nly got this
day from our quartermaster, who remained on duty for ten consecutive
hours. We had the ill-luck not to see a single crocodile, although the
river is said to be full of them, all of ferocious temper. On the other
hand, we did see the oddest possible ferry: a bundle or raft of bamboo,
with chairs on top, towed across stream by a carabao regularly hitched
up to it and getting over himself by swimming. This he does on an
even keel, his backbone being entirely out of the water when under way.

There is nothing picturesque about the lower reaches of the Rio Grande,
though its upper course, through hilly country, is different in
this respect. The remains of one or two old towns, cut in two by the
shift of the river-bed, excited our curiosity. So did, from to time,
the _barangayans_, or native river-boats, huge, clumsy, ill-built,
and generally with but four or five inches of free-board amidships
on full load. These craft look as though they ought to sink by mere
capillary attraction. However, people are born, live, and die aboard
of them, so they must be safe enough. In the afternoon the river
widened and its right bank, anyway, grew bolder and occasionally
more permanent-looking, and finally, about an hour before sunset, we
perceived the low white godowns of Aparri. We landed not at a wharf,
but at the outer edge of the huddle of craft crowding the water front,
and put up at the Fonda de Aparri, having done eighty-odd miles in
a little over ten hours.

All the tobacco of the Valley reaches the world through Aparri;
it is consequently a port of considerable importance. But it has no
safe anchorage and is frightfully exposed to typhoons, all of which,
if they do not pass over the place directly, somehow or other appear
to step aside to give this region a blow. There is a never-ending
conflict in the adjacent waters between the currents of the China Sea
and those of the Pacific, making navigation hazardous, and for small
boats perilous. On the day of our arrival, calm and fair as it was,
a tremendous surf was beating on the bar, the spray and foam mounting
in a regular wall many feet high, and driven up, not by the gradual
attack of an advancing wave, but by the tireless energy of angry
waters ceaselessly beating upon the same spot.

Of Aparri itself little can be said here: but, small as it is, it
has nevertheless the bustle of all seaports in activity. Many of its
streets are paved with cobble-stones, and some