ilippines. There we
spend most of our time roving in boats, and hunting over the hills. The
first white man who met us saw that we were as dark, and had the same
religion, as the tribes of Morocco in Africa. That perhaps is why I am
called Moro, the Mohammedan, whose father fears no man; nor shall I,
when I grow up."

"But we are all friends now under a new, friendly flag; and we preach
and practice love, instead of fear and fighting," I replied.

Filippa looked upon me with very happy eyes, when I said this; for a
girl seems to know wiser ways of settling quarrels than do boys. A boy
becomes excited; a girl thinks longer and acts more slowly. Certainly,
Filippa's gentle ways and the expression in her wonderfully deep eyes
had more power with Fil and Moro than would strife and force.

"Every name seems to have a pretty meaning in your Edenlike
Philippines," I remarked to Filippa's playmate, Favra.

"Yes," she replied, "the Padre (pa'drai), our pastor or cleric,
who knows so much, tells me that my name means the friendly one who
does favors."

CHAPTER II

CLIMATE, TYPHOONS, VOLCANO

Next day I met the Padre. He was seated on a cane chair under a clump
of whispering bamboos, which are giant grasses as tall and as strong
as trees.

We had hardly exchanged morning greetings, by saying "Buenos dias
(boo ai'nos de'as)," before we heard the children running along the
white shell path, between the parklike tropical woods.

"Every one awakens early in this wonderful climate, yet no one seems
to be fully awake," I said.

The good Padre replied: "We are situated so near the Equator that
the sun rises into full and bright daylight at once."

"I seem to half dream all day. Is it the balmy warm air, or the scents
of new flowers, or the equatorial sun?" I asked.

The Padre explained it by saying: "The sun throws more direct rays
here; and they pierce through thin hats, and especially through black
clothes. It is best to wear thick, white paper helmets. Moreover,
our climate is more damp than is America's climate.

"That is why you feel somewhat dreamy; and that is why everything in
Nature, such as trees, fruits, flowers, ferns, and even animals and
birds, grow so richly; and why the flowers shed influences and perfumes
on the air. It all appeals to the warmth, color, and dreaminess in
your happy imagination.

"You think of stories of Eden or Paradise perhaps, where one imagines
no hard winter, no bare trees