d towards us with an iron
bar in his hand. In the evening gloom he must have mistaken us for
a party of weather-beaten native or Chinese traders whose skulls
he might smash in at a stroke and rifle their baggage. He halted,
however, perfectly amazed when two guards with their bayonets fixed
jumped forward in front of him. Then we got out, took him prisoner,
and the next day he was let off with a souvenir of the lash, as
there was nothing to prove that he was a brigand by profession. The
second leader of the brigand gang was shot through the lungs a week
afterwards, by the guards who were on his track, as he was jumping
from the window-opening of a hut, and there he died.

The Captain of the Civil Guard received an anonymous letter stating
where the brigand chief was hiding. This fact came to the knowledge of
the native _cuadrillero_ officer who had hitherto supplied his friend,
the brigand, with rice daily, so he hastened on before the Captain
could arrive, and imposed silence for ever on the fugitive bandit by
stabbing him in the back. Thus the _cuadrillero_ avoided the disclosure
of unpleasant facts which would have implicated himself. The prisoners
were conducted to the provincial jail, and three years afterwards,
when I made inquiries about them, I learnt that two of them had died
of their wounds, whilst not a single one had been sentenced.

The most ignorant classes believe that certain persons are possessed
of a mystic power called _anting-anting_, which preserves them from
all harm, and that the body of a man so affected is even refractory
to bullet or steel. Brigands are often captured wearing medallions of
the Virgin Mary or the Saints as a device of the _anting-anting_. In
Maragondon (Cavite), the son of a friend of mine was enabled to go
into any remote place with impunity, because he was reputed to be
possessed of this charm. Some highwaymen, too, have a curious notion
that they can escape punishment for a crime committed in Easter Week,
because the thief on the cross was pardoned his sins.

In 1885 I purchased a small estate, where there was some good wild-boar
hunting and snipe-shooting, and I had occasion to see the man who
was tenant previous to my purchase, in Manila Jail. He was accused
of having been concerned in an attack upon the town of Mariquina,
and was incarcerated for eighteen months without being definitely
convicted or acquitted. Three months after his release from prison
he was appointed