We anchored near a little settlement, Los Baños, shortly before midnight. The deck planking did not make a soft bed, but nevertheless the snoring soon became hard likewise, and Sunday morning found us refreshed by the bracing air of the provinces. The rain had cleared away, and after an early breakfast the pilot ran the launch slowly ashore on a smooth beach, beneath a high bank fringed with bamboo. The gang-plank was run out, and several of our little party started off with guns to get some duck, snipe, and pigeons, which were plentiful in the jungle beyond.
Those of us who were left, with a couple of native guides, climbed up the steep slopes of an extinct volcano to explore a so-called "Enchanted Lake" that occupied the low crater. The way led past several ponds filled to overflowing with pink pond-lilies, and, as we wound up along the rising knolls, the air was as fragrant as that of a greenhouse. Then came a short climb which brought us to the crater's edge. The Enchanted Lake lay like a mirror below, and the rich foliage all about was almost perfectly reflected in the still, green water.
The locality being romantic, it is quite regular that there should be connected with it an interesting story which seems to bear on its face the evidences of truth. It seems there used to live a fisherman and his wife hard by the sloping banks that surround the Enchanted Lake. One day, so the story goes, the fisherman's spouse had reason to suspect the fidelity of her husband, and aflame with pious rage, she concocted a scheme to rid herself of her worser half. Calling upon two rival fishermen whose hut was not far distant, she promised them the large amount of twelve dollars if they would put her husband out of the way. This being a pot of money to them, they agreed to her proposition, and during one of the next excursions out to the distant fish-weirs in the parent lake below, contrived to tip him overboard and hold him under. Coming back in the afternoon, they went to the hut of the freshly made widow and demanded the twelve dollars.
"I can give you but six," said she, "for I'm hard up."
"But you promised us twelve if we would do the business," said they.
"But I tell you I can give you but six," responded the widow. "Take that or nothing."