vigation. This cable was in turn to be connected at Lintogup
with Tukuran, on the southern coast of Mindanao, by a land line across
a mountainous country.

When the party started there were guns and ammunition enough on the
two launches to have quelled a good sized insurrection, but as little
was really known of the upper bay and river, and as many rumours were
rife among the natives of Misamis as to warlike Moros and Monteses
living on these shores, and more disquieting rumours still among
the officers that it was a camping place for _insurrectos_, it was
thought best to amply provide against any emergency.

Unfortunately, no information could be obtained as to the rise and fall
of the tides or the strength of the current, a fact that delayed the
expedition many days and necessitated the return of one or other of
the launches for a renewal of rations, fresh water, and coal, not once
but thrice. The first, second, and third relief expeditions, we called
them, and teased the officer in charge unmercifully over his hard luck.

But at last, despite adverse winds and tides; despite the fact
that one of the Filipino guides ran the launch aground, with malice
aforethought, no doubt, as on his return to Misamis he was arrested
on indubitable evidence as a spy; despite the fact that the sailing
_banca_, ran on the bar, and while trying to pull her off she and her
five miles of cable were swamped; despite the fact that the ship's
launch _Grace_, or the _Disgrace_, as she was afterward called,
distinguished herself by blowing up twice and almost scalding
everyone on board; despite the fact that all the odds were against
the expedition's success, and that it took six days and nights to
accomplish what might have been done in a third of the time--despite
all this, I say, the cable was at last laid and the luckless workers
returned.

But, oh, the bitterness of life in general and that of a cable man
in particular! For after all those heroic struggles the first test
showed a fault, and, cruel fate, at the far end of Panguil Bay at
that! The silence which greeted the reception of this terrible news
was as profane as words, and the Powers-that-Be decided on the spot
that enough work had been spent on that calamitous cable for the
time being, and decided to proceed with the laying of the main lines,
leaving the Lintogup stretch until a subsequent visit to Misamis.

Meanwhile there was much work accomplished in the town, a fine
tel