In about ten minutes the effect of the mixture began to be seen. The smaller fish were affected first, and began to come to the top of the water, as if for air. Very soon they were followed by the larger ones, and soon the water seemed filled with them. They would come to the top of the water, turn on one side, flop about a little as if intoxicated, and then sink helplessly to the bottom, where, the water being nowhere very deep, it was easy to see them and capture them. The natives secured basket after basket full, getting some so large that they could not carry them in their baskets. These they would disable with a "machete" and then tow ashore. The fish did not eat the "macasla." It seemed simply to have impregnated the water, making a solution too powerful for them to withstand. They were not killed by its effects, but acted as if they were drunk. Those which the natives did not capture soon recovered and swam away as briskly as ever. Before they were able to do this though, the natives had secured more than enough food to last them as long as it would remain eatable.

Of course I found the miscellaneous harvest of sea animals which the "macasla" brought in most interesting, and secured a good many valuable specimens. Inasmuch as I had contributed very materially to the feast which was to take place that night, and which lasted all night long, the people let me wade about among the strangely helpless creatures and have a first pick of such as I wanted. I had noticed Poljensio running about, as one of the strongest and most agile of all the men in the water, and when he came near me once, when my basket was heavy, I offered to hire him to help me, although I had little idea that any one would work for wages at such a time. Quite to my surprise he seemed willing, and joined me in what I was doing. I learned afterwards that having no family to provide for he was not so much in need of profiting by the fish harvest as most of the men were. He had worked in the water all his life, and knew more about the habits of some of the creatures we caught than I did. When we came to go to my house, and he saw the specimens I had preserved there, he seemed to take a more intelligent interest in them than any other man I had ever had, and I was glad to be able to hire him to work for me all of the time, barring the few days he reserved for pearl fishing.

The season which followed proved to be an unusually successful one for the divers. The crop of oysters was large, and many pearls were found. The gems which were to go to the Sultan were superb, and there would be enough of them to make a truly royal necklace.

One night about six months after the "macasla" festival I woke suddenly from a sound sleep, with that strange feeling which sometimes comes to one at night, that I was not alone. While I lay listening and peering into the darkness of the room in which I slept, I heard a soft splash in the water beneath me, such as a big fish might have made if he had come to the surface, and diving back had struck the water with his tail. It had been high tide soon after midnight, and the water was not more than three or four feet beneath me. I listened a long time, but could hear nothing more, and finally went to sleep again, deciding that the splash I had heard had been made by a shark, and that some noise which he had made before that had been what had roused me.

Any further thought of my disturbance which I might have had was driven from my mind in the morning, when I came out and found the community in a state of violent commotion.

The "gobierno," the house in which the "Gobernadorcillo" lived, had been robbed in the night, and a bag containing about half the Sultan's pearls was gone. The government official, along with several other residents, lived on shore. The houses which, like mine, were built over the water, were generally inhabited by the divers and their families.

The voice of the "Gobernadorcillo" was not the only one raised in lamentation that morning, by any means, for he had very promptly begun a search for the missing jewels by beating his servants and every one connected with the official residence, within an inch of their lives. When this did not produce the pearls he extended the process to such other unfortunate residents of the town as fell under his suspicion. I really think the only thing which kept him from killing a few of the wretches was the fear that he might by some chance include the thief in the number, and thus destroy all hope of getting back the stolen gems.

No man, woman or child was allowed to leave the village, and so thorough was the system by which one of those deputy tax collectors kept track of his people, that he knew every one by name, and knew just where each one should be found. His superiors required a certain sum of money from each tax collector. They did not care in the smallest degree where or how he got the money, but a certain amount he must turn in at stated times, or else be put in prison and have other unpleasant things done to him. So it stood the "Gobernadorcillo" in good stead to know who his people were, and where they were, and how much each person could be made to pay.

As soon as his arm was rested from the beating he had given the suspected natives the official began a personal search of each house in the village. The native houses are so simple, and their stock of furniture so small, that it was no great task to make a thorough inspection of the entire place. What little furniture each house had was outside of it when the examination of that house was completed. It was fortunate for the people who lived in the houses built over the water that their homes were visited at low tide, for in the state of the examiner's temper when he visited them I think their effects would have gone out into the sea just as quickly as they went out on to the sand.

Even my house came under the terms of the universal edict, although my things were not used so harshly as were those of the natives, which was fortunate for me, for I had hundreds of specimens packed, and many more ready to pack, which I should have been very sorry indeed to have had dumped out of doors.

My relations with the Governor had always been pleasant. He really was quite as good a man as any one in his place could be expected to be. We had gotten along very well together, and I was glad now that this was so. When he came to my house he contented himself with looking through the part of the building where the native servant who cooked for me worked and lived. Poljensio slept at home, and spent only the daytime at my house. The search of that part of the establishment over, the worried official sat down in my work room to rest for a few minutes, cool himself off, and bewail the fate which had brought him such ill luck. Poljensio, who was washing sponges on the platform outside, and had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he slept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while his official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked, and turn his few slight garments—the clothing of a Moro is always an uncertain quantity—inside out to show that nothing was hidden therein.

Knowing the place so well as I did, and the means at the command of the "Gobernadorcillo," I could not for the life of me see how any one who had stolen the pearls could keep them, or hide them, for that matter, unless they had been thrown back into the sea again.

So far as the governor himself was concerned he would not suffer from the loss. The yearly crop of pearls was not like the money tax, a stated sum, nor could the Sultan enforce his claims as did the Spanish government. His title to the fisheries was too slight for it to be policy for him to make trouble. Besides that, Sulu was so far away that its ruler might never hear that this year's crop had been larger than usual. Not all the gems had been taken. The governor could turn over what had been left him, and it was not at all likely that any questions would be asked. In fact, if it had not been for his evident concern, which I did not believe him clever enough to have simulated, I would almost have believed he had stolen the pearls himself. He certainly was indefatigable in his attempts to find the missing property. Not a native left the village for any purpose that his clothing and his boat, if he was going out upon the water, were not inspected.

My own stay in Palawan was nearly ended at the time, and it was not long after that before I had completed my collections, packed my specimens, and was ready to go. Poljensio had agreed to go with me as far as Manila, to handle my freight and baggage, and to help me there about repacking and shipping my specimens. On my going to Europe he was to return to Palawan.

When I was ready to go, and had my luggage in shape to be sent on board the sail boat which was to take me to a port visited by the monthly steamer to Manila, I wondered if the "Gobernadorcillo" would let me go. He proved very obliging, however, shook hands, and hoped I would have a pleasant voyage. Poljensio, though, had to submit to the usual ordeal of having his clothing searched. Luggage he had none, so he was not troubled in that respect.

I had planned to stop in Hong Kong a month on my way to Europe. On the morning of the day that I was to leave there I was surprised to receive a package by one of the local English expresses of the city, and more surprised to find that the package contained a small box of specimens which had been missing when I had repacked my property at Manila. The specimens in this box were particularly choice ones, and their loss had been as annoying as it had been unaccountable. The pleasure which I felt in getting them back, though, was nothing compared to my amazement when I found along with the package another small one containing a letter from Poljensio.

The letter, if I had chosen to put it among my specimens, would have ranked, I am sure, among the greatest curiosities of the whole collection. Poljensio was not a scholar. His accomplishments lay in the line of diving and swimming; in gathering pearls, and such things as that. He never would have wasted his time in struggling with pen and paper, now, if the nature of the correspondence had not been such that he could not safely entrust it to any one else; and the full comprehension of the remarkable document, written in the mingled native and Spanish languages, with which he had favored me, was not vouchsafed to me at the first reading, or the second.

Translated, and made as nearly coherent as possible, it ran about like this:

"I stole the pearls. I only took half, so not too much" (scrimmage, fuss, row, trouble,—the native word he used meant no one of these exactly, and yet included them all) "would be made. I was tired of working so hard, and the sharks, and not getting anything for it but shells. I made up my mind I would do it soon after I went to work for you. I went diving after that only that I be not suspected. I knew all of us native people would be searched, but I thought he would pass you by. So that night, after I had got the pearls, I swam out to your house, climbed up through the floor, and hid the bag in a place where I would know. Then, one day, when I packed a fine big shell, I hid the bag in it, and marked the box. When we got to Manila I stole the box. I sorrow to make you this bad time, but have no other way. I take good care of box, though, after I take pearls out, to bring it here with me, and now I send it back. I sell all the pearls here but one, to China merchant, for money enough to make me always a rich man. I don't think I go back to Palawan. One pearl I save back, and send you with this letter, to remember by it Poljensio."

That was what was in the package with the letter. The pearl he had saved; this one which I wear.

As I said in the first place, I am ready give it up when I can find a man who has a better claim to it than I have. My right of ownership in the gem is not, I confess, very substantial; but whose is it?

It was not the "Gobernadorcillo's," for he was only an agent; and besides that he left Palawan not long after I did, as I have found out by inquiry, and I cannot learn where he now is.

The Sultan of Sulu who reigned then is dead, and if the gem belonged to him it did not belong to his successor; for the friends of the first ruler declared that the man who gained the throne after him was a false claimant. Should I send it to the dead man's heirs? He had no son, and one can hardly divide one pearl among four hundred widows.

Only Poljensio is left, and his claim, even if I could find him, I fear would be counted hardly legal. Quite likely he would not take it back, even if I found him; and sometimes, when I reflect upon what would probably have happened to me if the bag of stolen pearls had been found by any chance in my house, I am not sure that I should feel like offering the gem to him.



A Great American Novel of the Civil War. THE GRAPES OF WRATH. A Tale of North and South. BY MARY HARRIOTT NORRIS, Author of The Gray House of the Quarries, etc.

12mo, doth, decorative, with six full-page illustrations by H. T. Carpenter. $1.50

A really great American novel of the Civil War, which will appeal with equal force to-day to the Southern as well as to the Northern reader. The title is, of course, suggested by Mrs. Howe's line,—

"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

The story is developed from the fortunes, amid the vicissitudes of war, of an old New Jersey family, one son of which had settled in Virginia, becoming a general in Lee's army. There is little fighting and no cheap heroics in the book, but it gives a clearer picture and a more intimate and impressive understanding of what the great struggle really meant to Unionist and to Confederate alike than many a military history.



A Romance of the Iowa Wheat Fields. THE ROAD TO RIDGEBY'S. BY FRANK BURLINGAME HARRIS.

12mo, cloth, decorative. $1.50

A simple but powerful story of farm life in the great West, which cannot fail to make a lasting impression on every reader. In this book Mr. Harris has done for the wheat fields what Mr. Westcott has done for rural New York and Mr. Bacheller for the North country. It is in no way imitative of David Harum or Eben Holden; and, unlike each of these books, it is not in the portrayal of a single quaint character that its power consists. Mr. Harris has taken for his story a typical Iowa farmer's family and their neighbours; and, although every one of the characters is realistically portrayed, the sense of proportion is never lost sight of, and the result is a picture of real life, artistic in the highest sense, as being true to nature. It is a wholesome story, full of the real heroism of homely life, a book to make the reader better by strengthening his belief in the truth of self-sacrifice and the survival of sturdy American character.



A Remarkable Study of Social Life in America. DIFFERENCES BY HERVEY WHITE.

12mo, cloth, decorative, 320 pages. $1.50

"It is treating the poor as a class and employing any method of handling them that I object to.... Why can't they be treated as individuals, the same as other people? What would the rich think of my impertinence if I went about the world treating them in a peculiar manner,—as if they were not real people, at all, but only 'the rich,' in my knowledge? "—Hester Carr, in Differences.

"Difference is an extraordinary book.... The labor question is its primary concern, and the caste barrier which modern conditions have erected between the man who works and the man who merely lives. This is no new theme, yet Differences is new, and its place in thoughtful literature awaits it. The only argument presented by Mr. White is contained in the picture he spreads before us. It is real, and set out with bold, firm strokes, and there is no attempt to be merely artistic. Genevieve Radcliffe, the rich society girl, who goes to work charity with the poor, and John Wade, the workman, whose situation involves all the tragedy of metropolitan poverty, are human, if they be not typical. They embody the 'differences', and, if they do not point the way to equality, it is because American civilization is not yet ripe for them. Withal, the book is not a tract. It is worth a thousand such. Informed throughout with a tender simplicity, a sense of the beauty of common things, and a sincerity that brooks no question, it carries equal appeal to the student of economics and to the lover of human feeling."—Philadelphia North American.

"There is no end of philosophy in books about the poor and how to reach them and send rays of sunshine into their world; but few books get at the real 'Differences' that exist between the wealthy classes and the poor as does Mr. Hervey White.... Difference is vitally interesting, both as a story and as a moral lesson.... It is written with wholesome enthusiasm and an intelligent survey of real facts."—Boston Herald.

"The method employed by Mr. Hervey White in Differences is not like that of any author I have ever read in the English language. It resembles strongly the work of the best Russian novelists, it seems to me, and particularly that of Dostolevsky, and yet it is in no sense an imitation of those writers: it is apparently like them merely because the author's motives and ways of thought and observation are like them.... I have never before read any such treatment in the English language of the life and thought of laboring people."—Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, in Boston Transcript.



A Powerful Realistic Novel of American Life. QUICKSAND By HERVEY WHITE.

12mo, cloth, decorative, 328 pages. $1.50

Quicksand is a strong argument against a certain condition which the author believes exists too generally in American society, and is, in effect, an appeal for the freedom of the individual in family life. It is a powerful tragedy, developing very naturally out of the effects of the interference of parents in the lives of their children, and of brothers and sisters in the affairs of each other. It becomes therefore, not only the story of an individual, but the life history of an entire family, the members of which are portrayed with astonishing vividness and realism. The hero of the book also illustrates, in his sufferings and failures, the unfortunate effects of a too narrow orthodoxy in religion, coupled with his family's interference with his growth out of this environment. Offsetting the tragedy of the story is "Hiram," the "hired man" of the family in its earlier New England days, in whom, particularly, the reader's interest will centre. Patient, kindly, faithful, and uncomplaining, he is indeed the real "hero" of the tale, the only one free from the unfortunate environments of the other characters, yet forced indirectly to suffer also because of them. It is the every-day life of the every-day family that is drawn; and this fact, together with the boldness and fidelity of the drawing, gives the story its power and impressiveness.

"Hervey White is the most forceful writer who has appeared in America for a long generation."—Chicago Evening Post.

"We cannot remember another book in which lives, thoughts, emotions, souls, and principles of action have been analyzed with such convincing power. Mr. Hervey White has great literary skill. He has here made his mark, and he has come to stay.... He is the American George Gissing, and as such some day he will have to be taken into account."—Boston Herald.

"It should insure Mr. White a permanent place in the critical regard of his fellow-countrymen.... Few characters as strong as that of Elizabeth Hinckley have ever been drawn by an American author, and she will remain in the mind of the most assiduous novel reader, secure of a place far above that held by most of the puny creations of the day."—Chicago Tribune.

"It is wrought of enduring qualities. Few novels are so sustained on an elevated plane of interest."—Philadelphia Item.

"It is a novel that takes hold of one, and is not the sort of book that, once begun, can be laid down without being finished."—Indianapolis News.



Two Notable Novels by Emma Rayner. VISITING THE SIN A Tale of Mountain Life In Kentucky and Tennessee.

12mo, cloth, with cover designed by T. W. Ball. 448 pages. $1.50

The struggle between the heroine's love and her determination to visit the sin upon the son of the supposed murderer of her father forms the basis of the story. All of the characters are vividly drawn, and the action of the story is wonderfully dramatic and lifelike. The period is about 1875.

"A powerful, well-sustained story, the interest in which does not flag from the first chapter to the last."—Philadelphia North American.

"Unusually powerful. The dramatic plot is intricate, but not obscure."—The Congregationalist.

"A graphic and readable piece of fiction, which will stand with the best of its time concerning humble American characters."—Providence Journal.

"Far ahead of most of these latter-day Southern novels."—Southern Star.

"The people in the story are persistently real."—Christian Advocate.



FREE TO SERVE A Tale of Colonial New York.

12mo, cloth, with a cover designed by Maxfield Parrish. 434 pages. $1.50

"One of the very best stories of the Colonial period yet written,"—Philadelphia Bulletin.

"We have here a thorough-going romance of American life in the first days of the eighteenth century. It is a story written for the story's sake, and right well written, too. Indians, Dutch, Frenchmen, Puritans, all play a part. The scenes are vivid, the incidents novel and many."—The Independent.

"The writing is cleverly done, and the old-fashioned atmosphere of old Knickerbocker days is reproduced with such a touch of verity as to seem an actual chronicle recorded by one who lived in those days."—Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia.

"The supreme test of a long book is the reading of it, and when one reaches the end of Free to Serve, he acknowledges freely that it is the best book that he has taken up for a long time,"—Boston Herald.



An Irish Love Story of 1848. MONONIA. BY JUSTIN McCARTHY, M.P.,

Author of A History of Our Own Times, Dear Lady Disdain, etc. 12mo, green cloth and gold. $1.50

Mr. McCarthy has written several successful novels; but none, perhaps, will have greater interest for his American readers than this volume, in which he writes reminiscently of the Ireland of his youth and the stirring events which marked that period. It is pre-eminently an old-fashioned novel, befitting the times which it describes, and written with the delicate touch of sentiment characteristic of Mr. McCarthy's fiction. The book takes its name from the heroine, a charming type of the gentle-born Irish-woman. In the development of the romance, the attempts for Ireland's freedom, and the dire failures that culminated at Ballingary, are told in a manner which give an intimate insight into the history of the Young Ireland movement. If the book cannot be considered autobiographical, the reader will not forget that the author was contemporary with the events described, and will have little difficulty in perceiving that many of the principal characters are strongly suggestive of the Irish leaders of that day, which gives the book scarcely less value than an avowed autobiography.

"Mononia is drawn with all Mr. McCarthy's ancient skill." London Outlook.

"Beautiful in every sense is this 'Mononia.' It is a work that we could expect from no other author, for it is largely reminiscent. So, besides its attractiveness as a romance, the book is attractive as an informal historical document. Read in either of these lights, it will be found delightful."—Boston Journal.

"Altogether a good story.... Mononia is full of beauty, tenderness, and that sweet and wholesome common sense which is so refreshing when found in a woman."—The Pilot (Boston).

"The description of the affection of Mononia and Philip is a piece of literary splendor."—Boston Courier.

"For those who would reject its historical and autobiographic phase, there remains the old-fashioned love romance, full of fine Irish spirit, which is always refreshing."—Mail and Express.



TUSKEGEE: ITS STORY & ITS WORK By MAX BENNETT THRASHER

With an Introduction by BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 12mo, cloth, decorative, 248 pages, 50 Illustrations, $1.00

THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE, at Tuskegee, Alabama, is one of the most uniquely interesting institutions in America. Begun, twenty years ago, in two abandoned, tumble-down houses, with thirty untaught Negro men and women for its first students, it has become one of the famous schools of the country, with more than a thousand students each year. Students and teachers are all of the Negro race. The Principal of the school, Mr. Booker T. Washington, is the best-known man of his race in the world to-day.

In "Tuskegee: Its Story and its Work," the story of the school is told in a very interesting way. He has shown how Mr. Washington's early life was a preparation for his work. He has given a history of the Institute from its foundation, explained the practical methods by which it gives industrial training, and then he has gone on to show some of the results which the institution has accomplished. The human element is carried through the whole so thoroughly that one reads the book for entertainment as well as for instruction.

COMMENTS.

"All who are interested in the proper solution of the problem in the South should feel deeply grateful to Mr. Thrasher for the task which he has undertaken and performed so well."—Booker T. Washington.

"Should be carefully and thoughtfully read by every friend of the colored race in the North as well as in the South,"—New York Times.

"The book is of the utmost value to all those who desire and hope for the development of the Negro race in America."—Louisville Courier-Journal.

"Almost every question one could raise in regard to the school and its work, from Who was Booker Washington? to What do people whose opinion is worth having think of Tuskegee? is answered in this book."—New Bedford Standard.



For sale at all Bookstores, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers,

Small Maynard & Company, Boston.

THE END