-Anting-anting Stories The story of the tax collector of Siargao reminds me of an official of that rank whom I once knew,” said a fellow naturalist whom I once met at a club in Manila, and with whom I had been exchanging experiences. “It was when I was gathering specimens in Negros. They were a bad lot, those collectors, a set of money-grabbers of the worst kind, but, bad as they were, they had a hard time, too. “If they did not make their pile, out of the poor...

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- Anting-anting Stories “How very singular! What do you suppose they are doing?” “I’m sure I don’t know. The American mind is unequal to grappling with the problem of what the natives are doing out here, most of the time. They seem to be praying. Or are they having a thanksgiving?” “I don’t know. All women, too!” The young American woman and the officer who was her escort halted their horses to watch better the group of people of whom they had been...

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- Anting-anting Stories Mateo, my Filipino servant, was helping me sort over specimens one day under the thatched roof of a shed which I had hired to use for such work while I was on the island of Culion, when I was startled to see him suddenly drop the bird skin he had been working on, and fall upon his knees, bending his body forward, his face turned toward the road, until his forehead touched the floor. At first I thought he must be having some new kind of...

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- Anting-anting Stories The red eye of the lighthouse on Corregidor Island blazed out through the darkness as a Pacific steamer felt her way cautiously into Manila harbour. Although it was nearly midnight, a woman—one of the passengers on the steamer—was still on deck, and standing well up toward the bow of the boat was peering into the darkness before her as if she could not wait to see the strange new land to which she was coming. Surely it would be a strange land to her, who, until...

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