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We and our trunks were bundled into a launch, and we left the Buford forever. We were familiar with the magazine illustrations of the Pasig long before our pedagogic invasion of Manila, but we were unprepared for the additional charm lent to these familiar views by the play of color. The bancas are dug-out canoes, each paddled by a single oarsman.
Dim mountainous shapes would rise out of the sea and loom vaguely in the starlit distance, the curving beaches at their bases outlined by the torches in the bancas till they looked like boulevards with their lines of flickering lamps.
All day long men and boys, innocent of even an excuse for clothes, hovered about the ship in bancas or dugouts, chattering volubly with each other in Visayan, or begging us in broken Spanish to throw down coins that they might exhibit their natatorial accomplishments, and, when we finally yielded, diving with yells of delight for the bits of silver, seeming quite as much pleased, however, with chocolates wrapped in tin-foil as they had been with the money, and uttering shrill cries that sounded profanely like "Dam'me dam'me," to attract our attention.
There are many very large scorpions in the rivers and creeks, and a great number of crocodiles, which are very bloodthirsty and cruel. They quite commonly pull from their bancas the natives who go in those boats, and cause many injuries among the horned cattle and the horses of the stock-farms, when they go to drink.
This paddle served both to propel and to steer the bancas. More than once he was embarrassed when he caught Maria Clara looking at him. Then he would turn his eyes quickly to some other direction and look far off toward the mountain, or the shore of the lake. The young maiden pitied him in his solitude and offered him some biscuits. The pilot looked at her with surprise, but only for a moment.
On the 14th, they left Manila, and proceeded in carriages to Santa Ana, on the Pasig, in order to avoid the delay that would ensue if they followed the windings of the river in a banca, and against the current. At Santa Ana they found their bancas waiting for them, and embarked.
In the conversation which ensued, the padre said he had more cases of the violation of the marriage vow, and of infidelity, than any other class of crimes. After a hearty breakfast, or rather dinner, and expressing their thanks to the padre, they rode back to Santa Cruz, where they arrived at an early hour, and at nine o'clock in the evening they embarked in their bancas for Manila.
Down these lanes came bancas, sometimes with a single occupant paddling at the stern, sometimes with a whole family sitting motionless on their heels. Once we passed the ruins of what had been a sugar mill or a bino factory probably the latter. Then the Blanco, puffing ahead, whistled twice, we rounded a curve and came full upon the town.
But we had no such ill-luck, and bancas soon came over for us, the horses swimming.
The Laguna de Bay is said to be about ten leagues in length by three in width, and trends in a north-northwest and south-southeast direction. After dark, the bancas separated. Mr. Sturges, with Dr. Pickering and Mr. Eld, proceeded to visit the mountain of Maijaijai, while Messrs. Rich, Dana, and Brackenridge, went towards the Taal Volcano.
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