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The silence which greeted the reception of this terrible news was as profane as words, and the Powers-that-Be decided on the spot that enough work had been spent on that calamitous cable for the time being, and decided to proceed with the laying of the main lines, leaving the Lintogup stretch until a subsequent visit to Misamis.
Later, however, the young officer who had been sent ashore to make the final adjustments in the Dumaguete office, came aboard with the disheartening information that Misamis could not be raised, and the ensuing depression on the Burnside was appalling.
The whole party was intensely interested in the big telescope which drew Misamis within a stone's throw of the ship, and they could not in the least understand how we cooked in the steam galley without any fuel, while the ice-machine and cold storage rooms were quite beyond their comprehension, none of them ever having seen ice before.
Then the buoy was cut away and taken into the little boat, the cable being heaved aboard by means of the drum, where, after detaching the mushroom anchor, tests were made and final telegraphic instructions sent to Misamis about connecting the office there.
The fault was found in a lightning arrester which one of the operators had neglected in the cable hut. This was remedied, and the cable connection between Misamis and Dumaguete completed. Immediately the natives poured into the cable office with numberless messages for friends or business acquaintances, and knots of men gathered about the building and congratulated each other on the great event.
Each of the chiefs and all their followers were dressed in the picturesque Moro costume, which we had seen first in Misamis and Iligan, and all of them were frankly curious over the American women. They discussed us freely to our very faces, and kept changing their positions to get a better view of us, staring with amazement when the old datto was brought up and introduced.
So, instead of starting to lay the cable to Misamis, we used the machinery as a fishing tackle, and, after some little trouble, hooked the Cagayan cable in a hundred and twenty-five fathoms of water.
There the officers held an informal reception in our honour, to which all the socially possible of Misamis were invited, and the native band serenaded us with such choice selections as "A Hot Time," and "After the Ball," decidedly off the key, to be sure, but with the best intentions in the world.
While in Misamis I verily believe that family was pointed out to us twenty times at least, and whenever a man lowered his voice and started in with, "You see those girls over there? Well, their grandfather was an American " I steeled myself for what was to follow, and expressed surprise and interest as politely as possible, for it is hard to attain conventional incredulity over a twice-told tale.
After tiffin the ship sailed into anchorage in the harbour of Misamis, half-way around the old fort, which seemed to grow more picturesque with every turn, till finally we could see the village of Misamis, almost hidden in a bewildering mass of tropical vegetation.
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