hen called
upon, without being noticed by the Spaniards, who conversed together
at the other end.

[Spanish prejudice against bathing.] Our departure hence was delayed
by festivities and sudden showers for about two days, after which the
spirited horses of the alcalde carried us within an hour on a level
road north-west, to Talisay, and in another hour to Indang, where
a bath and breakfast were ready. Up to this time I had never seen
a bath-room in the house of a Spaniard; whereas with the Northern
Europeans it is never wanting. The Spaniards appear to regard
the bath as a species of medicine, to be used only with caution;
many, even to the present day, look upon it as an institution not
quite Christian. At the time of the Inquisition frequent bathing,
it is known, was a characteristic of the Moors, and certainly was not
wholly free from danger. In Manila, only those who live near the Pasig
are the exceptions to the rule; and there the good or bad practice
prevails of whole families bathing, in the company of their friends,
in the open air.

[An unfortified fort.] The road ends at Indang. In two boats we went
down the river till stopped by a bar, and there at a well-supplied
table prepared for us by the kindness of the alcalde we awaited
the horses which were being brought thither along a bad road by our
servants. In the waste of Barre a tower, surrounded by two or three
fishermen's huts and as many camarines, has been erected against the
Moros, who, untempted by the same, seldom go so far westward, for
it consists only of an open hut covered with palm-leaves--a kind of
parasol--supported on stakes as thick as one's arm and fifteen feet
high; and the two cannons belonging to it ought, for security, to be
buried. We followed the sea-shore, which is composed of silicious sand,
and covered with a carpet of creeping shore plants in full bloom. On
the edge of the wood, to the left, were many flowering shrubs and
pandanus with large scarlet-red flowers. After an hour we crossed the
river Longos in a ferry, and soon came to the spur of a crystalline
chain of mountains, which barred our road and extended itself into
the sea as Point Longos. The horses climbed it with difficulty, and
we found the stream on the other side already risen so high that we
rode knee-deep in the water. After sunset we crossed singly, with
great loss of time, in a miserable ferry-boat, over the broad mouth
of the Pulundaga, where a pleasant road thro