sea. Twice afterward she did a like service to captains who borrowed the figure as a safeguard on the long voyage to Mexico and back, for each time she suppressed great storms. At the time of the assault on Manila by the Dutch she assisted in the defeat of the strangers, though St. Mark was associated with her in the victory. He had told the governor in a dream that success should attend the Spanish arms if his people would carry the Virgin into the fight. This was done, and the Dutch lost three ships with their cargoes. She was finally domiciled in the town of Antipolo, which, beside being famous as a shrine, has been one of the most noted resorts for brigands in the Philippines. The village of four thousand people subsists largely on the money spent by pilgrims to her church.Every family in the Christian communities has alittle statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them.Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp.Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of theChurch, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,—a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter’s children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.Alitagtag, north of Bauan, became in 1595 a resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evilspirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the fields, surrounded by bright lights. Thereupon the clergy ordered that it should be adored, and from that time it became an object of worship, healing diseases, dispelling plagues, and killing locusts. When the priests at Bauan announced that they intended to move the cross to Lake Bombon, the priest of Taal, being jealous of his brothers in the other town, hired some natives to steal it and take it to his house. No sooner had the men assembled for this purpose than sheets of green fire fell about the cross, defending it from their approach, and in a frenzy of contrition they ran back, solemnly vowing that they would never make a similar attempt again. The cross was, therefore, taken to Bauan, where it did service for the people by terrorizing a band of pirates and by stopping an eruption of the Taal volcano in 1611. This peak of Taal had been a resort of devils from time immemorial, and it had been a frequent duty of the Church to pray them into silence. In the year just named Father Albuquerque headed a procession that ascended the mountain for this purpose. Near the summit he paused and lifted the cup containing the blood of Christ. Dreadful noises were heard, like the laughter of ten thousand fiends, in vaults below. Then, with a groan and crash, the earth split and two craters appeared, one filled with boiling sulphur, the other with green water. The cross was sent for. It was brought by four hundred natives. When itwas put into the priest’s hands he lifted it toward the sky and all united in prayer. During this petition, while every head was bent and all eyes were shut, the craters softly closed and Taal was as it had been before. Yet the demons still linger about the mountain. Not many years ago an Englishman tunnelled the peak for sulphur. The fiends of the volcano shook the roof down on his head and he perished. In May it has been a custom to hold a feast in honor of this cross, if the natives furnish the necessary candles and raise ten dollars for the officiating priest.Bangi, in Ilocos Norte, had a shrine in which was the image of a child with a lamb. Herbs pressed against it would cure all diseases. For years a dispute was carried on between clerical factions as to whether it represented St. John the Baptist or Christ. Bishop Miguel Garcia, having undressed it and examined it thoroughly, decided it to be a Chinese idol. Thereupon it was broken and burned as a thing unholy.Our Lady of Casaysay, in Batangas, is so esteemed that ships salute her in passing. She was found by a fisherman in his net. He took her to a cave, not knowing what to make of his strange find, and intending to keep her there probably as a treasure not to be shared by his neighbors. She astonished and disappointed him by proclaiming herself with flashing lights of beautiful color and with loud music. As these demonstrations frightened the peaceable rustics, the Virgin left her cave, visited a nativewoman, spoke kindly to her, and was thereupon provided with a shrine, where she might be adored with proper ceremony.The statue of St. Joaquin at Gusi is remarkable because every year it runs away and spends two weeks with its wooden wife, the figure of St. Ann, at Molo.Manila once had a saint that wagged its head approvingly at certain points in the sermon. This conduct drove so many women into hysterics, and crowded the church so dangerously with people who went to see the miracle, that the archbishop discountenanced its action, and ordered that it should be quiet thereafter. Quiet was easily secured by cutting the string attached to the saint’s neck. The padre was accustomed to pull this during his discourse whenever he wished his congregation to believe that the saints approved his eloquence or endorsed his doctrine.Holy water from the Conception district of Panay saves life, and San Pascual Bailon cures barrenness. A Manila milkman who was punished for selling watered milk expressed surprise at the complaints of his customers, because no wrong had been committed, inasmuch as he had used nothing but holy water, which was far superior to milk. Water from the prison well at Iloilo was held at so high a value that the prison-keeper made a fortune from it, as it was given out that Christ and the Virgin had been seen bathing in the well. Our Lady of the HolyWaters presides over the hot springs below Maquiling Mountain, an old crater. Another popular place of pilgrimage is the shrine at Tagbauang, near Iloilo, where illnesses are cured at a high mass in January.One of the last recorded appearances of the Virgin was in 1884, when a band of robbers in Tayabas killed a plantation manager, wounded several laborers, and ransacked the house of the owner. While in one of the bedrooms tying clothes, jewelry, and other loot into parcels for removal, the Virgin appeared, and standing in the door looked with severity and distress on the bandits. They immediately left their plunder and ran pell-mell from the building. Some of these robbers were arrested, but the Virgin had compassion on them for leaving the proceeds of their raid, so none was garroted or even sentenced. Some go so far as to say that the Virgin had nothing to do with their escape from punishment, alleging that the officers of the law had conspired with them, and that the Spanish courts were even worse than those of a land that shall be nameless in respect of their slowness and the facilities they offered for adjournments, retrials, and appeals on grounds that if presented in any other cause than that of a breaker of the law would be laughed to scorn. Filipino bandits often wear medals of the Virgin and saints to protect them from harm, and some are made bold by confidence in their protection. It is a belief of theirs that they will never be punished for any crime they may commit in Easter week, for the rather obscurereason that Christ pardoned the thief on the cross on Good Friday.A curious chapel on a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving an answer, prayed volubly to the Christians’ God as he swam toward the shore, and promised to erect a chapel in return for his life. His prayer was answered, for the crocodile was turned to stone, and may now be seen in the bed of the stream, while the grateful Mongol kept his word, and also joined the church.Bankiva, the Philippine Pied PiperOf nearly six hundred species of birds in the Philippines the jungle fowl, or bankiva, is best known, and is both killed and domesticated. Unlike the dove, it does not understand human speech, but it has a power over our kind that is exercised by no other animal. Once a year the spirits grant to it this power of charming, in order that both spirits and birds may be revenged on men, their constant enemies. When that day comes the Luzon mother tremblingly gathers her little ones about her and warns them not to leave their door, for young ears heed the strange, sweet music of the fowl’s voice, which grown people cannot hear. On that day thebird sings with a new note, and the flock of bankivas choose the largest, handsomest of their number to lead the march of children. On the edge of the village he gives his song, and every toddler runs delightedly to see what causes the music. Babes respond with soft, cooing notes, and will go on hands and knees if they can. They find the bankivas gathered in a little ring, spreading their tails and wings, dancing and singing in harmony, the head bird setting the air. When the children have gathered, they, too, begin to dance and sing, following the birds as they go deeper and deeper into the wood. Night falls, and with a harsh cry the bankivas fly away in all directions. The children are as if awakened from a sleep. They do not know where they are, and cannot tell which way to turn. Jungles and swamps are about them, man-eating crocodiles are watching from the water, poisonous and strangling snakes are gliding about the brush, the pythons that loop themselves from overhanging limbs are sometimes thrice the length of a man. Dread and danger are on every hand. And at home the mothers sit crying. Sometimes, though rarely, a man or woman totters back to a village bearing marks of great age, and is sure that he or she left there only the night before. These wanderers do not know where they have been. They remember only that the bankiva sang sweetly, and they followed it, as the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper.The Crab Tried to Eat the MoonAmong the fantastic stories told of snakes, water-buffalo, birds, and sharks are several that have obvious meaning. The crab figures in certain of these tales as the cause of the tides. He was an enormous creature and lived in a great hole in the bottom of a distant sea, whence he crawled twice a day, the water pouring into the hollow then, and leaving low water on the coast. When he settled back again the water was forced out and the tide was high. The relation of tides to the moon may have introduced this creature in another aspect as the moon’s enemy and cause of her eclipse, for it is related that one evening a Filipino princess walking on a beach saw with astonishment an island that had never been visible on the sea before. Her emotion was that of alarm when she saw the island approach the shore, and she hid in the shrubbery to watch. Presently she could make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people of the princess were holding a feast with songs and dances. Would they hear a signal? She placed her conch-shell horn ather lips and blew with all her strength. The monster still gnashed and grasped in expectancy at the sea’s edge, and a breeze brought through the wood a faint sound of drums. Her people had not heard. Again she blew. This time the woods were still. Her people were listening. A third blast followed, and in a few minutes the warriors swarmed upon the beach with knives, swords, and lances. While the princess was explaining to them the moon’s peril the crab made a leap into the air and darkened its face, causing an eclipse, but failing to get a hold it dropped back to the beach again, where the people fell upon it, the princess leading the attack with the war-call of her tribe. As the crab turned to see what had befallen, the princess slashed off his great left claw. With the other it crushed a soldier, but again her cresse fell and the right claw fell likewise. Then a hundred men rushed upon the creature, prodding their spears into joints of his legs and the dividing line between his back plate and belly. Others fell under his great bulk or were gnashed by his iron teeth, but in the end his shell was broken and the moon was safe. And often when the gentle pirate of the Sulus scoured the sea he uttered a prayer before an image of the princess for a bright night and an easy victim, for had it not been for her the crab would have swallowed the moon, and the sea would have been as dark as some kinds of a conscience.The Conversion of AmambarWhile roving over the waters that covered the earth the sun god saw the nymph Ursula sporting in the waves, and was smitten with a quick and mighty fondness. He nearly consumed himself in the ardor of his affection. She, however, was as cold and pure as the sea. As she swung drowsily on the billows she was like a picture painted in foam on their blue-green depth, and in breathing her bosom rose and fell like the waves themselves. As she saw the god descending she was filled with alarm, but as he took her into his strong embrace and placed his cheek to hers a new life and warmth came to her, and in their marriage the spirits of the air and water rejoiced. A son was born to them,—so beautiful a boy that the sun god made a land for him, stocked it with living creatures, adorned it with greenery and flowers, and gave it to the human race as an inheritance of joy forever. This land he called Cebu, and no land was more lovely. Lupa was the child, and from him came all the kings of Cebu, among them Amambar, the first chief of the island of whom we have definite record. In the day of his rule the group had long been peopled, and the use of tools and weapons had become known. One occasionally finds to-day the stone arrows and axes they called “lightning teeth,” and with which they worked such harm to one another in their many wars.It was an evening of March, 1521, a calm andpleasant evening, with the perfume of flowers mixed with the tonic tang of the ocean, birds flying and monkeys chattering in the wood, and a gentle surf whispering upon the beach. Amambar was walking on the shore alone. He had gone there to watch the gambols of the mermaids, when a great light whitened against the sunset. It came from a cross that had been planted just out of reach of the sea. He put his hands before his eyes that it might not dazzle him. Then, as the moon arose, he peered beneath his hands, out over the restless water, and there, against the golden globe that was lifting over the edge of the world, could be seen a flock of monster birds with gray wings, and dark men walking on their backs as they lightly rode the billows, the men sparkling and glinting as they moved, for they were arrayed in metal and bore long knives and lances that flashed like stars. Other of the company wore black robes and sang in unknown words, their voices mixing in a music never heard by Amambar before. A sparkling white cloud drooped slowly from the sky. A diamond vapor played about the cross. Out of the cloud came a melodious voice saying, “Look up, O chief!” And looking at the cross again, he saw, extended there, a bleeding figure with a compassionate face that gazed down upon him and declared, “I am Jesus Christ, son of the only God. Those whom you see in the ships are my people, who have come to these islands to rule you for your good.” Amambar fell prone on the sand and prayed for along time, not daring to open his eyes. When he regained courage and arose the cloud was gone; the ships had sailed away. He was alone.The commander of the ships was Magellan. It was one of his monks who had placed the cross on shore. Landing in Cebu later, he converted two thousand of the natives in a day by destroying the statue of Vishnu and putting that of the child Jesus in its place, though he still yielded to savage opinion in so far as he consented to confirm his friendship with the king by a heathen ceremony, each opening a vein in his arm and drinking the blood of the other. As usual, the appearance and ways of the Europeans smote the natives with wonder. They described the strangers as enormous men with long noses, who dressed in fine robes, ate stones (ship-bread), drank fire from sticks (pipes), and breathed out the smoke, commanded thunder and lightning from metal tubes, and were gods. Engaging in a wrangle between two tribes, Magellan was lured into a marsh at Mactan, and there, while watching a battle to see how great the Filipinos could be in war, he was slain with bamboo lances sharpened and hardened in fire. Amambar’s Christianity did not endure, for he so wearied of the oppression and rapacity of the strangers that when a successor to Magellan appeared he invited him to a banquet and slew him at his meat. But the cross and the statue of Christ worked miracles among the faithful for many generations.The Bedevilled Galleon“Sing hey, sing ho! The wind doth blow,And I’ll meet my love in the morning,”Sang the lookout, as he paced the forecastle of the galleon Rose of May, and peered about for signs of land against the dawn. Not that he expected to meet his love in the morning, nor for many mornings, but he had been up in his off-watch and was getting drowsy, so that he sang to keep himself awake. His was one of the first among the English ships to follow in Magellan’s track. The Philippines, or the Manillas, as they were called, had been almost reached, and it was expected that Mindanao would be sighted at break of day off the starboard bow.“Hello, forward!” bawled the man at the helm.“Ay, ay!” sang the lookout.“What d’ye make o’ yonder light?”“Light? What d’ye mean, man?” And the lookout rubbed his eyes, scanned the water close and far, and wondered if his sight was going out.“In the sky, o’ course, ye bumble-brain.”“Now, by the mass, you costard, you gave me a twist of the inwards with your lame joke.”“’Tis no joke. Will you answer?”“Why, then, ’tis the daylight, in course, and you aiming for it that steady as to drive the nose of us straight agin the sun, give he comes up where he threats to. And he’ll be here straightway, for inthese waters he comes up as he were popped outen a cohorn.”“The day! Heaven forefend! I’m holding her to the north.”“You’re holding due east. Aha! Look yonder, where the cloud is lifting. Land ho!”“Where away?” cried a mate, roused out of a forbidden doze by this talk, and blundering up to the roof of the after-castle.“Port bow, sir.”“Port bow! The fiend take us! You block! You jolterhead! Where are you fetching us?”“I’m holding her due to the north, sir, as you bade me,” faltered the steersman. “Look for yourself, if it please you, for ’tis light enough to read the card without the binnacle lamp. We’re sailing east by the sky and north by the needle. The ship’s bedevilled!”“Hold your peace, or you’ll have the crew in a fright. Head her around eight points to port, and keep her west by the card.”“Lights in, sir? The sun is up,” called the lookout.“Yes.” And the mate added in a lower tone, “’Tis the first time ever the sun came up in the north.”“What’s all this gabble?” grumbled the captain, thrusting his red and whiskered face out of the cabin. “Can’t a man have his rest when you keep the watch, Master Roaker?”“Pray, captain, come and look at the compass. Do you see the lay o’ the needle? We’re sailing west to hold north, or else the sun has missed stays over night and come up in the north himself.”“Hi, hi! That’s parlous odd. Keep her as you have her, and have out Bill, the carpenter, to see if there’s any iron overside. Nay, let her off a little more, for that’s a hard-looking piece of shore out yonder, for all of the palms and green stuff.”The watch was changed presently, the captain preferring to take the biscuit and spirits that were his breakfast on the deck. He went to the compass every minute or so, looked curiously at the draw of the sails and studied the water alongside. The carpenter had reported all sound, with no iron out of place to deflect the needle. There was a grave look on the faces of the officers, and the men talked low together as they watched them.“Strange-looking hill out yonder,” remarked a mate. “Not a tree on it, nor any green thing. ’Tis black and shining enough for the devil’s grave-stone.”“Have done with your gossip of devils,” snorted the other mate. “You’re as evil a man for a ship’s company as a whistler. You’ll be calling ill luck on us to name the fiend so often.”“Looks like shoal water forward, sir,” called the new lookout.“Right! Head her away to port yet farther. Look you, fellow, have you no inkling of your business?You’ll have us all ashore. Mary, mother! Give me the helm!” With sweat bursting from his brow the captain caught the tiller and put it hard over. The ship shook a bit, swerved, yet made side-wise toward the green patch on the sea. The land was looming large now.“’Tis not in the rudder to keep her off, sir,” called a mate who had gone forward. “’Tis the leeway she is making.”“There’s a scant breeze.”“Ay, but there must be a fearsome current.”“I see no sign of it. This water is smooth as any pond.”“But you see for yourself, she’s gaining on the shore. Look, now, how we’re passing that patch o’ water-weed.”“I think hell is under us. Have up the clerk and put him at prayers, and you fellows take in sail—each rag of it—that if we strike we may go easy. Call all hands. See that the boats are clear. She minds her helm no more than a straw. God help us!”The galleon was at the edge of the shoal spot now, and all held their breath, expecting to hear the grinding of the keel on a bank; but, no, she floated in safety.“Sound!” commanded the captain. “There may be anchorage.”“Four fathom,” called the sailor at the lead after he had made his cast.“Stand by to let go. We’ll tie up here till thetide turns or the spell’s worked out. Alive—alive, there! Get that anchor overboard.”“It be wedged agin the bulwark, captain, and needs another pair o’ hands.”“Forward all! Why, you lump, the flukes are clear. What ails you? Lift all. There!”With an united heave the sailors raised the barbed iron and cast it over the side. The faces of all dripped and went white, and their knees bent then, for the anchor flew from their hands and struck the sea quite twenty feet away,—in deep water, for the shoal was passed,—and the chain paid out like rope as the iron sank, yet not straight down. It rattled off toward the shore.“We’ve had krakens and mermaids and all variety of horrid beasts,” said one old tar, with his jaw a-shaking, “and now the foul fiend has that anchor, and is pulling us ashore with it.”The chain had run out to its length, but the anchor had found no bottom. A cracking and grinding of the links could be heard, as if a tug of war were going on between two giants that had this chain between them. Bits of rust powdered off, and the strain was tearing splinters from the timbers. A loud snap,—the chain had parted. Down went the anchor, but again not straight,—off toward the land, and one free link of the chain shot as if from a gun straight toward the shore, whizzing with ever-increasing speed until it was out of sight. The men looked at one another in amaze.“Get up the stores,” shouted the captain, “and be ready all to quit the ship.” He added to his mates, “A half hour’s the longest we can hope for. The Rose of May will be on the black cliff by that. Is the clerk praying? Good! We may get away in the boats, but we’ll end our days here in the Manillas. Alack, my Betsy! I’ll never look into her eyes again.”“She’s down a little by the head, an’t please you,” cried a sailor, running aft.“Ease her a little, then. Toss over some of the dunnage.”“Lor’! Lor’! Spare us all this day!” yelled a sailor a minute later.“What is it?”“I tried to put my knife on the rail here, while I gripped the line I was to cut, when it tugged at my hand like a live thing. In a fright I let go, and away it flew toward the shore. Oh, we’ve reached the Devil’s country. Why ever did I leave England?”“How of the compass?”“It points steady to that rock.”“Master captain! Master captain!” shouted the steward, running upon deck. “The fiend is in the after-castle, for the pans and the knives and a blunderbuss and two cutlasses that were loose have leaped against the forward panelling and stick there as if rivets were through them. ’Tis wizard’s work. Let us pray, all.”A sudden commotion was seen among the sailors at that moment. The cannon balls had rolled forward to the break of the forecastle, and the two guns themselves—the ship’s armament against the pirates of China and Sulu—were straining at their stays.“Heave over the shot. It’ll lighten her,” ordered the captain.The crew obeyed, but after the first of the balls had been lifted over the bulwarks, they had scarce the strength to cast out the rest, for amazement overcame them on seeing the shot plucked from the man’s hands and blown through the air as if sent from its gun toward the rock. The ship was leaping through the water, though the breeze was from the land. One after another the men fell on their knees and prayed loudly, the captain last of all. Suddenly he looked up, with a wondering flash in his eyes. He sprang to his feet, plucked an iron belaying-pin from its ledge, held it up, felt it pull, let go, and saw it whirl away like a leaf in a cyclone. He looked at the compass; the needle pointed straight toward the black and glistening cliff now lowering not more than half a mile ahead.“It’s the guns,” he shrieked. “Up with you. Cut away the lashings. Stave down the bulwarks. Let them go.”In the panic there was no stopping to argue or to question. The guns were freed, and they, too, went hurtling through the air, striking the rock with a clang. The captain leaped to the helm and put ithard a-starboard. The ship’s pace slackened, she curved gracefully around, and headed from the threatening coast. “Shake out all sail, lads, for we’re free at last, by God’s good grace.”Though trembling and confused, the sailors managed to hoist sail, and on a gentle wind from the east they left that coast never more to venture near it. The captain’s face lost its knots and seams, by slow degrees the color of it returned,—a color painted upon it, especially about the nose, by many winds, much sunshine, and uncounted bottles of strong waters. He wiped his brow and drew a big breath. “It comes to me, now,” he said. “We’ve not been bewitched. That hill beyond, that’s robbed us of our guns and anchor, is a magnet,—the biggest in the world.”In an earthquake, several years later, the magnet-mountain disappeared.

Animal MythsIn the fables of the Filipinos the animals often speak together in a common language. The dove, however, is the only one that comprehends human speech, and it is a creature of uncommon shrewdness and intelligence, like the hare in the Indian myths and Br’er Rabbit in the stories of our Southern negroes. Once the dove was a child. In shame and anger that its mother should refuse to give it some rice she was pounding for panapig (a sort of cake), it ran out of the cabin, took two leaves of a nipa, shaped wings from them, which it fastened to its shoulders, and fluttered into the boughs of a neighboring tree, changing, in its flight, from a child to a dove. It still calls for panapig.Darwin is read backward by the natives, for they say that the monkey was a man, long, long ago, and might have been one still but for his mañana habit, so general in the Spanish colonies. He had a partner whom he greatly vexed by his idleness, and once, when this partner was planting rice, he glanced up and saw the monkey squatted on the earth, with his face between his hands, watching the labors of the industrious member of the firm,—for nothing makes loafing sweeter than to see somebody else work. Enraged, the busy one caught up a cudgel and flung it at the monkey, who was thereupon seized with a sudden but futile activity, and started to run away. The club struck him in the rear so mightily that itentered his spinal column and stayed there, becoming his tail.In the Moro tradition of the flood—a tradition almost world-wide—Noah and his family got into a box when the forty days of rain began, and one pair of each kind of bird and beast followed them. All of the human race except Noah, his wife and children, were either drowned or changed. Those men who ran to the mountains when they saw the flood rising became monkeys; those who flung themselves into the sea became fish; the Chinese turned into hornbills; a woman who was eating seaweed and kept on eating after the waves broke over her became a dugong.In Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu the pig is held in suspicion and its flesh is not eaten. The reason for this aversion is that the first pigs were grandchildren of the great Mahomet himself, and their conversion to these lowly quadrupeds fell out in this way: When Jesus (Isa) called on Mahomet, the latter, jealous of his reputed power, bade him guess what was in the next room. Christ said that he did not wish to do so. Mahomet then commanded him to prove his ability to see through walls, and added that if he made a mistake he would kill him. Thereupon Christ answered, “There are two animals in that chamber that are like no other in the world.”“Wrong!” cried the Prophet, plucking out his sword. “They are my grandchildren. You have spoken false, and you must lose your head.”“Look and see,” insisted Christ, and Mahometflung open the chamber door, whereupon two hogs rushed out. It should be added that while the divinity of Christ is denied in some of the Oriental religions, he figures in many of them as a great and good man, gifted with supernatural power. Moros charge as one reason for killing Christians that followers of Christ disgrace and belie mankind in teaching that men could kill their own god.On Mindoro the timarau, a small buffalo that lives in the jungle, has given rise to rumors of a fierce and destructive creature that carries a single horn on his head. It is a wild and hard fighter, but it has two horns, and is not likely to injure any save those who are seeking to injure it. A creature with an armed head has lingered down from the day of Marco Polo, because in the stock of yarns assembled by that redoubtable tourist the unicorn figured. This was the rhinoceros, which is found so near the Philippines as Sumatra. The gnu of Africa is another possible ancestor of this creature, a belief in which goes back to the time of Aristotle; but the horse-like animal with a narwhal’s horn that frisks on the British arms never existed.And, speaking of horses, it is strange that centaurs should figure in the mythology of a country like Luzon; but a mile from the church at Mariveles is a hot spring beside which lived a creature that was half-horse and half-man. As in ancient Greece, there is little doubt that a belief in this being came from the wonder excited by the first horsemen.Sea-eagles in the East are large and powerful, and are believed to have long memories. According to report, a man living near Jala Jala once stole a nest of their young and carried it to his house. It was a year from that time before any retaliation was attempted. The birds then appeared above his premises, swooped down on his wife, clawed her face and beat her with their wings until she was half-dead; then picked up her babe and carried it away before the eyes of the helpless parents. Next year they came again, and another infant, a few months old, was stolen. The man tracked them to their nest, which had been built high on a cliff that no one had ever scaled before. Nerved by grief and anger, he climbed it. In the nest were the skeletons of his children. As he clung to the rock, hanging over a dizzy space and looking on these sad relics, the father bird came swooping from the sky and began to strike at him with claws and wings. In the face of such an assault the man could not descend in safety. Death was sure. He could only hope to kill his enemy, too. As the bird drew near he leaped from the rock, caught the eagle about the neck, and the two plunged down to death together.An animal god especially to be feared is Calapnitan, king of the bats. He is so powerful and capable of mischief that in exploring a cave where bats are likely to have congregated the natives will speak in the most respectful terms of this deity, for he would be sure to hear them if they spoke flippantly of him,and might swoop from the cave roof and whip their eyes out with his leathern wings or tear them with his claws. Hence they bow their heads and speak with reverence of the Lord Calapnitan’s cave, the Lord Calapnitan’s stalactite, even recognizing his temporary ownership of their clothing, arms, lights, and so on, and alluding to their own jackets as the Lord Calapnitan’s. By carefully refraining in this manner from giving offence the Filipinos have succeeded in keeping their skins entire while guiding white travellers through the caverns in their islands.

In the fables of the Filipinos the animals often speak together in a common language. The dove, however, is the only one that comprehends human speech, and it is a creature of uncommon shrewdness and intelligence, like the hare in the Indian myths and Br’er Rabbit in the stories of our Southern negroes. Once the dove was a child. In shame and anger that its mother should refuse to give it some rice she was pounding for panapig (a sort of cake), it ran out of the cabin, took two leaves of a nipa, shaped wings from them, which it fastened to its shoulders, and fluttered into the boughs of a neighboring tree, changing, in its flight, from a child to a dove. It still calls for panapig.

Darwin is read backward by the natives, for they say that the monkey was a man, long, long ago, and might have been one still but for his mañana habit, so general in the Spanish colonies. He had a partner whom he greatly vexed by his idleness, and once, when this partner was planting rice, he glanced up and saw the monkey squatted on the earth, with his face between his hands, watching the labors of the industrious member of the firm,—for nothing makes loafing sweeter than to see somebody else work. Enraged, the busy one caught up a cudgel and flung it at the monkey, who was thereupon seized with a sudden but futile activity, and started to run away. The club struck him in the rear so mightily that itentered his spinal column and stayed there, becoming his tail.

In the Moro tradition of the flood—a tradition almost world-wide—Noah and his family got into a box when the forty days of rain began, and one pair of each kind of bird and beast followed them. All of the human race except Noah, his wife and children, were either drowned or changed. Those men who ran to the mountains when they saw the flood rising became monkeys; those who flung themselves into the sea became fish; the Chinese turned into hornbills; a woman who was eating seaweed and kept on eating after the waves broke over her became a dugong.

In Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu the pig is held in suspicion and its flesh is not eaten. The reason for this aversion is that the first pigs were grandchildren of the great Mahomet himself, and their conversion to these lowly quadrupeds fell out in this way: When Jesus (Isa) called on Mahomet, the latter, jealous of his reputed power, bade him guess what was in the next room. Christ said that he did not wish to do so. Mahomet then commanded him to prove his ability to see through walls, and added that if he made a mistake he would kill him. Thereupon Christ answered, “There are two animals in that chamber that are like no other in the world.”

“Wrong!” cried the Prophet, plucking out his sword. “They are my grandchildren. You have spoken false, and you must lose your head.”

“Look and see,” insisted Christ, and Mahometflung open the chamber door, whereupon two hogs rushed out. It should be added that while the divinity of Christ is denied in some of the Oriental religions, he figures in many of them as a great and good man, gifted with supernatural power. Moros charge as one reason for killing Christians that followers of Christ disgrace and belie mankind in teaching that men could kill their own god.

On Mindoro the timarau, a small buffalo that lives in the jungle, has given rise to rumors of a fierce and destructive creature that carries a single horn on his head. It is a wild and hard fighter, but it has two horns, and is not likely to injure any save those who are seeking to injure it. A creature with an armed head has lingered down from the day of Marco Polo, because in the stock of yarns assembled by that redoubtable tourist the unicorn figured. This was the rhinoceros, which is found so near the Philippines as Sumatra. The gnu of Africa is another possible ancestor of this creature, a belief in which goes back to the time of Aristotle; but the horse-like animal with a narwhal’s horn that frisks on the British arms never existed.

And, speaking of horses, it is strange that centaurs should figure in the mythology of a country like Luzon; but a mile from the church at Mariveles is a hot spring beside which lived a creature that was half-horse and half-man. As in ancient Greece, there is little doubt that a belief in this being came from the wonder excited by the first horsemen.

Sea-eagles in the East are large and powerful, and are believed to have long memories. According to report, a man living near Jala Jala once stole a nest of their young and carried it to his house. It was a year from that time before any retaliation was attempted. The birds then appeared above his premises, swooped down on his wife, clawed her face and beat her with their wings until she was half-dead; then picked up her babe and carried it away before the eyes of the helpless parents. Next year they came again, and another infant, a few months old, was stolen. The man tracked them to their nest, which had been built high on a cliff that no one had ever scaled before. Nerved by grief and anger, he climbed it. In the nest were the skeletons of his children. As he clung to the rock, hanging over a dizzy space and looking on these sad relics, the father bird came swooping from the sky and began to strike at him with claws and wings. In the face of such an assault the man could not descend in safety. Death was sure. He could only hope to kill his enemy, too. As the bird drew near he leaped from the rock, caught the eagle about the neck, and the two plunged down to death together.

An animal god especially to be feared is Calapnitan, king of the bats. He is so powerful and capable of mischief that in exploring a cave where bats are likely to have congregated the natives will speak in the most respectful terms of this deity, for he would be sure to hear them if they spoke flippantly of him,and might swoop from the cave roof and whip their eyes out with his leathern wings or tear them with his claws. Hence they bow their heads and speak with reverence of the Lord Calapnitan’s cave, the Lord Calapnitan’s stalactite, even recognizing his temporary ownership of their clothing, arms, lights, and so on, and alluding to their own jackets as the Lord Calapnitan’s. By carefully refraining in this manner from giving offence the Filipinos have succeeded in keeping their skins entire while guiding white travellers through the caverns in their islands.

Later Religious Myths and MiraclesAmong stories that date no farther back than the Spanish conquest we find the usual tales of sacred springs, of visions, and of blessed objects. The Church of the Holy Infant, in the city of Cebu, contains an image of the Christ child, about fifteen inches in height, carved in ebony, preserved in much state and loaded with a profusion of ornament. The priests tell you that it was made in heaven, thrown to the earth, and found in 1565 by a soldier who recovered from an illness when he touched it. It was taken to the convent in Cebu, where the clergy emplaced it with great ceremony, and where on the 20th of January in every year it is dressed in a field marshal’s regalia, receives a field marshal’s salute, and is worshipped by thousands ofpilgrims from all parts of the archipelago. So many women wrought themselves into an insane frenzy during these January feasts that their sacred dances, which were once a part of the ceremonies, had to be stopped. When the town was burned this statue saved itself from the flames, as did the bamboo cross near the church, which is said to be the same that was erected by the monk, Martin de Rada, on the day when the Spanish landed, more than three centuries ago. Matter-of-fact historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four thousand Chinese who had settled in and about Cebu, thus reducing themselves to a wretched state, for these Spaniards had depended on the Chinese as their servants, cooks, farmers, laborers, shoemakers, and tailors. It is worthy of note that other missionaries had shown activity, but with less result, for their methods had been more conciliatory. The Mahometanism that had been introduced by Moslem preachers from Arabia got no farther than Sulu, and the Confucianism imported by Chinamen seems to have obtained no permanent hold. Throughall changes the Holy Child remained uninjured, and he continues his good work to this day.When the Sulu pirates had fallen upon a year of such bad business that they reaped a profit of barely fifty per cent, on their investment in ships and weapons, there was great discontent among them. Prizes were few and defeats occasional. Looking back on their highest hill, as they sailed away, and fearing that when they returned it might be with but half a cargo of gold and rum and Christians, so many of them wept for the misery of this thought that to this day the height is known as Buat Timantangis, or Mount of Tears. In one dull season, when the pirates were almost mutinous because of their continued ill-fortune, it occurred to one of the captains that an image to which the Christians prayed so earnestly and with such good effect might do as much for him as for some other natives. In his barbarian mind there was no absurdity in trying to persuade a gentle Virgin or a pure-minded Saint to deliver into his hands the goods and persons of those who knelt before their effigies. A sacred image was “good medicine” for Spaniards and Tagalogs, and should, therefore, be good medicine for Mahometans. Thus, he bethought him of the statue now known as the Virgin of Antipolo, that came from Spain by way of Mexico in charge of early missionaries. To think was to act. He raided the village where it had been enshrined and attempted to carry it off; but the statue had warned the faithful of its peril, andthe marauders were met and driven off by a powerful force. The Virgin of Antipolo became one of the most influential of all the guardians of the islands, and to this day is especially besought by mothers who ask for her intercession on behalf of their sickly children. Holy water taken from her shrine will cure the sufferer, and the mother then performs a public penance in thankfulness. Before the American arrival, with its sudden imposition of new ideas on an old society, it was no uncommon thing to see on Good Friday a company of the richest women in Manila, poorly attired and with bare feet, dragging through the streets a heavy cross thirty feet in length. This was in fulfilment of vows they had made at the shrine of Antipolo.This Virgin of Antipolo is likewise known as Our Lady of Good Voyage and Peace. She arrived from Mexico in a state galleon in 1626. On the voyage she calmed a storm so quickly that the priests proclaimed her special sanctity, and ordered her to be received in Manila with salutes of bells and guns. While the Jesuits were building a church for her she would often descend from her temporary altar and stand in an antipolo tree (Astocarpus incisa). People cut pieces from this tree for charms against disease and misfortune, until Father Salazar ordered that the trunk should be its pedestal. In an early rebellion the Chinese insurgents threw the statue into the fire. Flames were all about it, yet not a hair, not a thread of lace was singed, and the body of brass wasunmarked by smoke. Angered at this defiance of their power, a Chinaman stabbed it in the face, and, curiously, the wound remains to this day in protest against the savagery that incited it. When for a second time the Virgin passed unscathed through a conflagration the Spanish infantry bore her on their shoulders about the streets, shouting in the joy of her protection. A galleon having been endangered by rocks and bars in Manila Bay, the captain borrowed this statue, prayed that it would secure the safety of his ship, and, to the wonder of all, his vessel rode proudly up to the city gates, for the Virgin had ordered that the rocks should sink deeper beneath the sea. Twice afterward she did a like service to captains who borrowed the figure as a safeguard on the long voyage to Mexico and back, for each time she suppressed great storms. At the time of the assault on Manila by the Dutch she assisted in the defeat of the strangers, though St. Mark was associated with her in the victory. He had told the governor in a dream that success should attend the Spanish arms if his people would carry the Virgin into the fight. This was done, and the Dutch lost three ships with their cargoes. She was finally domiciled in the town of Antipolo, which, beside being famous as a shrine, has been one of the most noted resorts for brigands in the Philippines. The village of four thousand people subsists largely on the money spent by pilgrims to her church.Every family in the Christian communities has alittle statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them.Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp.Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of theChurch, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,—a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter’s children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.Alitagtag, north of Bauan, became in 1595 a resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evilspirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the fields, surrounded by bright lights. Thereupon the clergy ordered that it should be adored, and from that time it became an object of worship, healing diseases, dispelling plagues, and killing locusts. When the priests at Bauan announced that they intended to move the cross to Lake Bombon, the priest of Taal, being jealous of his brothers in the other town, hired some natives to steal it and take it to his house. No sooner had the men assembled for this purpose than sheets of green fire fell about the cross, defending it from their approach, and in a frenzy of contrition they ran back, solemnly vowing that they would never make a similar attempt again. The cross was, therefore, taken to Bauan, where it did service for the people by terrorizing a band of pirates and by stopping an eruption of the Taal volcano in 1611. This peak of Taal had been a resort of devils from time immemorial, and it had been a frequent duty of the Church to pray them into silence. In the year just named Father Albuquerque headed a procession that ascended the mountain for this purpose. Near the summit he paused and lifted the cup containing the blood of Christ. Dreadful noises were heard, like the laughter of ten thousand fiends, in vaults below. Then, with a groan and crash, the earth split and two craters appeared, one filled with boiling sulphur, the other with green water. The cross was sent for. It was brought by four hundred natives. When itwas put into the priest’s hands he lifted it toward the sky and all united in prayer. During this petition, while every head was bent and all eyes were shut, the craters softly closed and Taal was as it had been before. Yet the demons still linger about the mountain. Not many years ago an Englishman tunnelled the peak for sulphur. The fiends of the volcano shook the roof down on his head and he perished. In May it has been a custom to hold a feast in honor of this cross, if the natives furnish the necessary candles and raise ten dollars for the officiating priest.Bangi, in Ilocos Norte, had a shrine in which was the image of a child with a lamb. Herbs pressed against it would cure all diseases. For years a dispute was carried on between clerical factions as to whether it represented St. John the Baptist or Christ. Bishop Miguel Garcia, having undressed it and examined it thoroughly, decided it to be a Chinese idol. Thereupon it was broken and burned as a thing unholy.Our Lady of Casaysay, in Batangas, is so esteemed that ships salute her in passing. She was found by a fisherman in his net. He took her to a cave, not knowing what to make of his strange find, and intending to keep her there probably as a treasure not to be shared by his neighbors. She astonished and disappointed him by proclaiming herself with flashing lights of beautiful color and with loud music. As these demonstrations frightened the peaceable rustics, the Virgin left her cave, visited a nativewoman, spoke kindly to her, and was thereupon provided with a shrine, where she might be adored with proper ceremony.The statue of St. Joaquin at Gusi is remarkable because every year it runs away and spends two weeks with its wooden wife, the figure of St. Ann, at Molo.Manila once had a saint that wagged its head approvingly at certain points in the sermon. This conduct drove so many women into hysterics, and crowded the church so dangerously with people who went to see the miracle, that the archbishop discountenanced its action, and ordered that it should be quiet thereafter. Quiet was easily secured by cutting the string attached to the saint’s neck. The padre was accustomed to pull this during his discourse whenever he wished his congregation to believe that the saints approved his eloquence or endorsed his doctrine.Holy water from the Conception district of Panay saves life, and San Pascual Bailon cures barrenness. A Manila milkman who was punished for selling watered milk expressed surprise at the complaints of his customers, because no wrong had been committed, inasmuch as he had used nothing but holy water, which was far superior to milk. Water from the prison well at Iloilo was held at so high a value that the prison-keeper made a fortune from it, as it was given out that Christ and the Virgin had been seen bathing in the well. Our Lady of the HolyWaters presides over the hot springs below Maquiling Mountain, an old crater. Another popular place of pilgrimage is the shrine at Tagbauang, near Iloilo, where illnesses are cured at a high mass in January.One of the last recorded appearances of the Virgin was in 1884, when a band of robbers in Tayabas killed a plantation manager, wounded several laborers, and ransacked the house of the owner. While in one of the bedrooms tying clothes, jewelry, and other loot into parcels for removal, the Virgin appeared, and standing in the door looked with severity and distress on the bandits. They immediately left their plunder and ran pell-mell from the building. Some of these robbers were arrested, but the Virgin had compassion on them for leaving the proceeds of their raid, so none was garroted or even sentenced. Some go so far as to say that the Virgin had nothing to do with their escape from punishment, alleging that the officers of the law had conspired with them, and that the Spanish courts were even worse than those of a land that shall be nameless in respect of their slowness and the facilities they offered for adjournments, retrials, and appeals on grounds that if presented in any other cause than that of a breaker of the law would be laughed to scorn. Filipino bandits often wear medals of the Virgin and saints to protect them from harm, and some are made bold by confidence in their protection. It is a belief of theirs that they will never be punished for any crime they may commit in Easter week, for the rather obscurereason that Christ pardoned the thief on the cross on Good Friday.A curious chapel on a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving an answer, prayed volubly to the Christians’ God as he swam toward the shore, and promised to erect a chapel in return for his life. His prayer was answered, for the crocodile was turned to stone, and may now be seen in the bed of the stream, while the grateful Mongol kept his word, and also joined the church.

Among stories that date no farther back than the Spanish conquest we find the usual tales of sacred springs, of visions, and of blessed objects. The Church of the Holy Infant, in the city of Cebu, contains an image of the Christ child, about fifteen inches in height, carved in ebony, preserved in much state and loaded with a profusion of ornament. The priests tell you that it was made in heaven, thrown to the earth, and found in 1565 by a soldier who recovered from an illness when he touched it. It was taken to the convent in Cebu, where the clergy emplaced it with great ceremony, and where on the 20th of January in every year it is dressed in a field marshal’s regalia, receives a field marshal’s salute, and is worshipped by thousands ofpilgrims from all parts of the archipelago. So many women wrought themselves into an insane frenzy during these January feasts that their sacred dances, which were once a part of the ceremonies, had to be stopped. When the town was burned this statue saved itself from the flames, as did the bamboo cross near the church, which is said to be the same that was erected by the monk, Martin de Rada, on the day when the Spanish landed, more than three centuries ago. Matter-of-fact historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four thousand Chinese who had settled in and about Cebu, thus reducing themselves to a wretched state, for these Spaniards had depended on the Chinese as their servants, cooks, farmers, laborers, shoemakers, and tailors. It is worthy of note that other missionaries had shown activity, but with less result, for their methods had been more conciliatory. The Mahometanism that had been introduced by Moslem preachers from Arabia got no farther than Sulu, and the Confucianism imported by Chinamen seems to have obtained no permanent hold. Throughall changes the Holy Child remained uninjured, and he continues his good work to this day.

When the Sulu pirates had fallen upon a year of such bad business that they reaped a profit of barely fifty per cent, on their investment in ships and weapons, there was great discontent among them. Prizes were few and defeats occasional. Looking back on their highest hill, as they sailed away, and fearing that when they returned it might be with but half a cargo of gold and rum and Christians, so many of them wept for the misery of this thought that to this day the height is known as Buat Timantangis, or Mount of Tears. In one dull season, when the pirates were almost mutinous because of their continued ill-fortune, it occurred to one of the captains that an image to which the Christians prayed so earnestly and with such good effect might do as much for him as for some other natives. In his barbarian mind there was no absurdity in trying to persuade a gentle Virgin or a pure-minded Saint to deliver into his hands the goods and persons of those who knelt before their effigies. A sacred image was “good medicine” for Spaniards and Tagalogs, and should, therefore, be good medicine for Mahometans. Thus, he bethought him of the statue now known as the Virgin of Antipolo, that came from Spain by way of Mexico in charge of early missionaries. To think was to act. He raided the village where it had been enshrined and attempted to carry it off; but the statue had warned the faithful of its peril, andthe marauders were met and driven off by a powerful force. The Virgin of Antipolo became one of the most influential of all the guardians of the islands, and to this day is especially besought by mothers who ask for her intercession on behalf of their sickly children. Holy water taken from her shrine will cure the sufferer, and the mother then performs a public penance in thankfulness. Before the American arrival, with its sudden imposition of new ideas on an old society, it was no uncommon thing to see on Good Friday a company of the richest women in Manila, poorly attired and with bare feet, dragging through the streets a heavy cross thirty feet in length. This was in fulfilment of vows they had made at the shrine of Antipolo.

This Virgin of Antipolo is likewise known as Our Lady of Good Voyage and Peace. She arrived from Mexico in a state galleon in 1626. On the voyage she calmed a storm so quickly that the priests proclaimed her special sanctity, and ordered her to be received in Manila with salutes of bells and guns. While the Jesuits were building a church for her she would often descend from her temporary altar and stand in an antipolo tree (Astocarpus incisa). People cut pieces from this tree for charms against disease and misfortune, until Father Salazar ordered that the trunk should be its pedestal. In an early rebellion the Chinese insurgents threw the statue into the fire. Flames were all about it, yet not a hair, not a thread of lace was singed, and the body of brass wasunmarked by smoke. Angered at this defiance of their power, a Chinaman stabbed it in the face, and, curiously, the wound remains to this day in protest against the savagery that incited it. When for a second time the Virgin passed unscathed through a conflagration the Spanish infantry bore her on their shoulders about the streets, shouting in the joy of her protection. A galleon having been endangered by rocks and bars in Manila Bay, the captain borrowed this statue, prayed that it would secure the safety of his ship, and, to the wonder of all, his vessel rode proudly up to the city gates, for the Virgin had ordered that the rocks should sink deeper beneath the sea. Twice afterward she did a like service to captains who borrowed the figure as a safeguard on the long voyage to Mexico and back, for each time she suppressed great storms. At the time of the assault on Manila by the Dutch she assisted in the defeat of the strangers, though St. Mark was associated with her in the victory. He had told the governor in a dream that success should attend the Spanish arms if his people would carry the Virgin into the fight. This was done, and the Dutch lost three ships with their cargoes. She was finally domiciled in the town of Antipolo, which, beside being famous as a shrine, has been one of the most noted resorts for brigands in the Philippines. The village of four thousand people subsists largely on the money spent by pilgrims to her church.

Every family in the Christian communities has alittle statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them.

Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp.

Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of theChurch, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,—a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter’s children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.

Alitagtag, north of Bauan, became in 1595 a resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evilspirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the fields, surrounded by bright lights. Thereupon the clergy ordered that it should be adored, and from that time it became an object of worship, healing diseases, dispelling plagues, and killing locusts. When the priests at Bauan announced that they intended to move the cross to Lake Bombon, the priest of Taal, being jealous of his brothers in the other town, hired some natives to steal it and take it to his house. No sooner had the men assembled for this purpose than sheets of green fire fell about the cross, defending it from their approach, and in a frenzy of contrition they ran back, solemnly vowing that they would never make a similar attempt again. The cross was, therefore, taken to Bauan, where it did service for the people by terrorizing a band of pirates and by stopping an eruption of the Taal volcano in 1611. This peak of Taal had been a resort of devils from time immemorial, and it had been a frequent duty of the Church to pray them into silence. In the year just named Father Albuquerque headed a procession that ascended the mountain for this purpose. Near the summit he paused and lifted the cup containing the blood of Christ. Dreadful noises were heard, like the laughter of ten thousand fiends, in vaults below. Then, with a groan and crash, the earth split and two craters appeared, one filled with boiling sulphur, the other with green water. The cross was sent for. It was brought by four hundred natives. When itwas put into the priest’s hands he lifted it toward the sky and all united in prayer. During this petition, while every head was bent and all eyes were shut, the craters softly closed and Taal was as it had been before. Yet the demons still linger about the mountain. Not many years ago an Englishman tunnelled the peak for sulphur. The fiends of the volcano shook the roof down on his head and he perished. In May it has been a custom to hold a feast in honor of this cross, if the natives furnish the necessary candles and raise ten dollars for the officiating priest.

Bangi, in Ilocos Norte, had a shrine in which was the image of a child with a lamb. Herbs pressed against it would cure all diseases. For years a dispute was carried on between clerical factions as to whether it represented St. John the Baptist or Christ. Bishop Miguel Garcia, having undressed it and examined it thoroughly, decided it to be a Chinese idol. Thereupon it was broken and burned as a thing unholy.

Our Lady of Casaysay, in Batangas, is so esteemed that ships salute her in passing. She was found by a fisherman in his net. He took her to a cave, not knowing what to make of his strange find, and intending to keep her there probably as a treasure not to be shared by his neighbors. She astonished and disappointed him by proclaiming herself with flashing lights of beautiful color and with loud music. As these demonstrations frightened the peaceable rustics, the Virgin left her cave, visited a nativewoman, spoke kindly to her, and was thereupon provided with a shrine, where she might be adored with proper ceremony.

The statue of St. Joaquin at Gusi is remarkable because every year it runs away and spends two weeks with its wooden wife, the figure of St. Ann, at Molo.

Manila once had a saint that wagged its head approvingly at certain points in the sermon. This conduct drove so many women into hysterics, and crowded the church so dangerously with people who went to see the miracle, that the archbishop discountenanced its action, and ordered that it should be quiet thereafter. Quiet was easily secured by cutting the string attached to the saint’s neck. The padre was accustomed to pull this during his discourse whenever he wished his congregation to believe that the saints approved his eloquence or endorsed his doctrine.

Holy water from the Conception district of Panay saves life, and San Pascual Bailon cures barrenness. A Manila milkman who was punished for selling watered milk expressed surprise at the complaints of his customers, because no wrong had been committed, inasmuch as he had used nothing but holy water, which was far superior to milk. Water from the prison well at Iloilo was held at so high a value that the prison-keeper made a fortune from it, as it was given out that Christ and the Virgin had been seen bathing in the well. Our Lady of the HolyWaters presides over the hot springs below Maquiling Mountain, an old crater. Another popular place of pilgrimage is the shrine at Tagbauang, near Iloilo, where illnesses are cured at a high mass in January.

One of the last recorded appearances of the Virgin was in 1884, when a band of robbers in Tayabas killed a plantation manager, wounded several laborers, and ransacked the house of the owner. While in one of the bedrooms tying clothes, jewelry, and other loot into parcels for removal, the Virgin appeared, and standing in the door looked with severity and distress on the bandits. They immediately left their plunder and ran pell-mell from the building. Some of these robbers were arrested, but the Virgin had compassion on them for leaving the proceeds of their raid, so none was garroted or even sentenced. Some go so far as to say that the Virgin had nothing to do with their escape from punishment, alleging that the officers of the law had conspired with them, and that the Spanish courts were even worse than those of a land that shall be nameless in respect of their slowness and the facilities they offered for adjournments, retrials, and appeals on grounds that if presented in any other cause than that of a breaker of the law would be laughed to scorn. Filipino bandits often wear medals of the Virgin and saints to protect them from harm, and some are made bold by confidence in their protection. It is a belief of theirs that they will never be punished for any crime they may commit in Easter week, for the rather obscurereason that Christ pardoned the thief on the cross on Good Friday.

A curious chapel on a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving an answer, prayed volubly to the Christians’ God as he swam toward the shore, and promised to erect a chapel in return for his life. His prayer was answered, for the crocodile was turned to stone, and may now be seen in the bed of the stream, while the grateful Mongol kept his word, and also joined the church.

Bankiva, the Philippine Pied PiperOf nearly six hundred species of birds in the Philippines the jungle fowl, or bankiva, is best known, and is both killed and domesticated. Unlike the dove, it does not understand human speech, but it has a power over our kind that is exercised by no other animal. Once a year the spirits grant to it this power of charming, in order that both spirits and birds may be revenged on men, their constant enemies. When that day comes the Luzon mother tremblingly gathers her little ones about her and warns them not to leave their door, for young ears heed the strange, sweet music of the fowl’s voice, which grown people cannot hear. On that day thebird sings with a new note, and the flock of bankivas choose the largest, handsomest of their number to lead the march of children. On the edge of the village he gives his song, and every toddler runs delightedly to see what causes the music. Babes respond with soft, cooing notes, and will go on hands and knees if they can. They find the bankivas gathered in a little ring, spreading their tails and wings, dancing and singing in harmony, the head bird setting the air. When the children have gathered, they, too, begin to dance and sing, following the birds as they go deeper and deeper into the wood. Night falls, and with a harsh cry the bankivas fly away in all directions. The children are as if awakened from a sleep. They do not know where they are, and cannot tell which way to turn. Jungles and swamps are about them, man-eating crocodiles are watching from the water, poisonous and strangling snakes are gliding about the brush, the pythons that loop themselves from overhanging limbs are sometimes thrice the length of a man. Dread and danger are on every hand. And at home the mothers sit crying. Sometimes, though rarely, a man or woman totters back to a village bearing marks of great age, and is sure that he or she left there only the night before. These wanderers do not know where they have been. They remember only that the bankiva sang sweetly, and they followed it, as the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper.

Of nearly six hundred species of birds in the Philippines the jungle fowl, or bankiva, is best known, and is both killed and domesticated. Unlike the dove, it does not understand human speech, but it has a power over our kind that is exercised by no other animal. Once a year the spirits grant to it this power of charming, in order that both spirits and birds may be revenged on men, their constant enemies. When that day comes the Luzon mother tremblingly gathers her little ones about her and warns them not to leave their door, for young ears heed the strange, sweet music of the fowl’s voice, which grown people cannot hear. On that day thebird sings with a new note, and the flock of bankivas choose the largest, handsomest of their number to lead the march of children. On the edge of the village he gives his song, and every toddler runs delightedly to see what causes the music. Babes respond with soft, cooing notes, and will go on hands and knees if they can. They find the bankivas gathered in a little ring, spreading their tails and wings, dancing and singing in harmony, the head bird setting the air. When the children have gathered, they, too, begin to dance and sing, following the birds as they go deeper and deeper into the wood. Night falls, and with a harsh cry the bankivas fly away in all directions. The children are as if awakened from a sleep. They do not know where they are, and cannot tell which way to turn. Jungles and swamps are about them, man-eating crocodiles are watching from the water, poisonous and strangling snakes are gliding about the brush, the pythons that loop themselves from overhanging limbs are sometimes thrice the length of a man. Dread and danger are on every hand. And at home the mothers sit crying. Sometimes, though rarely, a man or woman totters back to a village bearing marks of great age, and is sure that he or she left there only the night before. These wanderers do not know where they have been. They remember only that the bankiva sang sweetly, and they followed it, as the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper.

The Crab Tried to Eat the MoonAmong the fantastic stories told of snakes, water-buffalo, birds, and sharks are several that have obvious meaning. The crab figures in certain of these tales as the cause of the tides. He was an enormous creature and lived in a great hole in the bottom of a distant sea, whence he crawled twice a day, the water pouring into the hollow then, and leaving low water on the coast. When he settled back again the water was forced out and the tide was high. The relation of tides to the moon may have introduced this creature in another aspect as the moon’s enemy and cause of her eclipse, for it is related that one evening a Filipino princess walking on a beach saw with astonishment an island that had never been visible on the sea before. Her emotion was that of alarm when she saw the island approach the shore, and she hid in the shrubbery to watch. Presently she could make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people of the princess were holding a feast with songs and dances. Would they hear a signal? She placed her conch-shell horn ather lips and blew with all her strength. The monster still gnashed and grasped in expectancy at the sea’s edge, and a breeze brought through the wood a faint sound of drums. Her people had not heard. Again she blew. This time the woods were still. Her people were listening. A third blast followed, and in a few minutes the warriors swarmed upon the beach with knives, swords, and lances. While the princess was explaining to them the moon’s peril the crab made a leap into the air and darkened its face, causing an eclipse, but failing to get a hold it dropped back to the beach again, where the people fell upon it, the princess leading the attack with the war-call of her tribe. As the crab turned to see what had befallen, the princess slashed off his great left claw. With the other it crushed a soldier, but again her cresse fell and the right claw fell likewise. Then a hundred men rushed upon the creature, prodding their spears into joints of his legs and the dividing line between his back plate and belly. Others fell under his great bulk or were gnashed by his iron teeth, but in the end his shell was broken and the moon was safe. And often when the gentle pirate of the Sulus scoured the sea he uttered a prayer before an image of the princess for a bright night and an easy victim, for had it not been for her the crab would have swallowed the moon, and the sea would have been as dark as some kinds of a conscience.

Among the fantastic stories told of snakes, water-buffalo, birds, and sharks are several that have obvious meaning. The crab figures in certain of these tales as the cause of the tides. He was an enormous creature and lived in a great hole in the bottom of a distant sea, whence he crawled twice a day, the water pouring into the hollow then, and leaving low water on the coast. When he settled back again the water was forced out and the tide was high. The relation of tides to the moon may have introduced this creature in another aspect as the moon’s enemy and cause of her eclipse, for it is related that one evening a Filipino princess walking on a beach saw with astonishment an island that had never been visible on the sea before. Her emotion was that of alarm when she saw the island approach the shore, and she hid in the shrubbery to watch. Presently she could make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people of the princess were holding a feast with songs and dances. Would they hear a signal? She placed her conch-shell horn ather lips and blew with all her strength. The monster still gnashed and grasped in expectancy at the sea’s edge, and a breeze brought through the wood a faint sound of drums. Her people had not heard. Again she blew. This time the woods were still. Her people were listening. A third blast followed, and in a few minutes the warriors swarmed upon the beach with knives, swords, and lances. While the princess was explaining to them the moon’s peril the crab made a leap into the air and darkened its face, causing an eclipse, but failing to get a hold it dropped back to the beach again, where the people fell upon it, the princess leading the attack with the war-call of her tribe. As the crab turned to see what had befallen, the princess slashed off his great left claw. With the other it crushed a soldier, but again her cresse fell and the right claw fell likewise. Then a hundred men rushed upon the creature, prodding their spears into joints of his legs and the dividing line between his back plate and belly. Others fell under his great bulk or were gnashed by his iron teeth, but in the end his shell was broken and the moon was safe. And often when the gentle pirate of the Sulus scoured the sea he uttered a prayer before an image of the princess for a bright night and an easy victim, for had it not been for her the crab would have swallowed the moon, and the sea would have been as dark as some kinds of a conscience.

The Conversion of AmambarWhile roving over the waters that covered the earth the sun god saw the nymph Ursula sporting in the waves, and was smitten with a quick and mighty fondness. He nearly consumed himself in the ardor of his affection. She, however, was as cold and pure as the sea. As she swung drowsily on the billows she was like a picture painted in foam on their blue-green depth, and in breathing her bosom rose and fell like the waves themselves. As she saw the god descending she was filled with alarm, but as he took her into his strong embrace and placed his cheek to hers a new life and warmth came to her, and in their marriage the spirits of the air and water rejoiced. A son was born to them,—so beautiful a boy that the sun god made a land for him, stocked it with living creatures, adorned it with greenery and flowers, and gave it to the human race as an inheritance of joy forever. This land he called Cebu, and no land was more lovely. Lupa was the child, and from him came all the kings of Cebu, among them Amambar, the first chief of the island of whom we have definite record. In the day of his rule the group had long been peopled, and the use of tools and weapons had become known. One occasionally finds to-day the stone arrows and axes they called “lightning teeth,” and with which they worked such harm to one another in their many wars.It was an evening of March, 1521, a calm andpleasant evening, with the perfume of flowers mixed with the tonic tang of the ocean, birds flying and monkeys chattering in the wood, and a gentle surf whispering upon the beach. Amambar was walking on the shore alone. He had gone there to watch the gambols of the mermaids, when a great light whitened against the sunset. It came from a cross that had been planted just out of reach of the sea. He put his hands before his eyes that it might not dazzle him. Then, as the moon arose, he peered beneath his hands, out over the restless water, and there, against the golden globe that was lifting over the edge of the world, could be seen a flock of monster birds with gray wings, and dark men walking on their backs as they lightly rode the billows, the men sparkling and glinting as they moved, for they were arrayed in metal and bore long knives and lances that flashed like stars. Other of the company wore black robes and sang in unknown words, their voices mixing in a music never heard by Amambar before. A sparkling white cloud drooped slowly from the sky. A diamond vapor played about the cross. Out of the cloud came a melodious voice saying, “Look up, O chief!” And looking at the cross again, he saw, extended there, a bleeding figure with a compassionate face that gazed down upon him and declared, “I am Jesus Christ, son of the only God. Those whom you see in the ships are my people, who have come to these islands to rule you for your good.” Amambar fell prone on the sand and prayed for along time, not daring to open his eyes. When he regained courage and arose the cloud was gone; the ships had sailed away. He was alone.The commander of the ships was Magellan. It was one of his monks who had placed the cross on shore. Landing in Cebu later, he converted two thousand of the natives in a day by destroying the statue of Vishnu and putting that of the child Jesus in its place, though he still yielded to savage opinion in so far as he consented to confirm his friendship with the king by a heathen ceremony, each opening a vein in his arm and drinking the blood of the other. As usual, the appearance and ways of the Europeans smote the natives with wonder. They described the strangers as enormous men with long noses, who dressed in fine robes, ate stones (ship-bread), drank fire from sticks (pipes), and breathed out the smoke, commanded thunder and lightning from metal tubes, and were gods. Engaging in a wrangle between two tribes, Magellan was lured into a marsh at Mactan, and there, while watching a battle to see how great the Filipinos could be in war, he was slain with bamboo lances sharpened and hardened in fire. Amambar’s Christianity did not endure, for he so wearied of the oppression and rapacity of the strangers that when a successor to Magellan appeared he invited him to a banquet and slew him at his meat. But the cross and the statue of Christ worked miracles among the faithful for many generations.

While roving over the waters that covered the earth the sun god saw the nymph Ursula sporting in the waves, and was smitten with a quick and mighty fondness. He nearly consumed himself in the ardor of his affection. She, however, was as cold and pure as the sea. As she swung drowsily on the billows she was like a picture painted in foam on their blue-green depth, and in breathing her bosom rose and fell like the waves themselves. As she saw the god descending she was filled with alarm, but as he took her into his strong embrace and placed his cheek to hers a new life and warmth came to her, and in their marriage the spirits of the air and water rejoiced. A son was born to them,—so beautiful a boy that the sun god made a land for him, stocked it with living creatures, adorned it with greenery and flowers, and gave it to the human race as an inheritance of joy forever. This land he called Cebu, and no land was more lovely. Lupa was the child, and from him came all the kings of Cebu, among them Amambar, the first chief of the island of whom we have definite record. In the day of his rule the group had long been peopled, and the use of tools and weapons had become known. One occasionally finds to-day the stone arrows and axes they called “lightning teeth,” and with which they worked such harm to one another in their many wars.

It was an evening of March, 1521, a calm andpleasant evening, with the perfume of flowers mixed with the tonic tang of the ocean, birds flying and monkeys chattering in the wood, and a gentle surf whispering upon the beach. Amambar was walking on the shore alone. He had gone there to watch the gambols of the mermaids, when a great light whitened against the sunset. It came from a cross that had been planted just out of reach of the sea. He put his hands before his eyes that it might not dazzle him. Then, as the moon arose, he peered beneath his hands, out over the restless water, and there, against the golden globe that was lifting over the edge of the world, could be seen a flock of monster birds with gray wings, and dark men walking on their backs as they lightly rode the billows, the men sparkling and glinting as they moved, for they were arrayed in metal and bore long knives and lances that flashed like stars. Other of the company wore black robes and sang in unknown words, their voices mixing in a music never heard by Amambar before. A sparkling white cloud drooped slowly from the sky. A diamond vapor played about the cross. Out of the cloud came a melodious voice saying, “Look up, O chief!” And looking at the cross again, he saw, extended there, a bleeding figure with a compassionate face that gazed down upon him and declared, “I am Jesus Christ, son of the only God. Those whom you see in the ships are my people, who have come to these islands to rule you for your good.” Amambar fell prone on the sand and prayed for along time, not daring to open his eyes. When he regained courage and arose the cloud was gone; the ships had sailed away. He was alone.

The commander of the ships was Magellan. It was one of his monks who had placed the cross on shore. Landing in Cebu later, he converted two thousand of the natives in a day by destroying the statue of Vishnu and putting that of the child Jesus in its place, though he still yielded to savage opinion in so far as he consented to confirm his friendship with the king by a heathen ceremony, each opening a vein in his arm and drinking the blood of the other. As usual, the appearance and ways of the Europeans smote the natives with wonder. They described the strangers as enormous men with long noses, who dressed in fine robes, ate stones (ship-bread), drank fire from sticks (pipes), and breathed out the smoke, commanded thunder and lightning from metal tubes, and were gods. Engaging in a wrangle between two tribes, Magellan was lured into a marsh at Mactan, and there, while watching a battle to see how great the Filipinos could be in war, he was slain with bamboo lances sharpened and hardened in fire. Amambar’s Christianity did not endure, for he so wearied of the oppression and rapacity of the strangers that when a successor to Magellan appeared he invited him to a banquet and slew him at his meat. But the cross and the statue of Christ worked miracles among the faithful for many generations.

The Bedevilled Galleon“Sing hey, sing ho! The wind doth blow,And I’ll meet my love in the morning,”Sang the lookout, as he paced the forecastle of the galleon Rose of May, and peered about for signs of land against the dawn. Not that he expected to meet his love in the morning, nor for many mornings, but he had been up in his off-watch and was getting drowsy, so that he sang to keep himself awake. His was one of the first among the English ships to follow in Magellan’s track. The Philippines, or the Manillas, as they were called, had been almost reached, and it was expected that Mindanao would be sighted at break of day off the starboard bow.“Hello, forward!” bawled the man at the helm.“Ay, ay!” sang the lookout.“What d’ye make o’ yonder light?”“Light? What d’ye mean, man?” And the lookout rubbed his eyes, scanned the water close and far, and wondered if his sight was going out.“In the sky, o’ course, ye bumble-brain.”“Now, by the mass, you costard, you gave me a twist of the inwards with your lame joke.”“’Tis no joke. Will you answer?”“Why, then, ’tis the daylight, in course, and you aiming for it that steady as to drive the nose of us straight agin the sun, give he comes up where he threats to. And he’ll be here straightway, for inthese waters he comes up as he were popped outen a cohorn.”“The day! Heaven forefend! I’m holding her to the north.”“You’re holding due east. Aha! Look yonder, where the cloud is lifting. Land ho!”“Where away?” cried a mate, roused out of a forbidden doze by this talk, and blundering up to the roof of the after-castle.“Port bow, sir.”“Port bow! The fiend take us! You block! You jolterhead! Where are you fetching us?”“I’m holding her due to the north, sir, as you bade me,” faltered the steersman. “Look for yourself, if it please you, for ’tis light enough to read the card without the binnacle lamp. We’re sailing east by the sky and north by the needle. The ship’s bedevilled!”“Hold your peace, or you’ll have the crew in a fright. Head her around eight points to port, and keep her west by the card.”“Lights in, sir? The sun is up,” called the lookout.“Yes.” And the mate added in a lower tone, “’Tis the first time ever the sun came up in the north.”“What’s all this gabble?” grumbled the captain, thrusting his red and whiskered face out of the cabin. “Can’t a man have his rest when you keep the watch, Master Roaker?”“Pray, captain, come and look at the compass. Do you see the lay o’ the needle? We’re sailing west to hold north, or else the sun has missed stays over night and come up in the north himself.”“Hi, hi! That’s parlous odd. Keep her as you have her, and have out Bill, the carpenter, to see if there’s any iron overside. Nay, let her off a little more, for that’s a hard-looking piece of shore out yonder, for all of the palms and green stuff.”The watch was changed presently, the captain preferring to take the biscuit and spirits that were his breakfast on the deck. He went to the compass every minute or so, looked curiously at the draw of the sails and studied the water alongside. The carpenter had reported all sound, with no iron out of place to deflect the needle. There was a grave look on the faces of the officers, and the men talked low together as they watched them.“Strange-looking hill out yonder,” remarked a mate. “Not a tree on it, nor any green thing. ’Tis black and shining enough for the devil’s grave-stone.”“Have done with your gossip of devils,” snorted the other mate. “You’re as evil a man for a ship’s company as a whistler. You’ll be calling ill luck on us to name the fiend so often.”“Looks like shoal water forward, sir,” called the new lookout.“Right! Head her away to port yet farther. Look you, fellow, have you no inkling of your business?You’ll have us all ashore. Mary, mother! Give me the helm!” With sweat bursting from his brow the captain caught the tiller and put it hard over. The ship shook a bit, swerved, yet made side-wise toward the green patch on the sea. The land was looming large now.“’Tis not in the rudder to keep her off, sir,” called a mate who had gone forward. “’Tis the leeway she is making.”“There’s a scant breeze.”“Ay, but there must be a fearsome current.”“I see no sign of it. This water is smooth as any pond.”“But you see for yourself, she’s gaining on the shore. Look, now, how we’re passing that patch o’ water-weed.”“I think hell is under us. Have up the clerk and put him at prayers, and you fellows take in sail—each rag of it—that if we strike we may go easy. Call all hands. See that the boats are clear. She minds her helm no more than a straw. God help us!”The galleon was at the edge of the shoal spot now, and all held their breath, expecting to hear the grinding of the keel on a bank; but, no, she floated in safety.“Sound!” commanded the captain. “There may be anchorage.”“Four fathom,” called the sailor at the lead after he had made his cast.“Stand by to let go. We’ll tie up here till thetide turns or the spell’s worked out. Alive—alive, there! Get that anchor overboard.”“It be wedged agin the bulwark, captain, and needs another pair o’ hands.”“Forward all! Why, you lump, the flukes are clear. What ails you? Lift all. There!”With an united heave the sailors raised the barbed iron and cast it over the side. The faces of all dripped and went white, and their knees bent then, for the anchor flew from their hands and struck the sea quite twenty feet away,—in deep water, for the shoal was passed,—and the chain paid out like rope as the iron sank, yet not straight down. It rattled off toward the shore.“We’ve had krakens and mermaids and all variety of horrid beasts,” said one old tar, with his jaw a-shaking, “and now the foul fiend has that anchor, and is pulling us ashore with it.”The chain had run out to its length, but the anchor had found no bottom. A cracking and grinding of the links could be heard, as if a tug of war were going on between two giants that had this chain between them. Bits of rust powdered off, and the strain was tearing splinters from the timbers. A loud snap,—the chain had parted. Down went the anchor, but again not straight,—off toward the land, and one free link of the chain shot as if from a gun straight toward the shore, whizzing with ever-increasing speed until it was out of sight. The men looked at one another in amaze.“Get up the stores,” shouted the captain, “and be ready all to quit the ship.” He added to his mates, “A half hour’s the longest we can hope for. The Rose of May will be on the black cliff by that. Is the clerk praying? Good! We may get away in the boats, but we’ll end our days here in the Manillas. Alack, my Betsy! I’ll never look into her eyes again.”“She’s down a little by the head, an’t please you,” cried a sailor, running aft.“Ease her a little, then. Toss over some of the dunnage.”“Lor’! Lor’! Spare us all this day!” yelled a sailor a minute later.“What is it?”“I tried to put my knife on the rail here, while I gripped the line I was to cut, when it tugged at my hand like a live thing. In a fright I let go, and away it flew toward the shore. Oh, we’ve reached the Devil’s country. Why ever did I leave England?”“How of the compass?”“It points steady to that rock.”“Master captain! Master captain!” shouted the steward, running upon deck. “The fiend is in the after-castle, for the pans and the knives and a blunderbuss and two cutlasses that were loose have leaped against the forward panelling and stick there as if rivets were through them. ’Tis wizard’s work. Let us pray, all.”A sudden commotion was seen among the sailors at that moment. The cannon balls had rolled forward to the break of the forecastle, and the two guns themselves—the ship’s armament against the pirates of China and Sulu—were straining at their stays.“Heave over the shot. It’ll lighten her,” ordered the captain.The crew obeyed, but after the first of the balls had been lifted over the bulwarks, they had scarce the strength to cast out the rest, for amazement overcame them on seeing the shot plucked from the man’s hands and blown through the air as if sent from its gun toward the rock. The ship was leaping through the water, though the breeze was from the land. One after another the men fell on their knees and prayed loudly, the captain last of all. Suddenly he looked up, with a wondering flash in his eyes. He sprang to his feet, plucked an iron belaying-pin from its ledge, held it up, felt it pull, let go, and saw it whirl away like a leaf in a cyclone. He looked at the compass; the needle pointed straight toward the black and glistening cliff now lowering not more than half a mile ahead.“It’s the guns,” he shrieked. “Up with you. Cut away the lashings. Stave down the bulwarks. Let them go.”In the panic there was no stopping to argue or to question. The guns were freed, and they, too, went hurtling through the air, striking the rock with a clang. The captain leaped to the helm and put ithard a-starboard. The ship’s pace slackened, she curved gracefully around, and headed from the threatening coast. “Shake out all sail, lads, for we’re free at last, by God’s good grace.”Though trembling and confused, the sailors managed to hoist sail, and on a gentle wind from the east they left that coast never more to venture near it. The captain’s face lost its knots and seams, by slow degrees the color of it returned,—a color painted upon it, especially about the nose, by many winds, much sunshine, and uncounted bottles of strong waters. He wiped his brow and drew a big breath. “It comes to me, now,” he said. “We’ve not been bewitched. That hill beyond, that’s robbed us of our guns and anchor, is a magnet,—the biggest in the world.”In an earthquake, several years later, the magnet-mountain disappeared.

“Sing hey, sing ho! The wind doth blow,And I’ll meet my love in the morning,”

“Sing hey, sing ho! The wind doth blow,

And I’ll meet my love in the morning,”

Sang the lookout, as he paced the forecastle of the galleon Rose of May, and peered about for signs of land against the dawn. Not that he expected to meet his love in the morning, nor for many mornings, but he had been up in his off-watch and was getting drowsy, so that he sang to keep himself awake. His was one of the first among the English ships to follow in Magellan’s track. The Philippines, or the Manillas, as they were called, had been almost reached, and it was expected that Mindanao would be sighted at break of day off the starboard bow.

“Hello, forward!” bawled the man at the helm.

“Ay, ay!” sang the lookout.

“What d’ye make o’ yonder light?”

“Light? What d’ye mean, man?” And the lookout rubbed his eyes, scanned the water close and far, and wondered if his sight was going out.

“In the sky, o’ course, ye bumble-brain.”

“Now, by the mass, you costard, you gave me a twist of the inwards with your lame joke.”

“’Tis no joke. Will you answer?”

“Why, then, ’tis the daylight, in course, and you aiming for it that steady as to drive the nose of us straight agin the sun, give he comes up where he threats to. And he’ll be here straightway, for inthese waters he comes up as he were popped outen a cohorn.”

“The day! Heaven forefend! I’m holding her to the north.”

“You’re holding due east. Aha! Look yonder, where the cloud is lifting. Land ho!”

“Where away?” cried a mate, roused out of a forbidden doze by this talk, and blundering up to the roof of the after-castle.

“Port bow, sir.”

“Port bow! The fiend take us! You block! You jolterhead! Where are you fetching us?”

“I’m holding her due to the north, sir, as you bade me,” faltered the steersman. “Look for yourself, if it please you, for ’tis light enough to read the card without the binnacle lamp. We’re sailing east by the sky and north by the needle. The ship’s bedevilled!”

“Hold your peace, or you’ll have the crew in a fright. Head her around eight points to port, and keep her west by the card.”

“Lights in, sir? The sun is up,” called the lookout.

“Yes.” And the mate added in a lower tone, “’Tis the first time ever the sun came up in the north.”

“What’s all this gabble?” grumbled the captain, thrusting his red and whiskered face out of the cabin. “Can’t a man have his rest when you keep the watch, Master Roaker?”

“Pray, captain, come and look at the compass. Do you see the lay o’ the needle? We’re sailing west to hold north, or else the sun has missed stays over night and come up in the north himself.”

“Hi, hi! That’s parlous odd. Keep her as you have her, and have out Bill, the carpenter, to see if there’s any iron overside. Nay, let her off a little more, for that’s a hard-looking piece of shore out yonder, for all of the palms and green stuff.”

The watch was changed presently, the captain preferring to take the biscuit and spirits that were his breakfast on the deck. He went to the compass every minute or so, looked curiously at the draw of the sails and studied the water alongside. The carpenter had reported all sound, with no iron out of place to deflect the needle. There was a grave look on the faces of the officers, and the men talked low together as they watched them.

“Strange-looking hill out yonder,” remarked a mate. “Not a tree on it, nor any green thing. ’Tis black and shining enough for the devil’s grave-stone.”

“Have done with your gossip of devils,” snorted the other mate. “You’re as evil a man for a ship’s company as a whistler. You’ll be calling ill luck on us to name the fiend so often.”

“Looks like shoal water forward, sir,” called the new lookout.

“Right! Head her away to port yet farther. Look you, fellow, have you no inkling of your business?You’ll have us all ashore. Mary, mother! Give me the helm!” With sweat bursting from his brow the captain caught the tiller and put it hard over. The ship shook a bit, swerved, yet made side-wise toward the green patch on the sea. The land was looming large now.

“’Tis not in the rudder to keep her off, sir,” called a mate who had gone forward. “’Tis the leeway she is making.”

“There’s a scant breeze.”

“Ay, but there must be a fearsome current.”

“I see no sign of it. This water is smooth as any pond.”

“But you see for yourself, she’s gaining on the shore. Look, now, how we’re passing that patch o’ water-weed.”

“I think hell is under us. Have up the clerk and put him at prayers, and you fellows take in sail—each rag of it—that if we strike we may go easy. Call all hands. See that the boats are clear. She minds her helm no more than a straw. God help us!”

The galleon was at the edge of the shoal spot now, and all held their breath, expecting to hear the grinding of the keel on a bank; but, no, she floated in safety.

“Sound!” commanded the captain. “There may be anchorage.”

“Four fathom,” called the sailor at the lead after he had made his cast.

“Stand by to let go. We’ll tie up here till thetide turns or the spell’s worked out. Alive—alive, there! Get that anchor overboard.”

“It be wedged agin the bulwark, captain, and needs another pair o’ hands.”

“Forward all! Why, you lump, the flukes are clear. What ails you? Lift all. There!”

With an united heave the sailors raised the barbed iron and cast it over the side. The faces of all dripped and went white, and their knees bent then, for the anchor flew from their hands and struck the sea quite twenty feet away,—in deep water, for the shoal was passed,—and the chain paid out like rope as the iron sank, yet not straight down. It rattled off toward the shore.

“We’ve had krakens and mermaids and all variety of horrid beasts,” said one old tar, with his jaw a-shaking, “and now the foul fiend has that anchor, and is pulling us ashore with it.”

The chain had run out to its length, but the anchor had found no bottom. A cracking and grinding of the links could be heard, as if a tug of war were going on between two giants that had this chain between them. Bits of rust powdered off, and the strain was tearing splinters from the timbers. A loud snap,—the chain had parted. Down went the anchor, but again not straight,—off toward the land, and one free link of the chain shot as if from a gun straight toward the shore, whizzing with ever-increasing speed until it was out of sight. The men looked at one another in amaze.

“Get up the stores,” shouted the captain, “and be ready all to quit the ship.” He added to his mates, “A half hour’s the longest we can hope for. The Rose of May will be on the black cliff by that. Is the clerk praying? Good! We may get away in the boats, but we’ll end our days here in the Manillas. Alack, my Betsy! I’ll never look into her eyes again.”

“She’s down a little by the head, an’t please you,” cried a sailor, running aft.

“Ease her a little, then. Toss over some of the dunnage.”

“Lor’! Lor’! Spare us all this day!” yelled a sailor a minute later.

“What is it?”

“I tried to put my knife on the rail here, while I gripped the line I was to cut, when it tugged at my hand like a live thing. In a fright I let go, and away it flew toward the shore. Oh, we’ve reached the Devil’s country. Why ever did I leave England?”

“How of the compass?”

“It points steady to that rock.”

“Master captain! Master captain!” shouted the steward, running upon deck. “The fiend is in the after-castle, for the pans and the knives and a blunderbuss and two cutlasses that were loose have leaped against the forward panelling and stick there as if rivets were through them. ’Tis wizard’s work. Let us pray, all.”

A sudden commotion was seen among the sailors at that moment. The cannon balls had rolled forward to the break of the forecastle, and the two guns themselves—the ship’s armament against the pirates of China and Sulu—were straining at their stays.

“Heave over the shot. It’ll lighten her,” ordered the captain.

The crew obeyed, but after the first of the balls had been lifted over the bulwarks, they had scarce the strength to cast out the rest, for amazement overcame them on seeing the shot plucked from the man’s hands and blown through the air as if sent from its gun toward the rock. The ship was leaping through the water, though the breeze was from the land. One after another the men fell on their knees and prayed loudly, the captain last of all. Suddenly he looked up, with a wondering flash in his eyes. He sprang to his feet, plucked an iron belaying-pin from its ledge, held it up, felt it pull, let go, and saw it whirl away like a leaf in a cyclone. He looked at the compass; the needle pointed straight toward the black and glistening cliff now lowering not more than half a mile ahead.

“It’s the guns,” he shrieked. “Up with you. Cut away the lashings. Stave down the bulwarks. Let them go.”

In the panic there was no stopping to argue or to question. The guns were freed, and they, too, went hurtling through the air, striking the rock with a clang. The captain leaped to the helm and put ithard a-starboard. The ship’s pace slackened, she curved gracefully around, and headed from the threatening coast. “Shake out all sail, lads, for we’re free at last, by God’s good grace.”

Though trembling and confused, the sailors managed to hoist sail, and on a gentle wind from the east they left that coast never more to venture near it. The captain’s face lost its knots and seams, by slow degrees the color of it returned,—a color painted upon it, especially about the nose, by many winds, much sunshine, and uncounted bottles of strong waters. He wiped his brow and drew a big breath. “It comes to me, now,” he said. “We’ve not been bewitched. That hill beyond, that’s robbed us of our guns and anchor, is a magnet,—the biggest in the world.”

In an earthquake, several years later, the magnet-mountain disappeared.

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