Reasoning on the premise that all was right at that end of the line, the splice was made, and we paid out the cable until reaching the buoyed shore end, which in turn was spliced to the deep-sea cable, and the bight dropped overboard. Then a Signal Corps man returning from shore reported all communicating lines in good order, at which there was great rejoicing on board the _Burnside_, and, our Cagayan friend having condescended meanwhile to communicate with us, we were soon under way for Zamboanga, Mindanao.
The next day was a perfect one for sailing, and eventful, in that while turning over cable the long objurgated fault in the tanks came to light, proving to be the result of carelessness on the part of the manufacturer, a carelessness which had caused much agony of mind to the Signal Corps, and many groans and imprecations from all concerned. But at last the fault was cut out, and a nice healthy splice substituted by the reparative surgery which has been so often mentioned.
It seemed such a small thing, the fault, only a little break in the armour wire, and yet it had induced the most severe nerve paralysis in that sentient thread of copper in the cable's centre. "Words and words of men" could not "flicker and flutter and beat" until the wound had been healed, which was promptly done, accompanied by vigorous language concerning the aforesaid careless manufacturer.
Zamboanga! The very name brings back our first daylight glimpse of Mindanao's principal town--an adorable water-colour sketch, what with the soft, deep blue of sky and sea, the tropical freshness of green foliage, amidst which nestled picturesque white houses with overhanging balconies, the red and blue sails on the sunlit water, and to the right of the picture an old Spanish fort, gray and stern and forbidding.
This old fort, aside from its undoubted pictorial charm, is historically interesting, in that it is a relic of the seventeenth century and of those first Spanish governors, martially ambitious, who stirred up wars with the Moros for their own personal aggrandizement, wars which have been protracted through two bloody centuries.
Indeed, the history of Spain's occupation of the islands is but a repetition of wars with the Mohammedans, religious wars, perhaps, at the very first, for the sixteenth century Spaniard was no less fanatical in his religion than is the Moro of to-day; and later, wars for the presumable abolishment of slavery, though we are told by Foreman that "Whilst Spaniards in Philippine waters were straining every nerve to extirpate slavery, their countrymen were diligently pursuing a profitable trade in it between the west coast of Africa and Cuba."