Nov. 19, 1904.] 
^^r^ r „ ,„,;., nii.mi.iiwii.mrti-TrirnTlii ^tmt*t t ^ ^^'^^-' mn ^' 
down, live mostly by fishing and trading. The lake 
Moros, however, are excellent agriculturists, and also 
skilled workers in wood and metals; they know some- 
thing of the arts and sciences; the women weave beau- 
tiful cloth from silk and hemp fibres, and all of the 
better class read and write their own language with 
more or less fluency. The lake dwellers are unques- 
tionably the elite of the Mindanao Moros, who, having 
been driven back by the others from the coast and 
rivers, finally settled on the shores of Lake Lanao, 
and making up their minds that they had gone far 
enough, decided to stay and fight it out; which they did 
with such good success, that for over three hundred years 
they kept not only the other Moros, but the Spaniards 
as well out of their country, and it was not until about 
1889 that the Spaniards obtained a foothold on the 
north end of the lake at Marahui and built a road from 
there to Iligan. Over this road they carried three 
gunboats, made in sections, and had just gotten them 
put together, when the Spanish-American war broke 
out, stopping all further operations. 
For a couple of years after the war, the Moros gave 
little or no trouble, but in March, 1902, a detachment 
under Lieut. W. D. Forsyth, 15th U. S. Cavalry, which 
was scouting in the mountains back of Parang Parang, 
was attacked one morning while at breakfast and one 
man killed, the detachment being forced to abandon 
their horses and everything else except their rifles and 
to make their way as best they could back to Parang 
Parang on foot through the jungle, not daring to fol- 
low the trail which they soon found was literally lined 
with Moros in ambush. In order to punish them for 
this act of hostility against the Government, an ex- 
pedition was fitted out at Malabang to go to Lake 
Lanao, recover the horses abandoned by Lieut. For- 
syth and teach the people there that it would not do 
to trifle with the United States. This column, known 
as the Lake Lanao expedition, left Malabang under the 
command of Colonel (now General) Frank D. Baldwin, 
of the 27th U. S. Infantry, on the 18th day of April, 
1902, and had five fights with the Moros between April 
19 and May 2, the last and greatest of them being the 
battle of Bayang, in which fifteen Americans were killed 
and fifty-six wounded out of about 250 men actually 
engaged. 
The Sultan of Bayang,^ the most powerful, hostile 
and influential ruler in the lake country, was killed in 
the fight and his followers were either killed or scat- 
tered. This expedition, which was the first to enter 
this sacred land, established Camp Vicars, named in 
honor of 1st Lieut. T. A. Vicars, 27th U. S. Infantry, 
who was killed in the battle of Bayang during the 
assault of Fort Pandapattan, thus in less than three 
weeks gaining a foothold in the lake country, which 
the Spaniards had been trying for nearly four hundred 
years to accomplish without being able to do so, and 
it was there that the writer was stationed for a year, 
and where he learned what little he knows of the Moro 
character and customs. Ahmi Commissario. 
My Sermon to Negroes. 
It was down in the middle of the Texas cotton country, 
and right in the middle of the cotton-picking season, 
when 1 preached my first and last sermon in any pulpit. 
The sermon may not have been a very polished one; it 
had at least the merit of being extempore. I used no 
notes, but "made it up as I went along." 
The Civil War had been over eighteen months, and the 
planters were trying to get on their feet again, but found 
it to be hard work. Most of them had still all the negroes 
who had been their former slaves ; the young men had not 
yet begun to crowd into the cities, but the negroes only 
worked when they felt like working, and any sort of an 
excuse was sufficient for them not to feel like it; that was 
the way that most of the men at least felt a good part 
of the time. Cotton was still worth 20 cents a pound; 
it had been worth 30 cents not long before, and would 
only be worth about 10 in a year or two, so the planters 
naturally wanted to make hay while the sun shone. The 
negroes got a cent a pound for picking seed cotton. It 
takes about three pounds of seed cotton to make one of 
ginned, and I have had negro women tell me that they 
picked 'and got paid in silver for one hundred and fifty 
pounds a day. 
Just in the middle of the most busy season an old negro 
evangelist, who had been traveling half over Texas, 
struck our county and began to hold his "bush meetings. 
He would hold forth a day or two on one plantation, then 
move to the next, taking with him all the 'pepole off this 
one who would follow him. 
The planters were very tired of this, but were afraid to 
interfere with him. This bureau of ours was here, and 
if a white man only looked crooked at a negro, the negro 
would complain of it, then the white man would be 
3,1* rested 
I came in contact with the planters a good deal on 
account of my being our sheriff's deputy, and found them 
to be a clever set of men. They complained to me about 
this old nuisance, but I could do nothing. But at last 
I had some of them go to the bureau officer and tell him 
that I had sent them. I had no use for the average negro 
preacher, anyhow. I had seen many specimens of him m 
different parts of the South, but this one seemed to be 
below their average even. When a boy we had a 
burlesque of a negro sermon which we used to rehearse. 
It had .for a text "And they shall gnaw files and flee unto 
the mountains of Hepsidam, where the lion roareth and 
the whangdoodle mourneth for her first born." Since 
then I had attended meetings held by colored men in the 
South, whose sermons were a burlesque on even this one. 
Theirs could not be made a burlesque of; they were a 
complete one in themselves. I would have to keep in 
mind where I was now not to laugh at them. 
Some of these "ministers" could not read the plainest 
chapter to be found in the Bible and not twist it all out of 
shape, and give it a meaning it was never intended to 
have. ' But I have forgot all about my minister. 
I was sent for by the captain who was in charge of the 
bureau at Lagrange, one morning, and asked what I knew 
of this man. I told him all I knew of him. Then I was 
told to arrest him whenever I met him. I started to find 
him right away. I wanted to put him out of business for 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
a while for the benefit of the planters. Going out in the 
direction I had heard of him last, I met a young negro a 
few miles from town, who told me where to find "Uncle," 
that was what they called him. I found him in a grove a 
few hundred yards from a planter's house; and dismount- 
ing at the house first I met the planter and told him what 
I had come for. The preacher had just begun his service, 
I suppose. He was "lining out" a hymn. I could hear 
him from here. The hymn he was at work on was "When 
I Can Read My Title Clear." I could have sung it for 
him without any lining out. The lady coming to the 
door said, "Stop and take dinner and let him finish his 
sermon; then arrest him." A negro boy took my horse 
and I sat on the porch listening to the singing and pray- 
ing until we were called to dinner. At the table the lady 
complained of the loss of her house servants; all except 
the cook and one boy were up there now, she said. 
"They will be here in a short time now," I told her, 
"and will stay here. I mean to give those negroes a 
talking to that will keep them at home for a while." 
After dinner the planter and I walked up to the meet- 
ing. "Uncle," had a small stand placed under a large oak 
tree for his pulpit. His hearers sat on the grass just 
below him. He had taken his text from the Sermon on 
the Mount, and while we stood here behind him, he read 
the verse "Blessed are the pure in heart." He made it 
"poor in heart," and so understood it, as I found from his 
remarks on it. 
"This will do for to-day," I told the planter; and step- 
ping up to "Uncle" I said : "Stop this ; I want you now." 
"What does you want me for, sah?" 
"I have been sent to arrest you. Come with me now." 
"Can't I finish dis sermon, sah?" 
"No; I'll finish it for you. Sit down here." 
He took his seat on a chair he had ; and walking to his 
stand on which his Bible lay open I closed it; then stood 
a moment looking down on the sea of black faces. There 
were at least 500 of them here — men, women and children. 
A good many of these women were the house servants 
that their mistresses needed so badly. I could tell them 
by the smart dresses and ribbons they wore. The field 
hands wore no ribbons, nor much of anything else except 
rags. 
"I have a few words to say to you people before I dis- 
miss you," I told them, "and I want you to pay particu- 
lar attention to what I do say. Keep it in your mind, 
and tell it to all your friends who are not here to-day. 
"I have arrested your preacher because he has been 
trailing you people all over the country after him and 
keeping you from your work. You have been following 
him around when you ought to have been saving the 
crops. Now, this must stop, and stop right now. Go 
home and go to picking that cotton. How do you expect 
to live next winter if you don't work now when the work 
has to be done? These planters won't keep you; they 
can't if you don't pick their cotton. They will have noth- 
ing to keep you on. You are free now. We have made 
you free, and that is all we can do for you ; you must 
now help yourselves. Work, just as the white man does, 
or starve. Don't sit around here waiting for that seven 
acres and a mule that some fool white man has told you 
of. He was lying when he told you, and he knows it as 
well as I do. There are no seven acres or a mule for 
any of us ; if there were, I would want mine right now. 
All the acres and mules either you or I will ever get will 
be those we buy and pay for." 
"But dese heah planters has lots of land, sah," an old 
negro told me. 
"Yes, I know they have, and they are going to keep it. 
We won't take it from them; it belongs to them just as 
yours will belong to you when you get it. Yours can't 
be taken from you then, either. 
"Now remember, these meetings you have been hold- 
ing every day in the week must stop right now. Hold 
your meetings on Sunday. The Bible here says that for 
six days you must work in the cotton fields and rest on 
the seventh. Then you can go to church, or go fishing 
if you want to." 
"Uncle" was heard from now. I had been expecting 
to hear from him long since. Jumping up he said : "No, 
sah; I begs youah pahdon, sah; but dat Bible doan say 
so. Dat what you tell 'em is not in it, sah; an' I knows 
it, an' so does you, sah." s 
"You sit down and keep quiet, Uncle. I am doing this 
preaching, or trying to. You keep still. 
"Now, you people go home and go- to picking cotton. 
When I come out here again, if I do not find you at it, 
I will take as many of you as that jail will hold — and it 
can hold a good many of you ; and put you in it and keep 
you in it. That is all now. Go home." 
"Can't I give them the benediction first, sah?" 
"Yes, but nothing else. I want no more preaching here 
to-day." 
They stood up while he gave them the benediction, and 
he made it a long one, too. Then I asked him if he had 
a horse. "I has a meuel, sah." "Then get him and come 
on." A boy brought him his "meuel." The mule was not 
much larger than a donkey, and "Uncle" stood nearly six 
feet high. When he was mounted his feet just cleared the 
ground. 
I brought him down to the "big house," and got my 
horse and we started. Part of the congregation were 
now stringing out for home in all directions; and part of 
it, mostly women, and all of them in their bare feet, fell in 
on the road just behind us. 
"Where are you people going?" I asked them. 
"We want to go with 'Uncle' to town, sah, if you will 
let us." 
"Well, I won't. You don't want to go to jail, do you?" 
No, they did not. "Well, that is where he is going. Clear 
out of this now." They left. 
The bureau officer in town had a district that embraced 
several counties; he had been a volunteer captain and 
hailed from New England, but he was a fair man; he 
treated both whites and blacks exactly alike. I often 
tried his cases myself, not bringing them to him at all. 
He would tell me to go out to a certain man's place, find 
out what the trouble was, and if the planter was to blame 
to bring him in. The trouble generally was that a party 
of negroes had made a raid on this man's chickens or 
hogs, and he had shot at them. I would give the negroes 
a calling down then, and bring nobody in. 
I took "Uncle" to town and up to the court house, 
where the bureau was. 
"Is dis de jail, sah?" he asked. 
"This is the court house. I'll try you here first, then 
find you the jail; but your trial will be only a matter of 
form. I tried you on our way in here. I am going to 
give you two years." 
I had the old fellow- scared half to death now; he be- 
lieved everything I told him. I had put in my time com- 
ing in in stuffing him with information about the bureau 
and what I could do> with him. Leading him by the arm, 
I took him into the office and up to the captain's desk. 
The old fellow was about to begin an address, when I 
said : "That will do now ; cut that short off. The cap- 
tain does all the talking that is done here. This is the 
Freedman's Bureau I told you about." 
"So you are a preacher," the Captain said, looking at 
him. 
"Yes, sah, I tries to preach." 
"You don't succeed very well then," I said, "if that 
sermon I listened to to-day is a fair specimen of your 
efforts at preaching." 
"What church do you belong to?" the Captain asked. 
"I is a Baptis', sah." 
"You have put your foot in it now," I thought. The 
Captain was a Methodist, and had no use for any other 
church. 
"Where were you ordained ?" 
^Sah?" 
"He does not understand you; he has never been or- 
dained. None of these colored traveling preachers 
have; they ordain themselves whenever they think they 
have a call to preach." 
The Captain said : "Well I hardly know what to do 
in your case. You cannot hang him, can you?" he asked 
me. 
"Yes, sir, I can, as soon as you give me the order." 
"Uncle" was shaking now as though he had the ague. 
At last the Captain asked, "Have you any friends here in 
town?" Yes, he had. 
"Then stop there to-night and come here again in the 
morning, and I will see what I can do about your case." 
I was afraid that he might forget to come back; so 
next morning I hunted him up and brought him back. 
Then the Captain gave him his orders not to preach any 
day except on Sunday, and let him go. 
I met him a few days after this, still hanging around 
town, and asked him what he meant to do? "You are not 
doing any more preaching, are you?" I had been watch- 
ing him and knew he was not preaching. No, he had not 
done any. "And you don't seem to' be doing anything 
else. Why don't you go out and pick cotton? You can 
make as much at it as you can at preaching, and you 
won't be taking money off men who are poorer than you 
are yourself then." 
"No, sah;" his Master had called him and he must 
preach. He was going up to Round Top now. 
"Oh, no you are not ; that is in my district also, and I 
don't want you up there any more than I do down here." 
Well, then, could he go to' Columbus. Yes, but he 
would not want to, though, if he knew the sheriff there. 
Going to the office now I wrote to the sheriff of Colorado 
county, telling him that "Uncle" was about to pay him a 
visit, and if he did not need him there, to pass him on 
to Galveston, not back this way again; we did not need 
him here. 
He blew into Columbus a few days after this, and 
started one of his revivals right in town, and the sheriff 
put him in jail for vagrancy. 
The talk I had given the negroes was all over the 
county in less than three days. The planters could tell 
me about it wherever I went; their negroes had told 
them. Some of the planters afterward told me that I 
had saved many a bale of cotton for them. One old 
planter who> had a big place a few miles from town had 
had great trouble with his field hands, and weeks before 
I had arrested "Uncle" I stopped at his place all night 
one night; then next morning, just at daylight, started 
at one end of his negro quarters and went clear to the 
other end, running every man and boy out to the field 
without his breakfast. I had to pull most of them out 
of bed; then telling the women to get their breakfast 
and follow the men. There never was any more trouble 
with these hands. They picked cotton now from sun to 
sun, and saved his whole crop. 
This man had a big bunch of fine horses, Kentucky 
stock that he was raising for market. He told me to go 
into his field and select the horse that suited me and 
ride him away. It would have taken me about thirty 
seconds to select that horse; I had him selected ahead, 
but I would not be allowed to keep him in the troop, and 
would net take him as a present and then sell him. 
Cabia Blanco. 
The Tobacco Cute* 
Plainfield, Mass. — A writer in the St. Louis Globe- 
Democrat reports a speedy cure of a badly sprained ankle 
by the application of a poultice of tobacco leaves dipped 
in water. He writes: "When I reached my rooms I was 
surprised to find that the pain in my ankle was very 
much lessened, and decided to give the poultice a fair 
trial. In the morning when I awoke there was absolutely 
no pain in my ankle whatever, and only the slightest sug- 
gestion of a swelling. I was able to don my shoes with- 
out trouble, and that day attended to business as though 
nothing had befallen me. Since then one of my friends 
suffered a sprain and consented to^ have a leaf tobacco 
poultice applied, which resulted in his case just as it had 
in mine. I have also tried it in other instances of slight 
injury, where there was pain and danger of swelling, and 
have found that invariably it relieved the pain within a 
remarkably short space of time, and generally prevented 
any swelling." Tobacco' quids were almost the sole ap- 
plication for wounds and bruises on the plains fifty years 
ago. They could not get anything else in emergencies, 
and almost every man had his plug. 
Charles Hallock. 
"Wrecked by a "Whale. 
Capt. Jones, of the British steamship Quernmore, reports that 
on Sept. 30 he sighted the Danish schooner Anna of Marstan 
flying signals of distress. The vessel was in danger of sinking, 
and the crew of six was taken aboard the Quernmore and brought 
to Baltimore. Capt. Madsen, of the Anna, reports that on Sept. 
27 his vessel, which was in ballast, struck a whale, and was so 
seriously damaged at the bows that she gradually filled with 
water. The Anna was bound from Patrix, Iceland, to Campbel- 
town, N. B. 
