g church bell boomed ten, and the constabulary
bugles from the other end of the town blew taps. The sound came faintly
clear on the still night air, and the tall cocoanut tree that I love
to watch from my window drooped its dim outline as if it mourned.

_October 15._ The weather remains bright and hot in spite of our
continual prayers for rain. The natives say a heavy rain and wind
will "blow the cholera away." The deaths have now swelled to more
than a hundred a day, though the disease remains largely among the
poor. Yesterday I saw a man stricken in the street. He lay on his
back quite still, but breathing in a horrible way. The bearers came
at last and carried him away on a stretcher. Two cases were taken
out of the house next door to me.

_October 16._ Ceferiana professed to be ill this morning, and I was
alarmed. I dosed her with the medicine which Dr. S---- had given me
when the epidemic first appeared, and sent for the Doctor himself. But
I discovered, before he came, that she had gotten too close a whiff
of the chloride-of-lime bag, and it nauseated her. She is more afraid
of the disinfectants than of the disease.

_October 20._ Have had to chastise Tomas, and have thus violated
Governor Taft's standards for American treatment of our brown
friends. Tomas is about forty and the father of a small boy, and
Mr. S----, who contemplates setting up a bachelor's establishment when
the epidemic is over, fondly dreams that Tomas embodies the essentials
of a cook. So Mr. S---- brought Tomas down, accompanied by his son,
a child of twelve, with the request that I train them for him. I set
them first to washing dishes, and had a struggle of a week or so's
duration in trying to adjust Tomas's conception of that labor to my
own. I particularly ordered that no refuse was to be thrown in the
yard or under the house. This rule was violated several times, and
my patience pretty well exhausted. I stepped into the kitchen this
morning just in time to see Tomas doubling over, and poking the coffee
grounds down between the bamboo slats of the flooring. The American
broom was handy, and the angle of Tomas's inclination was sufficient
to expose a large area of resisting surface. So I promptly "swatted"
Tomas with the broom with such energy that the coffeepot flew up in
the air and he tumbled over head foremost. His small boy sent up a
wail of terror; and Billy Buster, the monkey, who was discussing
a chicken bone, fled up to the tha