town in a banca; a puppy which tried to follow them
was eaten by a crocodile. Rizal tired to impress the evil effects of
disobedience upon the youngsters by pointing out to them the sorrow
which the mother-dog felt at the loss of her young one, and emphasized
the lesson by modeling a statuette called "The Mother's Revenge,"
wherein she is represented, in revenge, as devouring the cayman. It
is said to be a good likeness of the animal which was Doctor Rizal's
favorite companion in his many pedestrian excursions around Dapitan.
Father Francisco Sanchez, Rizal's instructor in rhetoric in the Ateneo,
made a long visit to Dapitan and brought with him some surveyor's
instruments, which his former pupil was delighted to assist him in
using. Together they ran the levels for a water system for the the
town, which was later, with the aid of the lay Jesuit, Brother Tildot,
carried to completion. This same water system is now being restored
and enlarged with artesian wells by the present insular, provincial
and municipal governments jointly, as part of the memorial to Rizal
in this place of his exile.
A visit to a not distant mountain and some digging in a spot supposed
by the people of the region to be haunted brought to light curious
relics of the first Christian converts among the early Moros.
The state of his mind at about this period of his career is indicated
by the verses written in his home in Talisay, entitled "My Retreat,"
of which the following translation has been made by Mr. Charles
Derbyshire. The scene that inspired this poem has been converted by
the government into a public park to the memory of Rizal.
My Retreat
By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine,
At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green,
I have built my hut in the pleasant grove's confine;
From the forest seeking peace and a calmness divine,
Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow keen.
Its roof the frail palm-leaf and its floor the cane,
Its beams and posts of the unhewn wood;
Little there is of value in this hut so plain,
And better by far in the lap of the mount to have lain,
By the song and the murmur of the high sea's flood.
A purling brook from the woodland glade
Drops down o'er the stones and around it sweeps,
Whence a fresh stream is drawn by the rough cane's aid;
That in the still night its murmur has made,
And in the day's heat a crystal fountain leaps.
When
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