Deep valley.--A poor _ranchería_.--Escort of boys.--Descent of
Tinglayan Hill.--Sullen reception at Tinglayan.--Bangad.--First
view of the Kalingas.--Arrival at Lubuagan.
We were off early the next morning, the 11th, our destination
being Lubuagan, the capital of the Kalinga country. We had a long,
hard day before us. As I was about to mount, I noticed that Doyle,
Mr. Forbes's groom, looked seedy, and learned that Bubud had broken
loose in the night and gone the rounds of the herd, kicking every
animal in it before he could be caught, and so robbing poor Doyle
of a good part of his sleep. After riding a bit through the pines,
the ground apparently dropped off in front of us out of sight, rising
in a counter slope on the other side, in a great green wall from which
sprang a hogback; only this time it was a razor-back, so sharp was its
edge, up which back and forth ran the trail. It was another of those
deep knife-like valleys; this one, however, challenging our passage,
and justly, for it was more cañon than valley, and it took us nearly
two hours to cross it. But it was worth the trouble and time. For
imagine a cañon with forested sides and carpeted in green from the
stream in its bed to the highest bounding ridge! Near the top we came
upon a bank of pitcher-plants, the pitchers of some of them being fully
six inches long. A mile or so farther on, we halted and dismounted
near a little _ranchería_, Butbut by name, in a corner of the hills,
the people of which had been assembled for the "Commission." These
were the only physically degraded-looking people we saw on the trip;
small of stature, feeble-looking and spiritless. The reason was not
far to seek: it is probable that they live hungry, through lack of
suitable ground for rice-cultivation, and because their neighbors
are hostile. Now, I take it on myself to say that it is just this
sort of thing that will come to an end if Mr. Worcester is allowed to
carry out his policies. For, with free communication and diminishing
hostility, interchange of commodities must needs take place. Indeed,
the relations existing between _rancherías_ are nothing but our own
system of high protection carried to a logical extreme by imposing
a prohibitive tariff on heads! Fundamentally, granted an extremely
limited food-supply, every stranger is an enemy, and the shortest
way to be rid of the difficulty involved in his presence is to reduce
him to the impossibility of eating.
On reaching the top of Tinglayan Hill, which we did shortly after
leaving the poor people just mentioned, we saw a man coming towards us
accompanied by thirty or forty boys not more than ten or eleven years
of age, all gee-stringed, and eight of them carrying head-axes on their
hips. When the man got up, he handed Mr. Worcester a bamboo about a
yard long. Mr. Worcester drank and then passed it on back to us, the
best stuff, it seemed to us that hot morning, we had ever tasted. We
were now in the _basi_ country; this being a sort of fermented
sugar-cane juice, judiciously diluted with water. [39] The boys now
formed a sort of column with the ax-bearers immediately in front of
Mr. Worcester as a guard of honor, and we got a good look at them,
well-built, erect, of a light brown, with black flowing hair. They
were as healthy-looking as possible, and, what is more, intelligent of
countenance--by all odds the brightest, most cheerful lot of youngsters
we had yet seen. As we moved off they set up a chant, clear and wild,
beginning with a high note and concluding with as deep a one as their
young voices could compass. The thing was as beautiful as it was wild,
and astonishing from the number and range of notes used.
Marching thus, we came upon a large gathering of men, women, and
children, to whom various gifts of cloth, pins, beads, etc., were
made. Here Gallman found, to his amazement, that he could understand
the speech of these people. Not trusting his own ear in the matter,
he sent Comhit about to talk to them, and reported afterward that
both not only had understood what was said, but had made their own
selves understood. Neither of them could make out a word in the poor
village we had just passed through, nor anywhere else on the road in
the Bontok country.
We now began the long descent to Tinglayan, seven miles, most of us
walking and leading our ponies. At Tinglayan, instead of the usual
cheerful crowd waiting to welcome us, we found only a few extremely
sullen men and women, who held themselves persistently aloof. There
were no children, neither were chickens nor eggs offered--a bad
sign. This reception was due entirely to the refusal of the authorities
to give up the Constabulary private that had but recently shot and
killed the head man of the _ranchería_, as already explained. However,
in time, Mr. Worcester prevailed on the few present to accept gifts,
and we affected not to notice the character of our reception, not only
the best, but indeed the only thing to do. Here we had _chow_. We
were now directly on the left bank of the Chico, and, passing on,
found the country more open, and so better cultivated, the paddies
being broad, the retaining-walls low, and the countryside generally
wearing an air of peace and affluence. This impression deepened as
we reached Bangad, extremely well situated on a tongue running out
at right angles to the main course of hills. Here was a semblance
of a street, following the trail, or, rather, the trail, going
through, had followed the street. The houses were larger, cleaner,
better built; in short, substantial. One of them, unfinished, gave
us some idea of its construction: floor sills on posts to ground;
roof frame of planks, 1 × 6 inches, bent over to form the sides of
the house when completed, all hard wood, without a single nail, the
whole being held together by mortises and tenons and other joints,
accurately made and neatly fitted. We remained here an hour or so,
while the "Commission" was making gifts to the people. No weapons
whatever were visible, and the women and children moved about freely
without a trace of shyness or fear. Our way beyond the village now
took us by many turns back to the river, the trail finally rising
in the side of a vertical cliff, such that by leaning over a little
one could look past one's stirrup straight down to the water many
hundreds of feet below. At the highest point the trail turned sharp
to the left, almost back on itself. I am proud to say that I rode it
all, but was thankful when it was behind us. Heiser's horse this day
got three of his feet over the edge and rolled down eighty or ninety
feet, Heiser having jumped off in time to let his mount go alone. It
was fortunate for him that this particular cliff was not the scene of
this fall. Some three miles farther, on fording a stream, we passed
from Bontok into Kalinga, and were met by Mr. Hale, the Governor, with
two warriors, tall and slender, broad of chest and thin of flank, with
red and yellow gee-strings, tufts of brilliant feathers in their hair,
and highly polished head-axes on their hips. Greetings over, we went
on, and soon reached the river again, going down the left bank until
we came upon what seemed to me to be a most interesting geological
formation. For the bank of the river here rose sharply in a rounded,
elongated mass, the end of which toward us was cut off, as it were,
just as one cuts off the end of a loaf of bread, and showed alternate
thin black and white strata only three or four inches thick tilted
at an angle of sixty or seventy degrees and mounting several hundred
feet in the air. The trail itself had been cut out in the side of
the mass, and was so narrow that not only was everyone ordered to
dismount, but the American horses were all unsaddled, the inch or
two so gained being important in passing along. The black and white
strata showing on the path, there was an opportunity to examine them;
the black layers were so soft and friable that they could be gouged
out with ease with the hand, and appeared to be vegetable, while the
white stripes were most probably limestone. This bit of the trail
is regarded as dangerous, because the rock overhead is continually
breaking loose and tumbling down; for this reason it was unsafe to try
to dislodge pieces for later examination. One of our _cargadores_,
as it was, fell over, his pack getting knocked in, while he himself
escaped with a bruise or two. It was a bad place! At the end of it
a host of Kalingas acclaimed us, as picturesque as the warriors we
had met at the stream, and took over the pack. Leaving the river,
we began what appeared to be an interminable climb to Lubuagan. Up
ran the trail, disappearing far ahead above us, behind the shoulder
of the ridge; and we would all be hoping (those of us to whom the
country was new) that Lubuagan would be just around the turn, only to
find we had the same sort of climb to another shoulder; the fact being
that the ridge here thrust itself out in rising echeloned spurs, each
one of which had to be turned, so that we began to doubt if there was
such a place as the capital of the Kalinga province. In truth, we had
been up since 3:30 and were nearly spent from heat and thirst. But at
last we made the final turn, and entered upon a narrow green valley,
with a bold, clear stream rushing over and between the rocks that
filled its bed. Broad-leafed plants nodded a welcome from the waters,
as we rode through the grateful shadow of the overarching trees, and
shining pools smiled upon us. We crossed a bridge, came down a bit,
and, breaking through the fringe of trees and shrubs, saw before us
the place-of-arms of Lubuagan.