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Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1929

On January 1st I extended my enlistment for one more year and received $150 which represented the cost of transportation from California to New Haven, Connecticut where I first enlisted. For the first part of January the ship stayed at anchor in Manila Bay. On the 6th and 7th, three friends and I had a nice trip south of Manila to a place called Pagsanjan de Laguna. The leader of the party was a most exceptional fellow named Goldberg who could make a deal with anybody abut anything. He had acquired a Nash car from somewhere, which was quite a feat in Manila in 1929, and we started off driving on the jungle roads out of the city. Most of the way was single-lane, and when we met one of the very rickety buses which would be filled with back-country Philippinos and also have crates of chickens and a pig or two, encased in bamboo, lashed to the roof we had to push into the brush to let it go by. After awhile we came to an open area where there was an imposing Catholic church built of stone. It was a surprise to find it out there and it looked interesting so we went in. We were met by a Spanish priest who knew hardly any English but Goldberg soon became so friendly with him that he invited us over to his living quarters where he gave us port wine and we managed to have quite a nice visit with him.

Further along we came to a sort of plantation which turned out to be the beginning of an agricultural college. We met a couple of the instructors and they told us that this was a government endeavor to get some students interested in agriculture, the most practical and needed subject for them, but it was an uphill struggle because as soon as a Philippino gets a little education he insists on being a doctor or a lawyer. Finally we arrived at our destination, Pagsanjan in the province of Laguna, a resort area which contains Pagsanjan Falls. We found the Abella Hotel near a small river and made the necessary arrangements for rooms and bathing near suits, then hired two long dugout canoes that had two boatmen each, and we were soon on our way upstream. When we entered the river gorge the swift water made it necessary for us to get out and pick our way along the shore over all manner of obstacles. The boatmen pulled and carried their boats along with great effort as the gorge grew narrower and narrower and the jungle foliage became so dense that at times it nearly met overhead. There were flowers clinging to the steep walls that looked like orchids to me but I can't be sure since I knew nothing about orchids at that time.

Finally, after forcing our way up past lots of turbulent water and rocks we heard and saw the falls, very high and beautiful, but in such arboreal darkness that we couldn't have taken a picture of them even if we'd had a camera. So, there in a fairly calm pool near the bottom of the falls the boatmen held the canoes while we climbed in, two passengers with a bowman and a sternman in each boat. It was my first experience with white water and it was surely a wild ride down the gorge with the expert steersman guiding us between and around huge boulders over all sorts of falls and rapids finally back down to calm river again. We were wet with spray most of the time and not a little apprehensive about making it at all some of the time. After that experience we slept very well in mosquito-net-covered cots and were ready to start back to Manila early the next morning. We had to drive back the same way we came as there seemed to be no other route available.

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