Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

AN OFFICIAL'S WIFE

all beam with intelligence, and they are perfectly
obedient and docile. I have written at such length
because in America we think of the Igorrote as the
savage par cxcellence of the Philippines.
BAGUIO, April 30, I902.
TO-DAY we rode over to the camp at the Benguet end of the new Manila road. This road,
you remember, was planned as soon as the Commission came to Manila, and the survey was begun a
year ago last August. It is to be built between
Manila and Benguet, forming a juncture with the
railway at Dagupan. Almost everyone discouraged
the idea, and until recently skeptics were numerous
who did not believe that there was in the islands a
province where the weather was cool in the hot season. There have been many persons here lately,
and reports have been spread abroad generally of
the delightful climate, so that now no one contradicts the fact that at an elevation of only four thousand six hundred feet, and within the possibility of
a day's journey from Manila, is an extensive region
with a cool, temperate climate. From Dagupan to
this hill station is a distance of fifty-five miles. All
but fifteen miles of the road has been finished in
such shape as to be passable for wagons. The last
fifteen miles, however, present a difficult problem to
the road builders. In America or Europe it would
be a simple proposition, and the road could be fin273