e of a charm which I
wear upon my watch chain. The charm is a plain, gold sphere, and is,
I acknowledge, a trifle too large to be in good taste.

If those who ask me about the charm are people whom I care to trust,
I sometimes open the globe--it has a secret spring--and show them
hidden away inside, a single pearl, so large and perfect that no one
who has ever seen it has failed to marvel at its beauty. If they ask
me why I wear so regal a gem, and where I got it, I tell them that I
am not quite sure that the jewel is mine, and that if I ever find the
person who seems to have a better right to it than I, I shall give it
up. Meanwhile I like to wear the locket where I can sometimes look at
the pearl, since it is a reminder of what I think was the strangest
adventure I ever had in the Philippine Islands. And I had many queer
experiences there during the years I have journeyed up and down the
archipelago in one capacity and another.

One summer when I was collecting specimens for a great European museum,
I was living on the southeastern shore of the island of Palawan. Or
rather I was living above, or beside the shore of the island; I don't
know which word would best describe the location of my house, which,
however, one could hardly say was on the island.

The Moros who live on that side of the island which is washed by the
Sulu Sea, and who ostensibly depend upon pearl fishing for a living,
and really lived by their high-handed deeds of piracy against their
neighbors and mankind in general, inhabit odd houses which are built
on stout posts driven into the sand at the edge of the sea. The
walls of the houses are woven of bamboo, and the roofs are thatched,
like those of nearly all the native habitations, but the location is
unique. When the tide is high, the surface of the water--fortunately
the village is built over a sheltered bay--comes to within two feet
beneath the floors of the houses, and the inhabitants go ashore in
cockle-shell boats. When the tide is low the foundation posts rise
out of the mud and sand, and the people go inland on foot, dodging
piles of seaweed and similar debris, left by the receding waves.

It was one of these houses that I hired, and in it set up my household
belongings while I was at work in that part of Palawan.

The location had many advantages, for at that time I was principally
engaged in collecting corals, sponges, shell fish and similar
salt-water specimens. The natives brought me