IV.] TATAAN. 75 



A broad, sandy path led from the shore to the large barrack- 

 house, which was flanked on either side by two small buildings for 

 the Commandant and his lieutenants. A force of eighty coloured 

 soldiers were stationed here, but how they were employed or 

 amused it would be difficult to say, for they could not go more 

 than a hundred and fifty yards from the barracks in any dii-ection, 

 the dense jungle ha\'ing only been cleared for that distance round 

 the buildings. The Sulus were supposed to haunt the bush, and 

 the garrison had already lost one or two men, of whom no trace 

 had been discovered. Either they had been krissed or had lost 

 their way in the jungle. Existence here seemed, if possible, several 

 degrees w^orse than at Jolo. The only amusement was to bathe in 

 a pretty, creeper -covered little bath-house, through which the 

 streamlet of clear water that supplied the settlement had been led. 



The Commandant was pleased enough to have the dull 

 monotony of his life interrupted by our arrival. He spoke 

 Portugu.ese fluently, and aided by our letter of introduction from 

 Don Julian Parrado, we were becoming very good friends when 

 the door opened and the captain of the gun-boat reeled in. He 

 helped himself to the Vermouth unasked, and turning round on us, 

 abused us in the most violent terms for not having called on him 

 before the Commandant — he " would teach the English to be as 

 insolent to him again," and so on, the greater part of the harangue 

 being, in the language of the police-courts, unfit for publication. 

 He finally concluded by spitting in the Commandant's face. We 

 were on the eve of a row, for the brute was not sufficiently drunk 

 to be harmless, but it happily passed over, and we left the house 

 at once without further incident. The sight was scarcely an 

 edifying one to the native soldiers by whom we were surrounded.^ 



Tawi-tawi is, and has been from time immemorial, the haunt 

 of pirates. In these days of steam few large vessels fall into their 



^ We wrote to our friend the Governor of Jolo about this individual, and on our 

 return from New Guinea learnt that he had been dismissed his ship. From what 

 we saw of the Spanish officers, I am bound to say that such an instance as the above 

 must be regarded as absolutely exceptional. 



