which the house was built, to learn in that way if they
could, what the inner rooms of the temple were like.

My house was "up a tree." Up several trees, in fact. Like most of
those in Siargao it was built on posts and the sawed off trunks
of palm trees. The floor was eight feet above the ground, and we
entered by way of a ladder which at night we drew up after us, or
rather I drew up, for since Filipe slept at home, the "wise man" and
I had our house to ourselves at night. The morning the monkey came,
Filipe was prevailed upon to borrow a ladder from another house,
and burglarise my home to the extent of putting the monkey in.

I had been in Siargao for two years, as the agent of a Hong Kong firm
which was trying to build up the hemp industry there. That was before
the American occupation of the islands. The village where I lived
was the seaport. I would have been insufferably lonesome if I had
not had something to interest me in my very abundant spare time, for
during much of the year I was, or rather I had supposed I was, with the
exception of the Padre, the only white man on the island. Twice a year
the Spanish tax collector came and stayed long enough to wring every
particle of money which he possibly could out of the poor natives, and
then supplemented this by taking in addition such articles of produce
as could be easily handled, and would have a money value in Manila.

The interest which I have referred to as sustaining me was in
the plants, trees and flowers of the island. I was not a trained
naturalist, but I had a fair knowledge of commercial tropic vegetation
before I came to the island, and this had proved a good foundation
to work on. Our hemp plantation was well inland, and in going to and
from this I began to study the possibilities of the wild trees and
plants. It ended in my being able to write a very fair description of
the vegetation of this part of the archipelago, explaining how many
of the plants might be utilized for medicine or food, and the trees
for lumber, dyestuffs or food.

One who has not been there cannot begin to understand the possibilities
of the forests under the hands of a man who really knows them. One
of the first things which interested me was a bet Filipe made with
me that he could serve me a whole meal, sufficient and palatable,
and use nothing but bamboo in doing this.

The only thing Filipe asked to have to work with was a "machete,"
a sharp native sword. With this he wal