Shopping at the "Botica Inglesa"--The Chit System--Celebrating
New Year's Eve--Manila Cooking Arrangements--Floors and
Windows--Peculiarities of the Tram-car Service--Roosters
Everywhere--Italian Opera--Philippine Music--The Mercury at 74°
and an Epidemic of "Grippe"--Fight Between a Bull and a Tiger--A
Sorry Fiasco--Carnival Sunday.
January 7th.
My third Sunday in Manila is a cool breezy day, with fresh winds
blowing down from the mountains. The weather has lately been as
temperate as one could wish, and has corresponded to some of our soft
spring conditions. From noon until three o'clock has usually seemed
warm, but the mornings have made walking pleasant, the afternoons
have given opportunities for tennis, and the evenings have hinted
that an overcoat would not be amiss. One could hardly ask for any
more comfortable place to live in than Manila as it stands to-day,
and although sanitary appliances are most primitive, the city seems
to be healthy and without noisome pestilence.
During the holiday season, just over, foreign business has been
suspended and everyone socially inclined. Shopping has been in
vogue, and on one of my expeditions for photographic materials I was
introduced to the "Botica Inglesa," or English chemist's shop, which
seems to be the largest variety-store in town. Here it is possible
to buy anything from a glass of soda to a full-fledged lawn-mower,
including all the intermediates that reach from tooth-brushes to
photographic cameras.
And speaking of shopping brings mo to the "chit" system, which has
been such a curse to the Far East. In making purchases, no one pays
cash for anything, since the heavy Mexican dollars--which are the
only currency of the islands--are too heavy to lug around in the
thin suits made of white sheeting. One simply signs an "I.O.U." for
the amount of the bill in any shop that he may choose to patronize,
and thinks no more about it till at the end of the month all the
"chits" which bear his name are sent around for collection.
Result: one never feels as if he were spending anything until the first
day of the incoming month ushers in a host of these big or little
reminders. If your chits at one single shop run into large amounts,
the collector generally brings along with him a coolie or a wheelbarrow
with which to lug away the weight of dollars that you pour into his
hands, and when two or three collectors come in together the office
reminds one of a "money-'changer's. Counterfeit money is so prevalent
that one after the other of your callers bites the silver or drops
it on the floor to detect lead, and to listen to the resulting sound
is not to feel complimented by their opinion of your integrity. So
it goes, many of the shop-keepers being swindled out of their dues
by debtors who choose to skip off rather than to pay, and waking up
at the end of the month to find their supposed profits existing only
in the chits whose signers have skedaddled to Hong Kong or Singapore.
New Year's Eve was celebrated with due hilarity and elaborate
provisions. The club bill of fare was remarkable, and when it is
realized there are no stoves in Manila, the wonder is that the cooking
is so complex. A Manila stove is no more nor less than a good-sized
earthen jar, shaped something like an old shoe. The vamp of the shoe
represents the hearth; the opening in front, the place for putting in
the small sticks of wood; and the enclosing upper, the rim on which
rests the single big pot or kettle. In a well-regulated kitchen,
there may be a dozen of these stoves, one for each course, and their
cost being only a peseta, it is a simple matter to keep a few extra
ones on hand in the bread-closet. And so, as one goes through the
streets where native huts predominate, he sees a family meal being
cooked in sections, and is forced to admire the complexity of the
greasy dishes that are evolved from so simple a contrivance.
As the Manila cooking arrangements are rude, so I suspect are the
pantry's dish-washing opportunities. I really should hesitate to enter
even our club-kitchen, for certain dim suggestions which are conveyed
to the senses from spoons and forks, and certain plate surfaces that
would calm troubled waters if hung from a ship's side, all hint at
unappetizing sights. All in all, the less one sees of native cooking,
in transitu, the greater will one's appetite be.
I had expected an early introduction to earthquakes, but none have
occurred so far, and I am almost tempted to get reckless. Soon after
my arrival I was inclined to put my chemical bottles in a box of
sawdust, empty part of the water out of my pitcher, and pack my watch
in cotton-wool in anticipation of some nocturnal disturbance. For the
old stagers who saw the city fall to pieces back in the '80's deem
it their duty to alarm the new arrival, and almost turn pale when a
heavy dray rolls by over the cobblestones in the street near the club,
or make ready to fly out-of-doors at the first suspicion of vibration.
A word or two more about the floors in Manila houses. I don't suppose
there is a soft-wood tree in the islands, and as a result one sees
some very interesting hard-wood productions. The floors come under
this category. Rough-hewn as they are--out of huge hand-sawed hard-wood
planks--they are models. By certain processes of polishing with banana
leaves and greasy rags, they are made to shine like genius itself,
and give such a clean, cool air to the houses that one is compelled
to regard them with admiration. In fact, there is a certain charm
in Manila about many specimens of hand-work that one encounters
everywhere. The stilted regularities--as our good professor used to
say--of machine-made articles are frequently conspicuous by their
absence, and instead one sees the inequalities, the lack of exact
repetition, the informality of lines that are not just perpendicular or
horizontal, all of which make up the charm of work that is handmade,
that reflects the movements of a living arm and mind rather than
those of a wheel or a lever.
The curious windows that are everywhere are likewise instructive. Like
the blinds, they slide in grooves on the railings of the balconies,
and serve to shut out the weather from the interior. They consist
of frames containing a multitude of small lattice-work squares, into
which are placed thin, flat, translucent sea-shells which admit light,
but are not look-throughable. We have all heard of shell-roads, but
never of shell-windows, and one misses the presence of glass until
he has got accustomed to a Manila house, whose sliding sides are one
vast window that is rarely closed.
Manila streets, outside of the city proper, are smooth, hard, and well
shaded by the arching bamboos. They are already proving attractive to
the bicycle, which, though very expensive out here at the antipodes,
is growing in favor, especially among the wealthier half-castes,
or mestizos.
Tram-car service is slow, but pretty generally good. The car is a
thing by itself, as is the one lean pony that pulls it. It takes
one man to drive and one to work the whip, and if the wind blows
too hard, service is generally suspended. The conductor carries a
small valise suspended from his neck, and whistles through his lips
"up-hill" to stop, and "down-hill" as the starting-sign. The usual
notice, "Smoking allowed on the three rear seats only," is absent,
for everyone smokes, even to the conductor, who generally drops the
ash off a 15-for-a-cent cigarette into your lap as he hands you a
receipt for your dos centavos. The chief rule of the road says:
"This car has seats for twelve persons, and places for eight on each
platform. Passengers are requested to stand in equal numbers only on
both platforms, to prevent derailment."
And so if there are four "fares" on the front and six on the back
platform, somebody has to stumble forward to equalize the weight. No
one is allowed to stand inside, and if the car contains its quota
of passengers, the driver hangs out the sign, "Lleno" (full), and
doesn't stop even for the Archbishop. It is just as well, perhaps,
to sit at the front end of the car if you are afraid of small-pox,
for the other morning a Philippine mamma brushed into a seat holding a
scantily clothed babe well covered with evidences of that disease. One
sympathizes with the single pony that does the pulling as he sees
thirty people besides the car in his load, and it is no uncommon
thing on a slight rise or sharp turn for all hands to get off and
help the vehicle over the difficulty. The driver holds the whip by
the wrong end and lets the heavy one come down with double force on
the terribly tough hide of the motive power. Aside from tram-cars
some of these little beasts, however, are possessed of great speed,
and with a reckless cochero in charge, it is no uncommon sight to
see three or four turnouts come tearing down the street abreast,
full tilt, clearing the road, killing dogs and roosters, and making
one's hair stand on end.
Speaking of roosters, they are the native dog in the Philippines. The
inhabitants pet and coddle them, smooth down their plumage, clean
their combs, or pull out their tail-feathers to make them fight,
to their heart's content, and it is a fact that these cackling
glass-eaters really seem to show affection for their proprietors,
in as great measure as they exhibit hatred for their brothers. Every
native has his fighting-cock, which is reared with the greatest care
until he has shown sufficient prowess to entitle him to an entrance
into the cock-pit. In case of fire, the rooster is the first thing
rescued and removed to a place of safety, for babies--common luxuries
in the Philippines--are a secondary consideration and more easily
duplicated than the feathered biped. It is almost impossible to walk
along any street in the suburban part of the town without seeing
dozens of natives trudging along with roosters under their arms,
which are being talked to and petted to distraction. At every other
little roadside hut, an impromptu battle will be going on between two
birds of equal or unequal merit, the two proprietors holding their
respective roosters by the tails in order that they may not come
into too close quarters. The cock-pits, where gatherings are held on
Thursdays and Sundays, are large enclosures covered with a roof of
thatch sewed onto a framework of bamboo; they are open on all sides,
and banked up with tiers of rude seats that surround a sawdust ring
in the centre. Outside the gates to the flimsy structure sit a motley
crowd of women, young and old, selling eatables whose dark, greasy
texture beggars description, while here and there in the open spaces
a couple of natives will be giving their respective roosters a sort of
preliminary trial with each other. As the show goes on inside, shouts
and applause resound at every opportunity, and at the close of the
performance a multitude of two-wheeled gigs carry off the victors with
their spoils, while the losers trudge home through the dust on foot.
Other familiar street-scenes consist of Chinese barbers, who carry
around a chair, a pair of scissors, and a razor wherever they go,
and stop to give you a shave or hair-cut at any part of the block;
or Chinese ear-cleaners, who scoop out of those organs some of the
unprintable epithets hurled by one native at another. Cascades of
slops not uncommonly descend into the street as one walks along
beneath a slightly overhanging second story of some of the houses,
and one is impressed, if not wet, by this favorite method of laying
the street-dust.
Besides the daily afternoon music on the Luneta, a full-fledged Italian
opera troupe has come to town and has begun to give performances in
the Teatro Zorilla. "Carmen" and "The Cavalleria Rusticana" are on
the bill for this week, and many other of the old standbys are going
to have their turn later.
In respect to music, side-tracked though it is, Manila seems to be more
favored than her sister capitals in the Far East, and everyone appears
to be able to play on something. Such of the native houses as are too
frail to support pianos shelter harps, violins, and other stringed
instruments, while some of the more expensive structures contain the
whole selection. Of an evening--in the suburbs--it is no uncommon thing
to hear the strains of a well-played Spanish march issuing from under
the thatch of a rickety hut, or to find an impromptu concert going on
in the little tram-car which is bringing home a handful of native youth
with their guitars or mandolins. Every district has its band, some of
the instruments in which are often made out of empty kerosene-cans,
and the nights resound with tunes from all quarters. In fact, the
Philippine band is one of the chief articles of export from Manila,
and groups of natives with their cheap instruments are shipped off
to Japan, India, and the Spice Islands, to carry harmony into the
midst of communities where music is uncultivated. All in all, it is
extremely curious that out of all the peoples of the Far East the
Filipinos are the only ones possessing a natural talent for music,
and that the islands to-day stand out unique from among all the
surrounding territory as being the home of a musical race, who do not
make the night as hideous with weird beatings of tom-toms as they do
poetic with soft waltzes coaxed from gruff trombones.
January 18th.
Manila is pretty well, thanks. The weather has been cool and
comfortable. Showers have come every day or two to lay the dust,
and one could not want a more salubrious condition of things. The
sunsets from the Luneta have been more than pyrotechnic, and I now
believe that nowhere do you see such displays of color as in the
Orient, Land of the Sunrise. During these three weeks of my stay,
so far there have been five holidays, and we have had ample time
to take afternoon walks up the beach, or play tennis at the club,
or indulge in moonlight rows on the Pasig.
A week ago on the island just opposite the club, where lies a
good-sized village, containing an old church, there was a religious
festival, which lasted all the week. This was the Fiesta of Pandacan,
and all the natives for miles around came pouring down by our veranda,
in bancas and barges, on their way across the river. Every night
during the week, bands of music played on one side of the stream and
on the other side, and then crossed to their respective opposites,
playing in transitu, and then setting up shop on shore again. Then
there were fireworks, bombs, and rockets galore, so that the early
night was alive with noise and sparks. On the evening of the grand
wind-up we crossed over to see the sights, in one of the usual
hollowed-out tree-trunk ferryboats. Crowds of gayly dressed natives
surged around the plaza, near the old church, while everywhere along
the edges squatted old men and women, cooking all sorts of greasy
"chow" on those peculiar Philippine stoves described in the last
chapter. Everybody smoked, as well as the pots and kettles, and
the air was therefore foggy. The little, low-thatched houses were
jauntily decorated with lanterns and streamers, and at all the open
fronts leaned out rows of grinning natives.
Here and there were small "tiendas," or little booths, where cheap
American toys, collar-buttons, pictures, and little figures of the
Saviour were sold, and great was the hubbub. The houses, as well as
the people, are very low of stature, and as we walked along the narrow,
almost cunning streets, our shoulders level with the eaves of many of
the shanties, and above the heads of many of the people, we felt indeed
like giants. Many were the pianos in those native huts, and peculiar
mixtures of strikingly decent playing fell upon the ear from all sides.
The whole circus wound up with a grand pyrotechnical illumination of
the old church from base to tower, and a score of loud explosions,
caused by the setting off of many dozen bombs at the same time, made up
in noise what the religious celebration lacked in spirituality. Then
all the bands came back and played their lungs out as they crossed
the river, and all the people rushed for bancas, and came chattering
home. Thus did this pretty little religious show consume, in noise
and sparks, the contributions of a very long time.
The grand opera company which is here is doing remarkably well, and
"Faust" was given the other evening to a crowded house. The theatre
Zorilla is round, like a circus, and in the centre of the ring sit
the holders of our regular orchestra seats, facing the stage, which
chops off the segment of the circle opposite the main entrance. In a
rim surrounding the central arena stretches the single row of boxes,
a good deal like small open sheep-pens, separated from each other
only by insignificant railings. Next comes the surrounding aisle,
and in the broad outside section of the circle, rising up in steep
tiers, are the seats for the natives and gallery gods, who invariably
bring their lunch with them, to pass away the time during the long
intermissions. The orchestra is a native one, led by an Italian
conductor, and doesn't tuck its shirt into its trousers. The musicians,
who battle with the difficult score, grind out their music quite as
successfully as some of our home performers, who would scorn the dark
faces and flying shirt-tails of their Philippine brethren.
During the performance the management introduced a ballet, whose
members were native Filipinas. It was too laughable. The faces and
arms of the women who formed the corps seemed first to have been
covered with mucilage, and then besprinkled with flour in order to
bring the dark-brown complexion up to the softer half-tints of the
Italian performers. The native lady, as a rule, is unacquainted with
French shoes or high heels, slippers being the every-day equipment,
and when these flowery beings came forward on to the stage, saw
the huge audience, and tried to go through the mazes of the dance
in European footgear, they felt entirely snarled up, even if they
didn't look more than half so. But this only served to keep the
audience in a good humor, and everybody seemed to enjoy both the
singing and the deviltry of Mephistopheles, whose part was well
taken. The waits between the acts were long, and the drop-curtain
was covered with barefaced advertisements of dealers in pills, hats,
and carriages. But there were cool little cafés across the roadway
running by the theatre, and one forgot the delay in the pleasure of
being refreshed by Spanish chocolate and crisp buñuelos.
In front of the main entrance to the theatre stood two firemen, with
hose in hand, ready to play on anything as soon as the orchestra
stopped or a lamp fell, but otherwise nothing was particularly
strange. The whole structure was oil-lighted with rickety chandeliers,
which shed a dangerous though brilliant glare down upon a large
audience of most exquisitely dressed Spanish people, mestizos and
foreigners. Pretty little flower-girls wandered about trying to dispose
of their wares to the rather over-dressed dudes of the upper half-caste
400, and their mammas often followed them around to assist in making
sales. If it begins to rain in the afternoon, before the performance,
everybody understands that the show is to be postponed, provided
clearing conditions do not follow, and those who hold tickets are,
as a rule, grateful not to be obliged to risk their horses and their
starched clothes to the treatment of a possible downpour.
The Luneta is still a close rival to the opera, and each afternoon a
dozen of us will generally meet there to refresh ourselves with the
music and the passing show. Toward sundown, in the afternoons, of
late, the big guns in the batteries up along the walls of Old Manila,
hard by, have been used in long-distance sea target-practice, and it
has been interesting, on the way from the office to the promenade,
to walk along the beach and see the cannon-balls zip over the water
and slump into it miles from their destination. The same target serves
every afternoon, and seems perfectly safe from being hit. I wish I
could say as much for the fleet of American ships that are lying off
the breakwater, at the anchorage.
February 8th.
It seems peculiar to see the moon standing directly overhead o'nights,
and casting a shadow of one's self that is without meaning. I never
yet realized we had so little shape before, looking from above,
as when I saw this new species of shadow the other night, and was
really sorry that the angels never had a chance to look at us from
a better point of view.
To be politic, and begin with the weather as usual, a cold snap
lately has given everyone the "grippe." The mercury actually stood
at 74° all one day, and couldn't be coaxed to go higher. Think of the
suffering that such low temperature would occasion among a people who
have no furnaces or open fireplaces. You may think I am facetious,
but 74° in the Philippines means a great deal to people who are always
accustomed to 95°.
The opera-talk continues, and "Fra Diavolo" was most successfully
performed to a crowded house the other evening. "The Barber of Seville"
was given Sunday night with equal éclat, and the prima donna was a star
of the first water, whose merits were recognized in the presentation
of some huge flower-pieces, probably paid for by herself. But the
opera has had a rival, and those who are not so musically inclined
have spent most of their spare moments in discussing the great bull
and tiger fight which took place Sunday afternoon.
It was a queer show, and not altogether edifying. The old bull-ring,
squatting out in the rice-fields of Ermita suburb, was to be used
for the last time, and the occasion was to be of unusual interest,
since the flaming posters announced, in grown-up letters: