s, and go
back to Manila or to Spain, rich, in three or four years, it was
pretty likely to be because they had fallen victims to the hate of
the natives or to the distrust of the officials at headquarters.

"When I first went to Negros, and had occasion to go to the tribunal,
as the government house was called, I noticed some objects in one of
the rooms so odd and so different from anything I had seen anywhere
else that I asked their use. I was told that they were used for
catching men who had not paid their taxes.

"Among the various thorn-bearing plants which the swamps of the
Philippine Islands produce is one called the 'bejuco,' or 'jungle
rope.' This is a vine of no great size, but of tremendous strength,
which, near the end, divides into several slender but very tough
branches. Each of these branches is surrounded by many rings of long,
wicked, recurved thorns, as sharp and strong as steel fish-hooks, and
nearly as difficult to dislodge. The hunter who encounters a thicket
of 'bejuco' goes around it, or turns back, for it is hopeless to try
to go through. While he frees himself from the grasp of one thorn,
a dozen more have caught him somewhere else.

"The objects which I had seen in the tribunal guard room were made
of long bamboo poles, across one end of which two short pieces had
been fastened. To these cross pieces were bound a great number of the
'bejuco' vines, so arranged that the innumerable hooks which they
bore could be easily swung about in the air.

"The 'Gobernadorcillo' who was in office at the time was a man who
had no mercy on his people. Negros, with the other islands of the
group commonly known as Visayan, forms a province which is under the
supervision of a governor who has his headquarters in the island of
Cebu, where also the bishop who is the head of the see resides.

"Negros is near enough to Cebu so that the authority of the government
could be maintained better there than it could in the more distant
islands. When I was there the village of Dumaguete, the chief town
and seaport of Negros, contained a stone fort, the most imposing
probably of any outside the capital; while the garrison formed of
half-breed soldiers who were on duty there, sent down from Cebu with
the 'Gobernadorcillo,' kept the people in a degree of subjection
which in many places would have been impossible.

"The men whom the Governor employed to round up his delinquent subjects
were called 'cuadrilleros.' Sunday w