where we all turned in after supper, for reveille was to be at three
o'clock. This had been a great day of contrasts in a descending scale,
from motors, electric lights, and telephones in the morning to our
solitary camp in the mountains at night, surrounded by watch-fires
and guarded by Constabulary sentinels. This, by the way, was the only
time we were so guarded.

CHAPTER IV

Early start.--Pine forest.--Vegetation.--Rest at Amugan.--The
_gansa_.--Bone.

We set out next morning at five-thirty. Our journey so far, that is,
since we mounted, had taken us over a preliminary range, and now we
began a more serious climb. The morning was delightfully fresh and
cool, with promise of a fine blazing sun later. Far ahead and above
us on the skyline, we could see a cut in the forest where our trail
crossed the divide. But that was miles away, and in the meantime we
were ascending a lovely valley, pines, grass, and bright red soil. It
was delicious that morning, riding under the pines.

"Pinea brachia cum trepidant,
Audio canticulum zephyri!"

And part of the pleasure was due to the fact that we had an
unobstructed view in all directions, usually not the case in the
tropical forest. At one point we had a full view of Arayat, at another
of Santo Tomas, near which we had passed yesterday on coming down from
Baguio. But fine as were the distant views we got from time to time,
the great attraction was the country itself, through which we were
passing. Barring the total absence of any sign of man, it might have
been taken for Japan, in the neighborhood of Miyanoshita, without,
however, any trace of Japanese atmosphere.

The valley was steep-walled, narrow and twisting, at one point closed
by a single enormous rock nearly three hundred feet high--in fact,
a conical hill rising right out of the floor of the valley, and
apparently leaving just room for the stream to pass on one side.

A curious fact was that while the mountains were decidedly
northern-looking as to flora, yet the groins, wherever possible, were
thoroughly tropical. For in these water runs off but slowly, with
consequent richness of vegetation. And yet, on the other side of the
divide which we were now approaching not a pine could be seen, but,
on the contrary, the typical tropical forest in full development. The
watershed, our skyline, was an almost absolute dividing-mark. At any
rate, there the pines stopped short.

At the divide w