e prize up to go, no doubt,
to deck some one of the four hundred wives of the ruler who lived
across the Sulu Sea.

Poljensio was one of the best of the divers. It was at the "macasla"
festival, as I have said, that I first noticed him. For a month the
natives had talked about "macasla," and this, with what I had heard
about it before, made me anxious to see the performance. So far as I
knew I was the first American who had ever had the opportunity. It is
only rarely that the festival can be kept, because its success depends
upon the possession by the natives of the berries of a certain shrub,
which must be in just such a stage of ripeness to have the requisite
power. The plant on which the berries grow is not at all common. In
this case it was necessary to send a long way into a distant part of
the island to get the berries.

The "macasla" festival is really a great fishing expedition, in which
every man, woman and child who lives near the village where it is held
takes part. The berries are the essential element in a great mass,
composed of various ingredients mixed together; just the same as a
bit of yeast put into a pan of bread leavens the whole lot. One very
old man was said to be the only person near there who understood
just how to make the mixture. A large log which had been hollowed
out and used at one time for a canoe, was utilized as a trough to
make the mixture in. The mass was mixed up in the afternoon and left
to ferment overnight. When he had it ready the old man covered the
canoe with banana leaves and forbade any one to go near it until the
next morning. I saw several different kinds of vegetable substances
crushed up, to be put into the canoe, besides the berries; and at
last a quantity of wood ashes were added.

The next morning every one was out early, as it was necessary to begin
operations when the tide was at its very lowest point. Every one about
the village was on hand, each person bringing a loosely woven wicker
basket, into which was put a small quantity of the mixture from the
old log canoe. When all had been provided with this they walked out
as far as they could go, to where the tide was just turning. Then,
waiting until the incoming water had passed them on its way inland,
the natives, formed in a long line parallel with the shore, dropped
their baskets into the water and shook them to and fro until all of
the "macasla" had been washed out through the loose wicker work.

In about ten