sive one. The player is
blindfolded, and hops about, kicking at his bit of stone and placing it
in accordance with some mysterious rule which I have vainly sought to
acquire. The children play this in the cool, long-shadowed afternoons,
when they have returned from school, have doffed their white canvas
shoes and short socks, and have reverted to the single slip of the
country.

There is a local game of football which is played with a hollow ball
or basket of twisted rattan fibres. The players stand in a ring, and
when the ball approaches one, he swings on one heel till his back is
turned, and, glancing over his shoulder, gives it a queer backward
kick with the heel of his unoccupied foot. It requires some art to
do this, yet the ball will be kept sometimes in motion for two or
three minutes without once falling to the ground.

On moonlight nights the Filipinos make the best of their beautiful
world. The aristocrats stroll about in groups of twenty, or even
thirty, the young people snatching at the opportunity to slip into
private conversation and enjoy a little _solitude a deux_ while their
elders are engrossed in more serious topics. The common people enjoy
a wholesome romp in a game which seems to be a combination of "tag"
and "prisoner's base." Groups of serenaders stroll about with guitars
and mandolins, and altogether a most sweet and wholesome domesticity
pervades the village.

At present the nearest real bond between American and Filipino
is baseball--"playball" the Filipinos call it, having learned to
associate these words with it from the enthusiastic shouts of American
onlookers. Baseball has taken firm hold, and is here to stay. In Manila
every plot of green is given over to its devotees. Every secondary
school in the country has its nine and its school colors and yell,
and the pupils go out and "root" as enthusiastically as did ever
freshmen of old Yale or Harvard. No Fourth of July can pass without
its baseball game.

We had a good baseball team at Capiz as early as 1903, and played
matches with school teams from neighboring towns. I did not realize,
however, how popular the game had become until one warm afternoon,
when I was vainly trying to get a nap.

The noise under my window was deafening. Thuds, shrieks, a babble of
native words, and familiar English terms floated in and disturbed my
rest. Finally I got up and went to the window.

The street was not over twenty-five feet wide, the houses, af