﻿1 96 MERRILL. 



Mangyans do not possess the usual superstitions regarding mountains 

 which are found among most natives of the Philippines, or at least not 

 to such a degree as to prevent them from ascending the high ridges. 

 Just before dark the heavy storm set in again, continuing all night and 

 throughout the following day. In spite of it, we left camp on the 

 morning of November 22 with the object of reaching the highest point 

 on Halcon. In passing from the point where we stopped trail cutting a 

 few days before, to the summit of the mountain, we encountered the 

 densest thickets seen on the entire trip, and immediately below the peak it 

 took two men three and one-half hours of constant and heavy work with 

 bolos to open a very narrow trail, for a distance of less than one-half a mile. 

 At 1 o'clock in the afternoon of November 22, twenty-one days from the 

 coast, the party reached the highest point on Halcon. The summit being 

 shrouded in clouds, no view was obtained and as all the members of the 

 party where suffering severely from the cold and rain, we stopped only 

 long enough to take aneroid readings and to deposit a record of the trip, 

 which was placed in a sealed bottle and secured to the largest tree on 

 the summit, there being no bowlders available of which to build a cairn. 

 The top of Halcon is a somewhat flattened ridge about one-eighth of a 

 mile long, sloping gradually to the southeast ; the peak is covered 

 with a dense growth of stunted trees, none of them more than 10 feet 

 in height, the ground and the trunks, branches and even smaller branchlets 

 of the trees being thinkly covered with from 5 to 15 inches of moss. 



No marks of a trail were observed and no signs were seen anywhere in 

 the vicinity of the peak which would indicate that the summit had ever 

 been visited by human beings, and it would be physically impossible for any 

 person to reach it through the dense forest growth without leaving signs 

 of trail cutting. Late in the afternoon the party arrived at Camp Num- 

 ber Seven and spent a most disagreeable night in wet clothes and blankets, 

 as it was impossible to start a fire because of the continuous wind and 

 rain and consequently no warm food could be prepared. On the morn- 

 ing of November 23 we returned to Camp Number Six and during the 

 two following days we were obliged to remain there because of the storm. 

 On the morning of November 26, our carriers who had remained at the 

 base camp at the junction of the Alag and Bolton Eivers, came back 

 reporting the Alag River very high and unfordable, and for that reason 

 the carriers who had been sent to Subaan had been unable to return ; 

 moreover, the food supply at the base camp was very low. As we had 

 no further object in remaining at the higher altitudes we broke Camp 

 Number Six on the morning of November 26 with the intention of sleeping 

 that night at the large Mangyan house described on page 182. As we 

 had but few carriers, every member of the party was obliged to pack a 

 heavy load. The topographer and hospital corps man left Camp Num- 

 ber Six about half an hour before the remainder of the party, but on 



