A Botanist's Paradise.
The preceding chapters give but a faint idea of the great wealth of
plant-life in the Philippine Islands, of the richness and abundance
of the fruits, the variety and usefulness of the trees, the multitude
of growths that add to the comfort and convenience of human life. Yet,
after all is said, every description of the plant-life there gives but
an inadequate idea of the real luxuriance and beauty of the group, and
its value from a botanical point of view. These rich and multitudinous
islands, seated in the midst of a tropical sea, form, in reality,
a botanist's paradise, a region in which an ardent naturalist might
browse for years, and still have new treasures to find.
I am no scientist. Indeed, I have often wished I were, when journeying
through these lush tropical forests with their interminable variety of
forms of plant-life; many of them of the greatest beauty, some odd and
bizarre in appearance, numbers of them unknown to science; the whole
presenting the appearance of a virgin wilderness, keeping its treasures
intact for the one that can appreciate them. The Spaniard looks upon
nature with a lazy eye, troubling himself little about anything that
cannot be put to some immediate use. And he has jealously guarded the
islands against alien footsteps, putting annoying obstacles in the
way of all that sought to explore their interior. In consequence,
the Philippines may be said to be in a large measure unexplored,
waiting for the botanist to discover their treasures, the poet to
sing their beauties, the practical man to develop their resources.
Energy and enterprise are sadly needed, and it will require the
go-ahead American spirit to bring about the possibilities of those
fertile tropical lands.
A Diadem of Island Gems.
And the earth possesses no scenes more beautiful than those to be
found in this verdant and blooming Archipelago,--from its northern
to its southern verge, this magnificent rosary of glowing islands,
that Nature has hung above the heaving bosom of the warm Pacific. Of
them all, none is more beautiful than Luzon. the largest and the
richest of the whole, with its vast variety of attractive scenery,
mountain and plain, lake and stream, everywhere rich with glossy
leafage, clustered growths of bamboo and palm, fields of yellow cane,
and verdant coffee-groves. Everywhere is wealth of trees, clothing
the mountains to their summits, and bordering the long green miles
of ocean-shore.
On a smaller scale, but not less beautiful than lordly Luzon, are
the many minor islands, such as Panay, Negros, Cebú, Sámar, and
others of names that would be strange to foreign ears. Here there
are no stretches of barren lands, no drought-stricken shores, as in
some of the isles of the West, no flat and chalky fields like those
of Barbadoes; and even the loveliest of the Antilles must yield the
palm of beauty to these charming isles of the eastern ocean. Here
an abundant rainfall, an equable climate, a rich soil, and the warm
influences of the equatorial waters combine to yield a luxuriant
beauty and variety of scenery that must be observed to be appreciated.
The Magnificence of Tropical Scenery.
Tropical scenery cannot be pictured in words. It must be seen
to be comprehended. One need not, too, go beyond the environs of
Manila--that Venice of the East, with its labyrinth of canals and
estuaries,--through which the tides of the broad bay daily ebb and
flow,--and with its wealth of brilliant flowers and tropic verdure--to
imagine oneself in a new world. Its surroundings are a dream of beauty.
Take any of the roads that run outward from the city. Say, starting
from the Malecon promenade: one passes through stretches of country
verdant with groves of graceful bamboos, lofty cocoanut palms,
flowing-leaved plantains, and all the wonderful variety and luxuriance
of tropical vegetation. Upon it the eye gazes unsated, the leaves and
flowers alike being rich and gorgeous in tint and form. Often have I
wandered, entranced, up the eddying Pasig, enraptured by the beauty
of its scenery and the charm of its coloring, viewing, also from its
leafy banks the splendors of sunset skies, grand and glowing to a
degree seldom seen in temperate zones.
Further inland the mountain scenery never fails to charm, with the
varied pictures presented by its forest-growth. A grotesqueness of form
is often assumed by the trunks and limbs of tropical trees, and this,
with the glossy green foliage, the rich hues and attractive shapes
of the blossoms, the novel forms and colors of the fruits, the dash
and sparkle of mountain streams, here and there breaking into lovely
cascades, all co-ordinated to the eye, compose a spectacle of beauty
seldom excelled.
Of all those plants, the tall and graceful bamboo ranks among the most
beautiful. Everywhere it is found, growing in groups and clusters,
scattered with great profusion and variety over hill and plain, along
the streams, and around the native huts and villages. At the slightest
breeze its fleecy tops and supple branches wave gracefully in the air,
giving to the foliage the charm of perpetual motion. In addition,
too, to its almost endless variety of uses, it has a mission beyond
that of utility,--the mission of beauty, and it may justly be viewed
as one of the choicest decorations of the island scenery.
The bamboo never grows monotonous. It presents forms and colors of
wonderful attractiveness and variety, and so fully dealt with has
it been by the brush of the painter and the pen of the poet, that it
might well be given a fine-art gallery and a library of its own.
In the depths of the forest, and along the streams, beautiful orchids
abound; here clustered on stately trees so dense of growth that
the sun's rays scarcely penetrate their foliage; there giving life
and color to the ground, and of such odd and amazing forms, that one
often seems looking rather upon flowering birds and insects than upon
plants. Here and there one finds oneself amid the spreading roots of
the balete tree (Ficus Indica), from whose broad buttresses rises the
mighty trunk, of such girth and even rotundity, that the natives make
cart-wheels from sections of it. Down from the boughs, sixty feet in
air, hang the rope-like lianes, descending, like nature's cordage,
to the ground, while to the limbs cling orchids and other foreign
growths, until the entire great tree seems a botanical world in itself.
I have passed hours wandering spellbound in the forest, or gazing
with eyes of wonder and delight into its silent depths. Yes, little
of the poet as I have in my make-up, I, too, have been taken prisoner
by a beauty and a grandeur that I found it difficult to tear myself
away from.
And these scenes are not merely local. Indeed, wherever one goes
into the rural regions of the islands he finds the same amazing
prodigality of tropic growth. There are thousands of square miles
of dense forest within which the foot of the white man has rarely
ever set; thousands perhaps upon which none but the natives have ever
gazed; costly woods, whose value can be reckoned only in millions of
dollars. Valuable herbs, medicinal plants, and hot springs abound;
and the naturalist and the economic botanist alike are sadly needed
to open up this luxuriant land to the world.
The Promise of the Future.
Under new control I expect to see, in the twentieth century, a new
destiny for this noble group of islands. Whether the people be given
their freedom under the protection and influence of the United States,
or the islands become a direct appanage of that or of some other
enterprising nation of the West, a turn in the tide of Philippine
affairs can hardly fail to set in, and the possibilities of the land
be developed to an extent undreamed of under the effete rule of Spain.
I expect to see an invasion of this island-realm by three classes of
modern enterprise. The scientist is sure to find his way there, and
tell the world of the new and the strange in the animal, vegetable,
and mineral kingdoms. With him will come the engineer, opening up
roads right and left, laying a network of iron rails, where now only
the buffalo-cart drags along, introducing the latest machinery for
mining and farming-industries, and starting a hum of activity in every
quarter of the long-slumbering land. With these also will enter the
practical economist, in search, not of the new, but of the useful,
prospecting the forests for plants of economic value, seeking for
new mines of coal and iron, tracing the gold placer-beds up to their
mother-veins, seeking everywhere for what the Philippines have to
add to the useful productions of the world.
These will be the twentieth century pioneers of this promising
Archipelago, the results of their labors being exploited by
the merchant and the manufacturer. The seas shall teem with ships
carrying the products of the islands to foreign shores, and bringing
back full cargoes to supply the demands of the islanders, commerce
steadily growing in amount as civilization awakens the natives to
the perception of new wants.
Examples of a similar rejuvenation could easily be pointed out, and
there is no conceivable reason why the Philippines should not be added
to the list. These islands have been lavishly dealt with by nature;
they have an industrious population; yet they have been allowed to
remain for centuries in a semi-savage industrial condition; they still
await the touch of the magic hand of modern enterprise to arouse them
from their state of decadence, and swing them into the tide of human
progress. Under this influence prosperity and activity must come to
them, as it has come to other lands, and those long-neglected and
abused islands be made to "bud and blossom like the rose."
Certainty of conviction and opinion, too, leads me to affirm that,
with sanitary arrangements in all the cities, with hygienic living,
and American enterprise, philanthropy, and valor in the islands,
and free educational facilities eventually,--all will manifestly
increase the morale of the islanders and develop a just appreciation
of the natural beauties of their bounteous realm; hence, what is
now confusedly enjoyed and but vaguely beheld in nature, will, in
a comparatively brief period, become simple, clear, sympathetic,
and clearly formulated to their apprehension.
And all this, as well as many other allied benefits co-existent with
a permanent American occupation, will come with personal education,
personal elevation; and without lessening the labor-producing quality
of the native, or the outward physical radiation that constitutes
his health and vigor. Health, like knowledge, will come to him in
ever-widening circles, and Nature, in full festival--as she is during
the greater part of the Philippine year--will also appeal to him as
she has never appealed before.
All this may be hazardous prophecy; it may appear optimistic, æsthetic,
and fanciful, but I have talked with many rude untutored natives,
that, frankly, astonished me with the unwitting revelation of latent
poetry, love of imagery, and spiritual longings in their nature.
Knowing all this, and also the adaptability of the cultured native,
hence the rosy view of the possible development of the Philippine
Islands' native population.
The vivid contrasts, the checkered scenery, and the pulchritudinous
beauty of the islands would ravish the soul of the impressionistic
painter, and inspire his brush to masterpieces. There forest and
plain, sky and sea, unroll in unexpected beauty or marvelous grandeur
at every turn; until, after visiting the interior or skirting the
shores of many islands, one has a kind of kaleidoscopic memory,
yet none the less brilliant, perfectly formed, and orderly--each
in harmonious sequence--of long lines of shadowy hills, majestic
mountain-ranges, with forest-clad slopes verging toward the sea;
pretty rambling creeks and gurgling rivulets, cliff-bound coasts,
cultivated plain and rugged hill; here and there shaded dells with
mountain torrents roaring, unseen; a glorious sunset, or a splendid
sunrise present in the memory-pictures of mountain, sea, and plain.