en
were put into a two-seated barouche of great antiquity, as dingy and
faded as its own cerulean lining, but the only carriage in town. The
officers called this delightful equipage "the extreme unction," as it
was owned by the padres before the government bought it, and was by
them used in last visits to the dying. The natives crossed themselves
on passing this conveyance, and would no more have ridden in it than
in a hearse, but we found "the extreme unction" very comfortable and
heard no groans or death-bed confessions in its rusty creak, neither
saw aught in its moth-eaten tapestry but that it had once been very
handsome. To our frivolous minds the old carriage resembled nothing
so much as Cinderella's coach just as the clock was striking twelve,
and we were constantly expecting it to turn into a pumpkin under our
very eyes. But it refrained from doing anything so unconventional,
and took us on many pleasant excursions around the quaint old town.

There was much to be seen in Cagayan, as for instance, the Door
of the Bloody Hand, a most gruesome memento of a night attack on
the place some time before, when several insurgents, fleeing from
avenging Americans, tried to force their way into one of the native
houses and seek protection from its inhabitants. Then there was the
Amazon colonel of a native regiment, who, on the day we saw her,
was spreading out washing to dry on a grass plot near her home,
a truly feminine occupation, considering her martial proclivities,
and one that disappointed us sadly, as we should have preferred
seeing her at dress parade; and lastly, there was the old cathedral,
which in its way was decidedly unique.

This cathedral was far more pretentious than any we had seen outside
of Manila, and its altars, for it boasted several, were unspeakable
combinations of cheap gaudiness and some little beauty. Common
tinsel was cheek by jowl with handsome silver, and while a few of
the many mural decorations and paintings were good, most of them were
atrocious--glorified chromos of simpering saints with preternaturally
large eyes, more nearly resembling advertisements for a hair dye
or complexion bleach than ecclesiastical subjects. Around the main
altar stood armoured soldiers of Biblical antiquity, squat, inelegant
figures that had first been painted on canvas and were afterward cut
out like gigantic paper dolls, being put into wooden grooves to ensure
their perpendicularity.

At one side of the c