when i was a small boy i spent my summers at the quaint old fishing-village of mattapoisett, on buzzard's bay. next door to the house we occupied stood a low-roofed, unpretentious dwelling, white as an old-time clipper ship, with bright green blinds. i can still catch the fragrance of the lilacs by the gate. the fine old doorway, brass-knockered, arched by a spray of crimson rambler, was flanked on one hand by a great conch-shell, on the other by an enormous specimen of branch-coral, thus subtly intimating to passers-by that the owner of the house had been in "foreign parts." a distinctly nautical atmosphere was lent to the broad, deck-like verandah by a ship's barometer, a chart of cape cod, and a highly polished brass telescope mounted on a tripod so as to command the entire expanse of the bay. here cap'n bryant, a retired new bedford whaling captain, was wont to spend the sunny days in his big cane-seated rocking-chair, puffing meditatively at his pipe and for my boyish edification spinning yarns of adventure in [2]far-distant seas and on islands with magic names—tawi tawi, makassar straits, the dingdings, the little paternosters, the gulf of boni, thursday island, java head. of cannibal feasts in new guinea, of head-hunters in borneo, of strange dances by dusky temple-girls in bali, of up-country expeditions with the white rajah of sarawak, of desperate encounters with dyak pirates in the sulu sea, he discoursed at length and in fascinating detail, while i, sprawled on the verandah steps, my knees clasped in my hands, listened raptly and, when the veteran's flow of reminiscence showed signs of slackening, clamored insistently for more.
then and there i determined that some day i would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that i would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that i would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that i would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass wire for curios—a curly-bladed malay kris, carved cocoanuts, a shark's-tooth necklace, a blow-gun with its poisoned darts, a stuffed bird of paradise, and, of course, a huge conch-shell and an enormous piece of branch-coral—which i would bring home and display to admiring relatives and friends as convincing proofs of where i had been.
but school and college had to be gotten through with, and after them came wars in various parts of [3]the world and adventurings in many lands, so that thirty years slipped by before an opportunity presented itself to realize the dream of my boyhood. but when at last i set sail for those far-distant seas it was on an enterprise which would have gladdened the old sailor's soul—an expedition whose object it was to seek out the unusual, the curious, and the picturesque, and to capture them on the ten miles of celluloid film which we took with us, so that those who are condemned by circumstance to the humdrum life of the farm, the office, or the mill might themselves go adventuring o'nights, from the safety and comfort of red-plush seats, through the magic of the motion-picture screen. when i set out on my long journey the old whaling captain whose tales had kindled my youthful imagination had been sleeping for a quarter of a century in the mattapoisett graveyard, but when our anchor rumbled down off tawi tawi, when, steaming across makassar straits, we picked up the little paternosters, when our tiny vessel poked her bowsprit up the steaming koetei into the heart of the borneo jungle, i knew that, though invisible to human eyes, he was standing beside me on the bridge.
until i met the young-old man to whom those magazines which devote themselves to the gossip of the film world admiringly refer as "the napoleon of the movies," it had never occurred to me that adventure has a definite market value. at least i had never realized that there are people who stand ready to buy [4]it by the foot, as one buys real estate or rope. i had always supposed that the only way adventure could be capitalized was as material for magazine articles and books and for dinner-table stories.
"what we are after" the film magnate began abruptly, motioning me to a capacious leather chair and pushing a box of cigars within my reach, "is something new in travel pictures. like most of the big producers, we furnish our exhibitors with complete programmes—a feature, a comedy, a topical review, and a travel or educational picture. we make the features and the comedies in our own studios; the weeklies we buy from companies which specialize in that sort of thing. but heretofore we have had to pick up our travel stuff—where we could get it from free lances mostly—and there is never enough really good travel material to meet the demand. for quite ordinary travel or educational films we have to pay a minimum of two dollars a foot, while really unusual pictures will bring almost any price that is asked for them. the supply is so uncertain, however, and the price is so high that we have decided to try the experiment of taking our own. that is what i wanted to talk to you about."
"before the war," he continued, "there was almost no demand in the united states for travel pictures. in fact, when a manager wanted to clear his house for the next show, he would put a travel picture on the screen. but since the boys have been coming back from france and germany and siberia and russia the [5]public has begun to call for travel films again. they've heard their sons and brothers and sweethearts tell about the strange places they've been, and the strange things they've seen, and i suppose it makes them want to learn more about those parts of the world that lie east of battery place and west of the golden gate. but we don't want the old bromide stuff, mind you—mountain-climbing in switzerland, cutting sugar-cane in cuba, picking cocoanuts in ceylon. that sort of thing goes well enough on the chautauqua circuits, but it's as dead as the corner saloon so far as the big cities are concerned. what we are looking for are unusual pictures—tigers, elephants, pirates, brigands, cannibals, oriental temples and palaces, war-dances, weird ceremonies, curious customs, natives with rings in their noses and feathers in their hair, scenes that are spectacular and exciting—in short, what the magazine editors call 'adventure stuff.' we want pictures that will make 'em sit up in their seats and exclaim, 'well, what d'ye know about that?' and that will send them away to tell their friends about them."
"like the publisher," i suggested, "who remarked that his idea of a good newspaper was one that would cause its readers to exclaim when they opened it, 'my god!'?"
"that's the idea," he agreed. "and if the pictures are from places that most people have never heard of before, so much the better. i'm told that you've spent your life looking for queer places to write about. so why can't you suggest some to take pictures of?"
[6]"but i've had no practical experience in taking motion-pictures," i protested. "the only time i ever touched a motion-picture camera was when i turned the crank of donald thompson's for a few minutes during the entry of the germans into antwerp in 1914."
"were the pictures a success?" the napoleon of the movies queried interestedly. "i don't recall having seen them."
"no, you wouldn't," i hastened to explain. "you see, it wasn't until the show was all over that thompson discovered that he had forgotten to take the cap off the lens."
"don't let that worry you," he assured me. "we'll take care of the technical end. we'll provide you with the best camera man to be had and the best equipment. all you will have to do is to show him what to photograph, arrange the action, decide on the settings, obtain the permission of the authorities, the good-will of the officials, the co-operation of the military, engage interpreters and guides, reserve hotel accommodations, arrange for motor-cars and boats and horses and special trains, and keep everyone jollied up and feeling good generally. aside from that, there won't be anything for you to do except to enjoy yourself."
"it certainly sounds alluring," i admitted. "the trouble is that you are looking for something that can't always be found. you don't find adventure the way you find four-leaf clovers; it just happens to you, like the measles or a blow-out. still, if one has [7]the time and money to go after them, there are a lot of curious things that might pass for adventure when they are shown on the screen."
"where are they?" the film magnate asked eagerly, spreading upon his mahogany desk a map of the world.
it was a little disconcerting, this request to point out those regions where adventure could be found, very much as a visitor from the provinces might ask a new york hotel clerk to tell him where he could see the bohemian life of which he had read in the sunday supplements.
"there's russian central asia, of course," i suggested tentatively. "samarkand and bokhara and tashkent, you know. but i'm afraid they're out of the question on account of the bolsheviki. besides, i'm not looking for the sort of adventure that ends between a stone wall and a firing-party. then there are some queer emirates along the southern edge of the sahara: sokoto and kanem and bornu and wadai. but it would take at least six months to obtain the necessary permission from the french and british colonial offices and to arrange the other details of the expedition."
"but that doesn't exhaust the possibilities by any means," i continued hastily, for nothing was farther from my wish than to discourage so fascinating a plan. "there ought to be some splendid picture material among the dyaks of borneo—they're head-hunters, you know. from there we could jump across to the celebes and possibly to new guinea. and i understand[8] that they have some queer customs on the island of bali, over beyond java; in fact, i've been told that, in spite of all the efforts of the dutch to stop it, the balinese still practise suttee. a picture of a widow being burned on her husband's funeral pyre would be a bit out of the ordinary, wouldn't it? that reminds me that i read somewhere the other day that next spring there is to be a big royal wedding in djokjakarta, in middle java, with all sorts of gorgeous festivities. at batavia we would have no difficulty in getting a steamer for singapore, and from there we could go overland by the new federated malay states railway, through johore and malacca and kuala lumpur, to siam, where the cats and the twins and the white elephants come from. from bangkok we might take a short-cut through the cambodian jungle, by elephant, to pnom-penh and——"
"hold on!" the movie king protested. "that's plenty. let me come up for air. those names you've been reeling off mean as much to me as the dishes on the menu of a chinese restaurant. but that's what we're after. we want the people who see the pictures to say: 'where the dickens is that place? i never heard of it before.' they get to arguing about it, and when they get home they look it up in the family atlas, and when they find how far away it is, they feel that they've had their money's worth. how soon can you be ready to start?"
"how soon," i countered, "can you have a letter of credit ready?"
[9]owing to the urgent requirements of the european governments, vessels of every description were, as i discovered upon our arrival at manila, few and far between in eastern seas; so, in spite of the assurance that i was not to permit the question of expense to curtail my itinerary, it is perfectly certain that we could not have visited the remote and inaccessible places which we did had it not been for the lively interest taken in our enterprise by the honorable francis burton harrison, governor-general of the philippines, and by the honorable manuel quezon, president of the philippine senate. when governor-general harrison learned that i wished to take pictures in the sulu archipelago, he kindly offered, in order to facilitate our movements from island to island, to place at my disposal a coast-guard cutter, just as a friend might offer one the use of his motor-car. there was at first some question as to whether the governor-general had the authority to send a government vessel outside of territorial waters, but mr. quezon, who, so far as influence goes, is a henry cabot lodge and a boies penrose combined, unearthed a law which permitted him to utilize the vessels of the coast-guard service for the purpose of entertaining visitors to the islands in such ways as the government of the philippines saw fit. and, in a manner of speaking, mr. quezon is the government of the philippines. thus it came about that on the last day of february, 1920, the coast-guard cutter negros, 150 tons and 150 feet over all—with a crew of sixty men, captain a. b. galvez commanding, [10]and having on board the lovely lady, who accompanies me on all my travels; the winsome widow, who joined us in seattle; the doctor, who is an officer of the united states health service stationed at manila; john l. hawkinson, the efficient and imperturbable man behind the camera; three friends of the governor-general, who went along for the ride; and myself—steamed out of manila bay into the crimson glory of a tropic sunset, and, when past cavite and corregidor, laid her course due south toward those magic isles and fairy seas which are so full of mystery and romance, so packed with possibilities of high adventure.
governor-general harrison believed, by methods that are legitimate, in adding to the american public's knowledge of the philippines, and it was owing to his broad-minded point of view and to the many cablegrams which he sent ahead of us, that at each port in the islands at which we touched we found the local officials waiting on the pier-head to bid us welcome and to assist us. at jolo, which is the capital of the moro country, two lean, sun-tanned, youthful-looking men came aboard to greet us: one was the honorable p. w. rogers, governor of the department of sulu; the other was captain link, a former officer of constabulary who is now the provincial treasurer. in the first five minutes of our conversation i discovered that they knew exactly the sort of picture material that [11]i wanted and that they would help me to the limit of their ability to get it. for that matter, they themselves personify adventure in its most exciting form.
rogers, who was originally a soldier, went to the philippines as orderly for general pershing long before the days when "black jack" was to win undying fame on battlefields half the world away. the young soldier showed such marked ability that, thanks to pershing's assistance, he obtained a post as stenographer under the civil government, thence rising by rapid steps to the difficult post of governor of sulu. a better selection could hardly have been made, for there is no white man in the islands whom the moros more heartily respect and fear than their boyish-looking governor. mrs. rogers is the daughter of a german trader who lived in jolo and died there with his boots on. a year or so prior to her marriage she was sitting with her parents at tiffin when a moro, with whom her father had had a trifling business disagreement, knocked at the door and asked for a moment's conversation. telling the native that he would talk with him after he had finished his meal, the trader returned to the table. scarcely had he seated himself when the moro, who had slipped unobserved into the dining room, sprang like a panther, his broad-bladed barong describing a glistening arc, and the trader's head rolled among the dishes. another sweep of the terrible weapon and the mother's hand was severed at the wrist, while the future mrs. rogers owes her life to the fact that she fainted and slipped [12]under the table. i relate this incident in order to give you some idea of the local atmosphere.
a few weeks before our arrival at jolo, governor rogers, in compliance with instructions from manila, had ordered a census of the inhabitants. but the moros are a highly suspicious folk, so, when some one started the rumor that the government was planning to brand them, as it brands its mules and horses, it promptly gained wide credence. by tactful explanations the suspicions of most of the natives were allayed, but one moro, notorious as a bad man, barricaded himself, together with five of his friends, three women and a boy, in his house—a nipa hut raised above the ground on stilts—and defied the governor to enumerate them. now, if the governor had permitted such open defiance to pass unnoticed, the entire population of jolo, always ready for trouble, promptly would have gotten out of hand. so, accompanied by five troopers of the constabulary, he rode out to the outlaw's house and attempted to reason with him. the man obstinately refused to show himself, however, even turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the village imam. thereupon rogers ordered the constabulary to open fire, their shots being answered by a fusillade from the moros barricaded in the house. in twenty minutes the flimsy structure looked more like a sieve than a dwelling. when the firing ceased a six-year-old boy descended the ladder and, approaching the governor, remarked unconcernedly: "you can go in now. they're all dead." then rogers called up the [13]census-taker and told him to go ahead with his enumeration.
the provincial treasurer, captain link, is a lean, lithe south carolinian who has spent fifteen years in moroland. he is what is known in the cattle country as a "go-gitter." it is told of him that he once nearly lost his commission, while in the constabulary, by sending to the governor, as a christmas present, a package which, upon being opened, was found to contain the head of a much-wanted outlaw.
"i knew he wanted that fellow's head more than anything else in the world," captain link said na?vely, in telling me the story, "so it struck me it would be just the thing to send him for a christmas present. i spent a lot of time and trouble getting it too, for the fellow sure was a bad hombre. it would have gotten by all right, but the governor's wife, thinking it was a present for herself, had to go and open the package. she went into hysterics when she saw what was inside and the governor was so mad he nearly fired me. some people have no sense of humor."
atop of the bookcase in captain link's study—the bookcase, by the way, contains burton's thousand and one nights, the discourses of epictetus, and president eliot's tabloid classics—is the skull in question, surmounted by a moro fez. across the front of the fez is printed this significant legend:
this is john henry
john henry disobeyed captain link
sic transit gloria mundi
[14]while we are on the subject, let me tell you about another of these advance-guards of civilization who, single-handed, transformed a worthless island in the sulu sea into a veritable garden of the lord and its inhabitants from warlike savages into peaceful and prosperous farmers. in 1914 a short, bespectacled michigander named warner was sent by the philippine bureau of education to siassi, one of the islands of the sulu group, to teach its moro inhabitants the rudiments of american civilization. warner's sole equipment for the job consisted, as he candidly admitted, of a medical education. he took with him a number of filipino assistants, but as they did not get along with the moros, he shipped them back to manila and sent for an airedale dog. he also sent for all the works on agriculture and gardening that were to be had in the bookshops of the capital. for five years he remained on siassi, the only white man. as even the little inter-island steamers rarely find their way there, months sometimes passed without his hearing from the outside world. but he was too busy to be lonely. his jurisdiction extended over two islands, separated by a narrow channel, but this he never crossed at night and in the daytime only when he was compelled to, as the narrow channel was the home of giant crocodiles which not infrequently attacked and capsized the frail native vintas, killing their occupants as they struggled in the water.
warner, who had spent four years among the visayans before going to siassi, and who was, [15]therefore, eminently qualified to compare the northern islanders with the moros, told me that the latter possess a much higher type of intelligence than the filipinos and assimilate new ideas far more quickly. he added that they have a highly developed sense of humor; that they are quick to appreciate subtle stories, which the tagalogs and visayans are not; and that they are much more ready to accept advice on agricultural and economic matters than the christian filipinos, who have a life-sized opinion of their own ability. when the day's work was over, he said, he would seat himself in the doorway of his hut, surrounded by a group of moros, and discuss crops and weather prospects, swap jokes and tell stories, just as he might have done with lighter skinned sons of toil around the cracker-barrel of a cross-roads store in new england. he added that he was sadly in need of some new stories to tell his moro protegés, as, after six years on the island, his own fund was about exhausted. but he was growing weary of life on siassi, he told me; he wanted action and excitement; so he was preparing to move, with his airedale, to bohol, in the visayas, where, he had heard it rumored, there was another white man.
still another of the picturesque characters with whom i foregathered nightly on the after-deck of the negros during our stay at jolo was a former soldier, john jennings by name. he was an operative of the philippine secret service, being engaged at the time in breaking up the running of opium from borneo [16]across the sulu sea to the moro islands. jennings is a short, thickset, powerfully-built man, all nerve and no nerves. adventure is his middle name. he has lived more stories than i could invent. shortly before our arrival at jolo jennings had learned from a native in his pay that a son of the flowery kingdom, the proprietor of a notorious gambling resort situated on the quarter-mile-long ramshackle wharf known as the chinese pier, was driving a roaring trade in the forbidden drug. so one afternoon jennings, his hands in his pockets and in each pocket a service automatic, sauntered carelessly along the pier and upon reaching the reputed opium den, knocked briskly on the door. the chinese proprietor evidently suspected the purpose of his visit, however, for he was unable to gain admittance. so that night, wearing the huge straw sun-hat and flapping garments of blue cotton of a coolie, he tried again. this time in response to his knock the heavy door swung open. within all was black and silent as the tomb. the lintel was low and jennings was compelled to stoop in order to enter. as he cautiously set foot across the threshold there was a sudden swish of steel in the darkness and the blade of a barong whistled past his face, slicing off the front of his hat and missing his head by the width of an eyelash. as he sprang back the door slammed in his face and he heard the bolts shot home, followed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the floor and the patter of naked feet. realizing that the men he was after were making their escape by another [17]exit, jennings hurled himself against the door, an automatic in either hand. it gave way before his assault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky blackness of the room. taking no chances this time, he raked it with a stream of lead from end to end. then, there being no further sound, he swept the place with a beam from his electric torch. stretched on the floor were three dead chinamen and beside them was enough opium to have drugged everyone on the island. that little episode, as jennings remarked dryly, put quite a crimp in the opium traffic in jolo.
cockfighting, which is as popular throughout the philippines as baseball is in the united states, finds its most enthusiastic devotees among the moros, every community in the sulu islands having its cockpit and its fighting birds, on whose prowess the natives gamble with reckless abandon. gambling is, indeed, the raison d'être of cockfighting in moroland, for, as the birds are armed with four-inch spurs of razor sharpness, and as one or both birds are usually killed within a few minutes after they are tossed into the pit, very little sport attaches to the contest. the villagers are inordinately proud of their local fighting-cocks, boasting of their prowess as a bostonian boasts of the braves or a new yorker of the giants, and are always ready to back them to the limit of their means.
some years ago, according to a story that was told [18]me in the islands—for the truth of which i do not vouch—an american destroyer dropped anchor off cebu, the second largest city in the philippines. that night a shore party of bluejackets, wandering about the town in quest of amusement, dropped in at a cockpit where a main was in progress. noting the large wagers laid by the excited natives on their favorite birds, the sailors offered to back a "chicken" which they had aboard the destroyer against all the cocks in cebu. the natives, smiling in their sleeves at the prospect of taking money so easily from the americanos, promptly accepted the challenge and some hundreds of pesos were laid against the unknown bird. at the hour set for the fight the grinning sailors appeared at the cockpit with their "chicken," the mascot of the destroyer—a large american eagle! ensued, of course, a torrent of protest and remonstrance, but the money was already up and the bluejackets demanded action. so the eagle was anchored by a chain in the center of the pit, where it sat motionless and apathetic, head on one side, eyelids drooping, apparently half asleep—until a cock was tossed into the pit. then there was a lightning-like flash of the mighty talons and all that was left of the cebuan champion was a heap of bloodied feathers. the "match" was quickly over and the triumphant sailors, collecting their bets, departed for their ship. ever since then there has been a proverb in cebu—"never match your cock against an american chicken."
[19]governor rogers informed me that, in compliance with a cablegram from the governor-general, he had arranged a "show" for us at a village called parang, on the other side of the island. the "show," i gathered, was to consist of a stag-hunt, shark-fishing, war-dances, and pony races, and was to conclude with a native bull-fight. one of the favorite sports of the moros is hunting the small native stag on horseback, tiring it out, and killing it with spears. as it developed, however, that there was no certainty of being able so to stage-manage the affair that either the hunters or the hunted would come within the range of the camera, we regretfully decided to dispense with that number of the programme.
when we arrived at parang it looked as though the entire population of the island had assembled for the occasion. the native police were keeping clear a circle in which the dances were to take place, while the slanting trunks of the cocoanut-palms provided reserved seats for scores of tan and chocolate and coffee-colored youngsters. we were greeted by the panglima of parang, the overlord of the district, who explained, through governor rogers, that he had had prepared a little repast of which he hoped that we would deign to partake. now, after you know some of the secrets of moro cooking and have had a glimpse into a moro kitchen, even the most robust appetite is usually dampened. but the governor whispered "the old man has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this show and if you refuse to eat his food he'll be [20]mortally offended," so, purely in the interests of amity, we seated ourselves at the table, which had been set under the palms in the open. i don't know what we ate and i don't care to know—though i admit that i had some uneasy suspicions—but, with the uncompromising eye of the old panglima fixed sternly upon us, we did our best to convince him that we appreciated his cuisine.
but the dancing which followed made us forget what we had eaten. during the ensuing months we were to see dances in many lands—in borneo and bali and java and siam and cambodia—but they were all characterized by a certain monotony and sameness. these moro dancers, however, were in a class by themselves. if they could be brought across the ocean and would dance before an audience on broadway with the same savage abandon with which they danced before the camera under the palm-trees of parang, there would be a line a block long in front of the box-office. one of the dances was symbolical of a cock-fight, the cocks being personified by a young woman and a boy. it was sheer barbarism, of course, but it was fascinating. and the curious thing about it was that the hundreds of moros who stood and squatted in a great circle, and who had doubtless seen the same thing scores of times before, were so engrossed in the movements of the dance, each of which had its subtle shade of meaning, that they became utterly oblivious to our presence or to hawkinson's steady grinding of the camera. in the war-dance the participants, who were moro fighting men, and were armed with spears, shields, and [21]the vicious, broad-bladed knives known as barongs, gave a highly realistic representation of pinning an enemy to the earth with a spear, and with the barong decapitating him. the first part of the dance, before the passions of the savages became aroused, was, however, monotonous and uninteresting.
"can't you stir 'em up a little?" called hawkinson, who, like all camera men, demands constant action. "tell 'em that this film costs money and that we didn't come here to take pictures of loie fuller stuff."
"i think it might be as well to let them take their time about it," remarked captain link. "these moros always get very much worked up in their war-dances, and occasionally they forget that it is all make-believe and send a spear into a spectator. it's safer to leave them alone. they're very temperamental."
"that would make a corking picture," said hawkinson enthusiastically, "if i only knew which fellow was going to be speared so that i could get the camera focussed on him."
"the only trouble is," i remarked dryly, "that they might possibly pick out you."
in spanish bull-fights, after the banderillos and picadores have tormented the bull until it is exhausted, the matador flaunts a scarlet cloak in front of the beast until it is bewildered and then despatches it with a sword. in moroland, however, the bulls, which are bred and trained for the purpose, do their best to kill each other, thus making the fight a much more [22]sporting proposition. the bull-fight which was arranged for our benefit at parang was staged in a field of about two acres just outside the town, the spectators being kept at a safe distance by a troop of moro horsemen under the direction of the old panglima. after hawkinson had set up his camera on the edge of this extemporized arena the bulls were brought in: medium-sized but exceptionally powerful beasts, the muscles rippling under their sleek brown coats, their short horns filed to the sharpness of lance-tips. each animal was led by its owner, who was able to control it to a limited degree during the fight by means of a cord attached to the ring in its nose. when the signal was given for the fight to begin, the bulls approached each other cautiously, snorting and pawing the ground. they reminded me of two strange dogs who cannot decide whether they wish to fight or be friends. for ten minutes, regardless of the jeers of the spectators and the proddings of their handlers, the great brown beasts rubbed heads as amicably as a yoke of oxen. then, just as we had made up our minds that it was a fiasco and that there would be no bull-fight pictures, there was a sudden angry bellow, the two great heads came together with a thud like a pile-driver, and the fight was on. the next twenty minutes hawkinson and i spent in alternately setting up his camera within range of the panting, straining animals and in picking it up and running for our lives, in order to avoid being trampled by the maddened beasts in their furious and unexpected onslaughts. [23]the men at the ends of the nose-ropes were as helpless to control their infuriated charges as a trout fisherman who has hooked a shark. with horns interlocked and with blood and sweat dripping from their massive necks and shoulders, they fought each other, step by step, across the width of the arena, across a cultivated field which lay beyond, burst through a thorn hedge surrounding a native's patch of garden, trampled the garden into mire, and narrowly escaped bringing down on top of them the owner's dwelling, which, like most moro houses, was raised above the ground on stilts. it looked for a time as though the fight would continue over a considerable portion of the island, but it was brought to an abrupt conclusion when one of the bulls, withdrawing a few yards, to gain momentum, charged like a tank attacking the hindenburg line, driving one of its horns deep into its adversary's eye-socket, whereupon the wounded animal, half-blinded and mad with pain, turned precipitately, jerked the nose-rope from its owner's grasp, and stampeding the spectators in its mad flight, disappeared in the depths of the jungle.
"that," announced the governor, "concludes the morning performance. this afternoon we will present for your approval a programme consisting of pony races, a carabao fight, a shark-fishing expedition, and, if time permits, a visit to the pearl-fisheries to see the divers at work. this evening we will call on the princess fatimah, the daughter of the sultan, and [24]tomorrow i have arranged to take you to tapul island to shoot wild carabao. after that——"
"after that," i interrupted, "we go away from here. if we stayed on in this quiet little island of yours much longer, we shouldn't have any film left for the other places."
