MAaRrcH 24, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
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BAYANG NEAR CAMP VICARS. 
His attitude finally became unbearable, and as 
our orders positively forbade our going down 
and giving him the thrashing he so richly de- 
served, we did the only other thing possible, and 
sent for the Sultan to come home and run his 
own ranch, which after a great deal of coaxing he 
did; and one day soon after his return we went 
by invitation and paid ovr respects to Her Royal 
Highness, Bancuran, Sultana of Bayang. 
We started one morning about 8 o’clock, the 
party consisting of Pershing, one of the sur- 
geons, whose services were always in great de- 
mand whenever we made a visit to the natives, 
and myself with two companies of infantry as 
escort. 
For a short distance our route took us over 
familiar ground, out through the north entrance 
of camp, past the guard at the spring, by Fort 
Pandapatan and then to the edge of the bluff 
over which ran a narrow, slippery clay trail so 
steep it was simply impossible to ride down it— 
or up it, either—and it was always a mystery to 
me how we all escaped without breaking our 
necks before we finally landed at the bottom. 
However, land we did after a beautiful exhibi- 
tion of slipping and sliding, and struck off 
through the fields for the Sultan’s palace. 
The trail wound round and round across the 
flat, past fields of rice and patches of sweet pota- 
toes, which the Moros call “camotes,” past houses 
and cottas, the former almost buried amid cocoa- 
nut palms and bread and wild grape fruit trees, 
while the latter were snugly and carefully hid- 
den in thickets of bamboo. 
The whole flat was very highly cultivated, won- 
derfully so, if you stop to consider the crude agri- 
cultural implements used by the Moros, and was 
by far the finest piece of country we had seen 
in Moroland. Coffee bushes were everywhere 
and bananas and other fruits not generally met 
with in that part of the country grew in profu- 
sion. 
The Moros raise a very fine grade of coffee, of 
which they are exceedingly fond, and which 
grows practically wild and certainly never re- 
ceives the careful attention given to the same 
plant in Porto Rico and other places where I 
have seen it growing. We passed fields of corn 
also which were the only ones I saw in the 
Philippines, and discovered a roost of the big 
fruit bats, several large trees being literally cov- 
ered with the great creatures, some of which have 
*a spread of sixty inches from tip to tip, hanging 
head down and fast asleep in the bright sun or 
fanning themselves with their wings. Every 
evening, just before dark, these bats leaye the 
roost and go to their feeding grounds, often miles 
and miles away. In the half hour immediately 
following sunset thousands of them would pass 
over camp to return just before daylight the next 
morning, I shot one that was flying over one 
evening, as I wanted to examine it more closely 
than was possible while it was on the roost. I 
took its picture the next morning and here it is, 
so you may see for yourself what an enormous 
creature it was. Its wings when spread to their 
fullest extent measured fifty-six inches from tip 
to tip, and it was by no means the largest one I 
saw. 
There was a sergeant in one of the companies 
forming the escort who was “in for a commis- 
sion,” and whom the men had _ nicknamed 
“Chauncey Depew” because of his extreme polite- 
ness and polished manner. They were all very 
much interested in this roost of bats, and one of 
them said to the sergeant: “Say, Chauncey, is 
them bats birds or animals?” In answer the ser- 
geant began quite a dissertation.on bats in gen- 
eral and the great fruit bat in particular, assur- 
ing his questioner that a bat was most undoubt- 
edly an animal. In the midst of the lecture Pri- 
vate Cassidy, one of the camp’s irrepressibles, 
broke in with: “Aw, come off, Chauncey; yer 
don’t know what yer’s talkin’ about. Dem ain’t 
needer birds or animals. Dem’s rat angels.” 
We halted at a house from which the inhabi- 
tants had apparently fled upon our approach, for 
no one was about, although there was abundant 
evidence that the place had been recently occu- 
pied, and here we were met by two Dattos whom 
the Sultan had sent to escort us to his residence. 
While resting here I took advantage of the 
opportunity to visit a Moro cemetery near the 
house, which was kept up very well indeed. The 
graves were banked with stones and some had 
stone slabs on top as well; the whole place show- 
ing that it received constant and loving atten- 
tion. Many of the graves had remains of small 
fires on them and all were surrounded by ferns 
and a plant resembling a canna—which is always 
found in Moro cemeteries and but seldom any- 
where else. The Moros have many strange no- 
tions concerning death and the hereafter; in fact, 
their whole scheme of religion is so mixed up 
between Mohammedism and superstitition that it 
is hard to determine just what they do believe. 
When a person dies—if he is of any importance 
—guns and lantakas are fired at intervals and 
gongs beaten in order to keep off evil spirits. 
The body lies in state, usually for three days, 
during which it is surrounded by lighted candles 
—if they can be had—or by torches made of some 
resinous gum. The body is then sewn in pataties 
and huried, while the soul either takes flight 
to Paradise, where it is received by the houris 
with open arms and gets its reward for the good 
deeds done by it in this life, or else enters into 
and takes possession of the body of some lower 
animal or bird, according to whether your in- 
formant is a good and devout Mohammedan or 
merely an indifferent one. 
After leaving this house the trail ran through 
the jungle for a short distance and then, after 
skirting the lake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, 
entered a clearing in the center of which stood a 
group of buildings that Leon, one of the inter- 
preters, said was the palace we had come to visit. 
The group contained one large and_ several 
smaller buildings, the large one being the palace 
proper, while the smaller ones were used as store 
houses and sleeping quarters for the slaves and 
others whose rank did not entitle to accommoda- 
tion in the palace itself. 
A large gathering of natives was assembled to 
greet us, among whom I recognized several old 
acquaintances, while through cracks in the bam- 
boo walls of the houses glimpses of bright eyes 
told us that fairer spectators were not lacking. 
Line was formed in the plaza in front of the 
palace from which, just as the formation was 
completed, appeared the Sultan and Ahmi Ban- 
curan, clad in what one of the men called the 
“very happiest of their glad rags.” Arms were 
presented, a royal salute was rendered, and Per- 
shing and the rest of us dismounted and were 
welcomed to Bayang. 
After chatting a few minutes outside we were 
invited into the palace, a building about fifty feet 
long by twenty-five wide and perhaps thirty feet 
high made entirely of bamboo—with the excep- 
tion of the posts on which it stood—and without 


FORT PANDAPATAN. 
