358 THE HOMEJFAED VOYAGE. [chap. 



tuft of silvery feathers on the forehead can be either erected, 

 as represented in the engraving, or depressed flat against the 

 skull, where it forms a triangle of regular shape with the apex 

 forward. 



Xearing the Sulu Islands we experienced another instance of 

 the uncertainties of navigation in these seas. The night was dark, 

 and on making the land we found, after a short period of doubt as 

 to our position, that a current had set us considerably to the west- 

 ward, and we thus sighted Pata Island broad on our starboard hand 

 instead of on the port bow, as we had calculated. The Marchesa 

 was soon in familiar waters, and before daybreak on the morning of 

 December 23rd we arrived off Jolo. 



The little town had altered a good deal since our first visit. A 

 new hospital and barracks were in course of erection ; the creepers 

 had quite covered the kiosk m the Plaza, where it had been our 

 custom to smoke and listen to the band ; and the bananas had shot 

 up to form quite respectable avenues. The digging necessitated by 

 the improvements and the constant confinement of the place had 

 not been without their effect upon the inhabitants. Our old friend 

 Don Julian Parrado looked worn and ill, and no less than five of 

 the officers had joined the great majority during our absence. 

 Three had died of fever, but the other two, we were informed, had 

 met their deaths " accidentally." Wliile sipping their chocolate at 

 the little cafe represented in the woodcut on page 48, one of 

 the fanatical Sulus — the juramentados, as they are termed by the 

 Spanish — who had managed unperceived to make his way into the 

 town with his parang, approached them from behind, and in an 

 instant the head of one of them was rolling on the ground. A 

 downward cut laid open the shoulder of his friend, and though the 

 bayonets of half a dozen of the coloured soldiers who happened to 

 be near were ahnost innnediately buried in the Sulu's body, it was 

 too late, for the wound proved almost immediately fatal. Calling 

 at the house of one of our friends, we were shown the parang, still 

 covered with the blood of the unfortunate victims. " Estci a la 



