was illuminated
by the rays of the setting sun. The air had been washed clean by
the heavy rain which had poured down on us throughout the afternoon,
and the sight was one never to be forgotten.

Just at dusk we reached the little settlement of Trinidad, which had
been the capital of the Spanish _comandancia_ of Benguet, finding
that its inhabitants were in part Ilocanos and in part Igorots.

Here we were hospitably entertained by the officers of the military
post. It was so cold that one's breath showed. Major Maus improved
the opportunity to indulge in a severe chill. Finding him buried
under blankets, we asked his views as to the Benguet climate. They
were radical! It is only fair to the Major to say that the report
which he ultimately made set forth the facts fully and fairly. It
did not suit General MacArthur. Years afterward, when discussing the
climate of Benguet with Surgeon-General Sternberg, I referred to this
report and found to my amazement that he had never seen it. He caused
an investigation to be made, and it was at last resurrected from a
dusty pigeonhole.

On our arrival at Trinidad we received a letter from Mr. Otto Scheerer,
the one white resident of Benguet, inviting us to make our headquarters
at his house when we visited Baguio. Bright and early the next morning
Mr. Scheerer himself appeared on the scene and guided us to his home,
where he entertained us most hospitably during our entire stay. The
trip from Trinidad, a distance of four miles, was made over a wretched
pony trail.

We found conditions exactly as described in the Spanish report. The
country was gently rolling, its elevation ranging from forty-five
hundred to fifty-two hundred feet. The hills were covered with short,
thick grass, and with magnificent pine trees, which for the most
part grew at considerable distance from each other, while along the
streams there were wonderful tree ferns and luxuriant tangles of
beautiful tropical vegetation. It took us but a short time to decide
that here was an ideal site for a future city, if water could be
found in sufficient quantity.

We revisited each of the several springs discovered and described
by the Spanish committee, but decided that they would be inadequate
to supply a town of any great size. Mr. Scheerer now came to the
front and guided us to the very thing that we were looking for,
but had hardly dared hope to find; namely, a magnificent spring of
crystal-clear water. At that tim