RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
an altitude of 5600 feet. By this time we were all on horseback with eight Igorrote boys behind us carrying a sedan chair to be used in case of accident or a dangerous washout on the trail. I wish I could describe the magnificence of the scene which lay all about us when we reached that amazing summit. General Bell, who had been all through the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone, and the Yosemite Valley, said there was nothing that he had ever seen which could compare with it. And its grandeur is accentuated by vivid colouring. The Igorrotes have, for hundreds of years, been building extraordinary rice-terraces and these have gradually climbed the mountains until, in some places, only the rugged crests are left uncultivated. The terraces are as symmetrical as honeycomb and are built in solid walls of finely laid masonry out of which grow ferns and tangled vines. The brilliant colour of the young rice fairly glows against the dark greens of pine trees, of spreading mangoes, and of tropic forest giants whose names I do not know. And wherever one looks there are peaks, jagged sunlit peaks which rise from sombre valleys upward into a strange light whose every ray seems to shine in its own individual hue. In the far distance we could see the ocean, with white breakers dashing against the cliffs; while in the valley below the Santa Cruz River, though actually foaming and dashing through its winding, rocky bed, seemed to us to be lying still, without motion of any kind, or sound.
In my diary, which I kept on that trip, I find that at each stopping place I have solemnly set down the observation that: "the scenery to-day was the finest we have yet found"; and when we reached Sagada I took the trouble to record for my own future reference that: "I shall not rest until Will has seen it." He never has.
At Sagada we found ourselves quite far up in the Igorrote country, where Filipinos as a rule, do not go. We had come from Cervantes over a trail where the horses cautiously
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