MARCH 24, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
459 

dozens of small wooden boxes, piled one on 
another against the walls held the wardrobes 
and other treasures of the Sultan and his family. 
Under the canopy the floor was _ thickly 
carpeted with dried grass, over which petaties 
were spread, and here when we entered were 
seated the Sultan, Bancuran and her father; 
while ranged around them in a semi-circle were 
several women squatting on the floor at the 
edge of the carpet, and perhaps fifteen Dattos 
standing on the opposite side. 
Bancuran was a remarkably pretty girl and 
would have been so considered in any company; 
in fact, she was the only Moro woman I saw 
who could have been considered pretty accord- 
ing to our standards. She was possibly eigh- 
teen years old, with clean cut, regular features, 
and almost white. Her hands and feet were 
slender and beautifully formed, and her skin 
was as smooth and clear as a piece of satin. 
She wore her hair twisted into a loose knot 
on one side of her head, into which was 
rakishly thrust a huge scarlet flower. Her dress 
was a handsome silk sarong of subdued color- 
ing—principally maroon—draped _ gracefully 
from the right shoulder, leaving the left 
shoulder and breast bare. This sarong reached 
to the floor and was arranged so as to show 
the right foot and a portion of the leg when 
she walked. Her finger nails, which were at 
least three-quarters of an inch long, were 
stained red with some kind of dye as were also 
her lips and cheeks, and a spot on her forehead, 
FRUIT BAT, KILLED 
while her teeth—though blackened, as is the 
Moro custom—were regular and even and not 
filed. Her attendants—the women by whom 
she was surrounded—were dressed and painted 
in much the same manner as was Bancuran, but 
seemed to have been particularly selected for 
their lack of personal beauty—possibly to make 
that of the Sultana appear all the greater. 
Our hostess ‘received us with the grace and 
tact of a born social leader. Indeed it was 
really wonderful; and when I spoke of this to 
Pershing, who had been frequently entertained 
‘by Moros of the better class and met their 
women, he told me that the same thing had 
struck him when he first met well-bred Moro 
women, and that their manners were charming. 
We were undoubtedly the first white men this 
girl had seen in her life; our clothing, arms and 
appearance must all have been curious to her; 
but not by the slightest sign did she show that 
it was not her daily custom to entertain several 
American officers. She sat there and chatted 
with us and the Dattos of her husband’s suite 
for all the world as any well-bred American 
girl would have done. We talked about the 
weather and other subjects of local interest, just 
as we would have at home, had we dropped 
in on a friend’s wife for an afternoon cup of 
tea; and when Pershing presented the gifts he 
had brought her, instead of tearing them open 
the first thing—as most Moros would have done 
—she thanked him and handed them to an at- 
tendant with directions where to place them. 
After chatting awhile, cigarettes and betel 
were passed, Bancuran refusing the former, but 
accepting some betel which one of her women 
prepared for her; and it struck us all as very 
incongruous to see such a pretty girl expector- 
ating copiously into a silver cuspidor passed her 
from time to time by an attendant. She told 
Pershing, in reply to his expression of sur- 
prise that she had not lighted a cigarette, that 
she never smoked, nor did she like to see other 
women do so. Imagine it, in a land where 
nearly all women use not only cigarettes, but 
cigars as well. 
Presently—upon a hint from Leon—Pershing 
asked to be permitted to see “the baby’; and 
his little royal highness was brought in, look- 
ing exactly like a brown monkey, and given into 
his proud mother’s arms, who crooned and 
talked baby talk to him just as mothers do all 
the world over. 
After we had spent an hour or so in conver- 
sation, some dancing girls appeared and went 
through several of their so-called dances, to the 
accompaniment of the usual (un) musical in- 
struments; but they were not very entertaining, 
as their performance was not dancing at all— 
only a series of more or less graceful postures 
and a waving of arms and twisting of hands, 

AT CAMP VICARS 
and was not to be compared, in point of inter- 
est, to the exhibition given by the men at our 
fiesta, of which I have already told you. 
The dance being over, Pershing leading the 
Sultan and Ahmi Bancuran one side, asked if 
it wouldn’t be possible for them to take us to 
call on Said y Ducimen, now that we were down 
there and so near his house. 
To this they at first demurred, but finally— 
after much urging—agreed, and off we started, 
our hopes high with the expectation of at last 
meeting our arch enemy and, as Pershing put 
it, “sizing him up.” 
We were doomed to disappointment, ‘how- 
ever, for after coming within a few hundred 
yards of his house, our Moro friends got a 
very bad .attack of what we in the Philippines 
called “cold feet”? and backed out, saying that 
Said y Ducimen was ill and would not feel like 
receiving visitors, but promising that they 
would try and induce him to come up and 
see us shortly; and with this'we had to be con- 
tented, for not one step further would they go. 
Just after our visit to Bancuran, -cholera 
broke out in Moroland, and we quarantined 
against every one, even our best friends, not a 
Moro being permitted to approach closer than 
fifty yards to the outposts. But true to their 
promise the Sultan Ahmi Bancuran and our 
gallant old standby, Ahmi Mannibeling, brought 
all their influence to bear on Said y Ducimen, 
with the result that one morning a few weeks 
later Pershing sent for me and told me that he 
had at last arrived and was then waiting for 
us in one of the deserted market buildings 
across the ravine, and invited me to be present 
at the meeting. 
When we got over there, we found a small 
party of Dattos surrounding an old man, gray- 
haired and bent with age, but with the face of a 
Jewish patriarch, to whom we were presented; 
and we stood at last face to face with our 
enemy. 
Greetings over, in reply to Pershing’s speech 
of welcome Said y Ducimen began a speech in 
a low dignified voice, in which he said he had 
come to see us at our request because he was 
tired of war and wanted peace; that we were not 
welcome in the land of the Malanaos, but that 
‘he had heard of our learning—how we could 
speak into a box at Camp Vicars and our voice 
would be heard at Malabang—how we could 
preserve the words of a person spoken at an- 
other time and place and by simply turning a 
crank in another box make their voice come 
forth, and speak as though the person owning 
it were actually present; that he knew of our 
apparently inexhaustible stock of men and guns 
and cartridges and having knowledge of all 
these things was: convinced that it would be 
useless for his people to struggle against us 
any longer; that he had observed our treat- 
ment of the Moros since we had been at. the 
lake and had found it just, and therefore he was 
now ready to dismantle his fort, send his men 
back to their homes and henceforth be a friend 
to the Americans, who he believed meant noth- 
ing but good towards his people. He con- 
cluded his speech by promising to aid us in 
securing the friendship of those Sultans and 
Dattos who still remained hostile; and he in- 
vited Pershing to come and visit him a week 
from that day and see for himself that. he had 
kept his word. 
To this speech, which promised so much 
more than we had dared to hope for, Pershing 
made fitting reply; and after the usual exchange 
of presents the old man took his departure. 
Unfortunately for me, when the day arrived 
for Pershing to make his return visit I was very 
ill and the surgeons wouldn’t listen to my plea 
to be allowed to get up and go along. But 
Pershing on his return told me all about the 
trip and what happenéd, his story making me 
curse the fates that had condemned me to re- 
main behind more than ever. 
Upon reaching Said y Ducimen’s cotta they 
found three or four hundred Moros there, 
some of whom were hard at work de- 
molishing the fort, while others were engaged 
in carrying lantakas from the walls and piling 
them inside the inclosure. 
The cotta itself consisted of a fort within a fort, 
the entrance to which was through a covered way 
only wide enough for one person at a time to 
pass. There were three lines of trenches and a 
deep moat surrounding the outer wall, and a 
ditch between the outer and inner one, the 
whole work showing a degree of engineering 
skill that was surprising. Pershing said that it 
was by far the strongest fort he had seen in 
the country, and that we could never have taken 
it without artillery. He counted sixty lantakas 
and numerous rifles’ inside, the Moros from all 
parts of the lake having contributed of their 
supply of arms to equip the place. 
Upon their approach the Moros fired a salute 
of several guns in their honor, to which they 
replied from one of the guns of’ the ‘‘mule 
battery’ forming part of the escort. When 
they arrived at the cotta, Said y Ducimen came 
out to meet them and escorted them to the 
inner fort, which was roofed over with poles, 
upon’ which a couple of feet of dirt had been 
spread to protect the inmates from our shells. 
Here he made the customary speech of wel- 
come to which Pershing replied in fitting terms. 
‘After the necessary speeches were over, Said 
y Ducimen and a number of other Moros took 
an oath of eternal friendship to the Americans, 
being sworn by a pandita who administered a 
