The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-15
A JAUNT IN REAL.

.f A JAUNT IN REAL. Also Meet Up With Old Friends, and Visit to a Volcano.
 Good Friday and the preceding day are legal holidays and all offices close on Saturdays at noon and of course Sundays are holidays, so by taking Sat urday morning off 1t was possible to get four days in succession for frolic. I had long been waiting for just such a chance to go and take look sec somewhere. I felt that my system needed something out of the ordinary So started off on a volcano hunt. The nearest one to Pasig, is away down in Batangas Province, the volcano of Taal, situated In the middle of Lake Taal. I buckled on my Gee string, oiled up my bicycle and started off without a sompanion, for it was too hot for any,. body but an alligator -hided Mobilian to venture out. I caught steamboat on. the Pasig river bound for Calamba, in Laguna province, on the lake. About | the time got ashore another boat hove in sight and landed her passengers and who should be among them but Emile and Alex Gibson. formerly Of Mobile. They are younger brothers of Frank Gibson of Mibile, Collie Gibson of Geor- gia, Waffle and Fred Gibson of Seattle and other countries not yet heard from Everybody in Mobile who knew the Gibson boys will remember Alex, better l known by the name of "babe." He is now chief of the custpn1-hou division of the auditors office, drawing a hand, some salary and has a large force of employees under him. The first time I butted into the auditors office and dis covered him sitting stately behind a ] big desk sung out Hello, babe" and
 he almost fell dead. He had not heard
 the name for many years and it took him by surprise. He is a dead ringer 4 for Waffle, his older brother, with a pretty tenor voice. Emile probably drinks different kind of beer and don't look like any of the rest of the family, but he is all right and the way he di- vided his last cracker with me on Lake Taal as we lay baking in calm, would have done credit to the hero in the I Comrades, Comrades" and That is Love" songs. s"
 1 Emile had for a companion a fellow
 by the name of Easthagen, the man
 with the wicked eye, who looked at a girl in the auditors office, and his look
 was so fierce that she pulled gun and
 snapped 1t in his face. The gun did not
 go off, but he did in a hurry and she | was hustled off to an insane asylum.
 Easthagen had a wheel with him, so we pulled out together for the volcano,
 and left the rest of the crowd to follow
 in caromatas
 It was p. m.when we left Calamba
 over the military road, built by General
 Bell, to Santo Tomas and Tanauan. We reached the latter place about nine
 o'clock, took on little fuel and water,
 and then started for Banadero, on the
 lake, about ten miles distant The
 road was bad, it was dark as Egypt,
 and was all down hill. l was afraid l
 would get hurt, and, sure enough, did,
 and all on account of that nose of mine
 which has caused me more trouble than
 all the rest of my body. A blamed bug | flew into my nose just as the wheel took
 a shoot down a steep incline. I knew if I turned loose the handle bar to scratch my nose that the wheel would jump from under me. I thought of the
 Yankee in King Arthur's Court' and wondered how he scratched when the flea got on the inside of the armor and
 his hand was on the outside But be-
 fore I could solve the problem the bug gave fiutter and tickled my nose. ]
 let go to scratch, but have no instinct
 recollection whether my, hand ever reached my nose. When I came to, my nose did not need further scratching
 It is risky thing to ride over an un- known road at night
 We all got to the lake at midnight and were preparing to sleep in an ol6 nipa barrack abandoned by the militia. ry, but at my suggestion we got boats and sailed across to the volcano while il
 was cool, and slept in the cogon grass
 until morning. It Is good thing that the volcano did not erupt or else this letter would never have been written but I had as soon be covered up witt hot lava as be eaten up by bugs, mo. squitoes and feas. The grass was full of them until got there, and then they left the gass and all got on me, though
 the rest of the devils claim that some O
 the little devils got on them but I don
 see how that was possible.
 The old volcano was boiling and roar