work among the hill-people, seeking in every way to better their condition materially as well as morally.  Born in 1841, as early as 1868 we find him on duty at Bayombong, in Nueva Vizcaya, the province we were about to enter.  From the first he seems to have been impressed by the possibilities of the country in which he was laboring; and, foreseeing that good communications would ultimately settle most of the questions relating to the highlanders, he built trails, trails that are still in use, whereas nearly all the others (but few in number) established by the Spaniards have been abandoned by us, where Nature has not indeed saved us the trouble by washing them out of existence.  For thirty years Villaverde worked unceasingly, building roads and bridges and churches, and striving to civilize the people among whom he lived; but his chief work, that by which his memory is kept green to this day, is the great trail from the otherwise almost inaccessible province of Nueva Vizcaya, across the Caraballos to the Central Valley of Luzon, where access to the outer world by rail becomes possible.  This trail is officially designated by his name, and is maintained by Government.  This was the one we were about to enter upon. [10] Accordingly we thanked our kind hosts of San Francisco; and at last set out on our real trip.  But, curious and eager as I felt to engage upon it, I could not help regretting that this part of our journey was over, that we had to turn our backs on the smiling plains of Pangasinan, its hospitable and courteous people.  The day had been so cool and fresh, and our progress so easy; flat as was the country, it had its charm, the charm of cultivated plains, relieved by lanes of feathered bamboos, by clumps of nodding palms, by limpid streams.  But we were off, nevertheless, the Governor-General on a cow-pony, nearly all the rest on Arabs and thoroughbreds, Van Schaick and I riding mountain ponies.  We had fifteen miles to go to reach our first resting-place.

Crossing a stream, we began to climb at once, and as we rose the plain of Central Luzon began to unroll itself below us, with our road of the morning stretching out in a straight white line through the green rice-fields.  Far to the west we now and then caught glimpses of Lingayen Gulf, with the Zambales Mountains in full view running south and bordering the plain, while still farther to the south Mount Arayat [11] rose abruptly from its surrounding levels.  Now Arayat is plainly visible from Manila.  Here and there solitary rocky hills, looking for all the world like ant-heaps, but in reality hundreds of feet high, broke the uniformity of the plains.  Flooded as the whole landscape was with brilliant sunshine, the view was exquisite in respect both of form and of color.  But as we moved on, turning and twisting and ever rising, we were soon confined to just the few yards the sinuosities of the trail would allow us to see at one time.  For a part of the way the country was rocky, hills bare and fire-swept; not a tree or shrub suggested that we were in the tropics.  Soon pines began to appear, and then thickened, till the trail led through a pine forest, pure and simple, the ground covered with green grass, and the whole fresh and moist from recent rains.  It was up and down and around and around.  Not a sign of animal life did we see, not a trace of human beings.