III

A Philippine Valet--The Three Days Chinese New Year--Marionettes

and Minstrels at Manila--Yankee Skippers--Furnishing a

Bungalow--Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes--A New Arrival--Pony-Races

in Santa Mesa--Cigars and Cheroots--Servants--Cool Mountain

Breezes--House-snakes--Cost of Living--Holy Week.

February 16th.

News to begin with. I have engaged a Philippine valet, price $4.50

per month; a man with a wife, two children, and a fighting-cock,

who buys all his better half's pink calico gowns and all the food for

the party on this large salary. It is a wonder what revolutions have

taken place in my wardrobe. My heavy clothes, already grown musty

from disuse, have been taken out, sun-dried, and laid carefully

away. I no longer have to decide what to wear each morning, for it

is settled for me beforehand. Everything that my "boy" wishes me to

don is laid out on a chair during my early pilgrimage to the bath,

and all that is necessary to do on my return is to get into them. It

is quite a luxury, and I shall certainly be inclined to bring this

cheap gentleman back with me when I return to Boston. My neckties,

which have hitherto snarled themselves up in the corner of a drawer,

now are hanging from a neat clothes-line, side by side. My books and

papers on the centre table are arranged with unnatural formality,

and the smaller articles, such as lead-pencils, buttons, pin-cushions,

are all adjusted in definite geometrical formation. At breakfast and

dinner in the club-house I no longer have to whistle to be waited on,

for my slave is always behind the chair, ready to spill the soup on

my coat or pass the plum-pudding. These serving-boys all belong to

the Tagalog race, which seems to include in its numbers most of the

native inhabitants in Manila and the adjacent towns. They all have

straight, thick black hair, speak their peculiar Tagalog language,

and only pick up enough Spanish to carry them through the performance

of their simple duties.

And still the holidays, more or less, continue. About this time of

year there is one a week, and just now the Chinese New Year occupies

about three days. The business part of the town is quiet. All the

Chinese merchants have driven off on a picnic, and it is impossible

to hire carriages of any sort.

Manila, on the whole, is waking up, and besides the opera we now

have the marionette troupe, something entirely new to the average

citizen. It seems there are four sisters travelling around the

world with their little collection of string-pulled puppets, giving

exhibitions in all the larger centres. Their fame had preceded them,

and so the other night when the doors of the Teatro Filipino were

thrown open, a huge crowd assembled to see the performance. The stage

was a fairly large one, but so arranged optically that it made the

figures appear larger than they really were. The actors (puppets) were

remarkable for their lifelikeness, and if one had not seen the strings

stretching upward he would have taken them to be animate beings. Their

costumes were complete and elaborate in every particular. First came

a tight-rope walker, then an acrobat balancing a pair of chairs,

and then Old Mother Hubbard, out of whose voluminous petticoats

jumped half a dozen little men and women, all of whom danced and

cut up as if they were really reasoning bipeds instead of material,

loose jointed, wax-faced dolls. Old Mamma was especially good, and

as she stirred up her little children with a long staff, looked at

first this one and then that, shook her head, pointed her finger,

and danced with the others, she brought down the house with applause.

Later on came a minstrel troupe, with two end-men, a leader who waved

a baton, a harpist, and two other musicians. They all played, and the

end-men cracked jokes. Next came a clog-dance between two darkies,

and it was difficult to believe that they were not alive. Further on

came a bulldog, which grabbed a policeman by the nether breeches and

pulled a huge piece out of them; a bull, who chased a farmer and threw

him over a rail fence (this took wonderfully well, for the Spaniards

go crazy over anything with a bull in it); then a boarding-house

scene, with a folding-bed that shut up its occupants inside; next,

a balloon ascension, in which a man on the ground was suddenly

caught up into the air by an anchor thrown out from the balloon;

then the death of the two aëronauts, who fall from a dizzy height;

next, a ride in a donkey-cart by two lovers, who find themselves

run away with and get snarled up on the wagon, to be kicked black

and blue by the donkey. Finally came a very complete little play of

"Bluebeard," with complete scenery, costumes, and ballet. All of the

scenery was of the lightning-change sort, and the Spaniards, mestizos,

and natives in the audience sat and looked on with open-mouthed wonder,

too astonished to laugh, too senseless to cry, and able but to clothe

their faces with expressions of wonder.

To change the subject rather abruptly, the captain of the Esmeralda,

the little steamer on which I came from Hong Kong, has been good

enough to ask me on board his vessel to tiffin as often as she comes

into port. As Captain Tayler's table is noted both for its excellence

and profusion, the very few of us who comprise the American colony,

as well as all the Englishmen in town, always covet an invitation to

spend Sunday in his company and enjoy various dishes that are not to

be procured in Manila markets.

Besides the several steamers that ply between ports on the neighboring

coast, there is now a large fleet of American ships at anchor in the

bay, and our office, which shelters the only American firm in the

Philippines, is a great centre for the various Yankee, nasal-twanged

skippers, who, dressed in hot-looking, ready-made tweeds, come

ashore without their collars to ask questions about home topics and

read newspapers six weeks old. They delight to enjoy the sea-breezes

generated by our big punka, and only leave the office on matters of

urgent necessity. Several of the captains have their whole families

with them, and one, who is especially well-to-do, owns his own ship,

carries along a bright tutor, who is preparing some of the skipper's

sons for college, and has transformed the vessel into a veritable

institution of learning. On nearly every evening the whole fleet

in a body go to some one ship, sing songs and have refreshments,

and the other night Governor Robie was the host. Being invited to

partake of the festivities, we two Yankees went off into the bay at

about sunset, ate a regulation New England dinner, with rather too

much weight to it for hot climates, and met all the belles of the

fleet. The moon overhead was full, and with a good piano, violin,

hand-organ, and a couple of ocarinas, giving vent to sweet sounds,

we had an impromptu dance on the quarter-deck. We stayed out on the

ship of our host and hostess all night. They apologized because the

bunks in the state-rooms assigned to us were so hard, little realizing

that we couldn't sleep worth a continental on account of their being

so ridiculously soft after our Philippine cane arrangements.

Everybody is talking horse now, and business will be at a standstill

during the first few days of the coming month, when the pony races

take place at the suburban course in Santa Mesa. As a result,

every afternoon that some of us do not go rowing or play tennis, we

adjourn to the race-track, and, in company with groups of Spaniards

and wealthy mestizos, watch the smart ponies circle around the track.

And, speaking of the race-course, I have just made arrangements with

one of my new friends to take a bungalow situated on a low rise that

backgrounds the track at the quarter-mile post. It stands, prettily

shaded by bamboo-trees, on practically the first bit of upland that

later grows into the lofty mountains of the interior, and the view

off over the race-course and low-lying paddy-fields, squared off into

sections, toward the city, is most picturesque. On another side we

look off over the winding river toward the mountains, which hardly

appear five miles away, and still another view is a bamboo grove,

against which is backed up our little stable with various outbuildings,

including the kitchen. A broad veranda runs entirely around the main

building, where the living-rooms are located, and Venetian roll-blinds

let down from the piazza-roof keep off the afternoon sun.

Yesterday I had my first experience in making extensive purchases

of furniture, and was interested to see about twelve coolies start

off from the city toward our country residence, three miles away,

loaded down with beds, tables, chairs, and other articles. Four of

them started off later on with the upright piano balanced on a couple

of cross-sticks resting on their shoulders, and trotted the whole

distance without sitting down to play the "Li Hung Chang March" more

than twice. These living carriers rather take the place of express

wagons in the East, and a long caravan of furniture-laden Celestials,

solemnly going along through the highway at a jog-trot, is no uncommon

sight. We shall need dishes, knives, pots and kettles, and a whole

World's Fair of trumpery, before we get started, and I shall have to

be busy with a Spanish dictionary, in order to get familiar with the

right names for the right things.

You have asked me how the mosquitoes fare upon the newly arrived

foreigner. To tell the truth, I have not seen more than half a dozen

since coming to Manila, and those all sang in tune. Everybody sleeps

under nettings, of course, but so far I have not seen as many biters

flying around at night as there are in the United States of America. To

be sure, one sees a good many lizards hanging by the eye-teeth to the

walls, or walking about unconcernedly up-side-down on the ceilings,

but they do good missionary work by devouring the host of smaller bugs,

and it is one of our highest intellectual pursuits here in Manila to

stretch out in a long chair and go to sleep gazing upward at these

enterprising bug-catchers pursuing their vocation. And, now and then,

from some piazza-roof or ceiling will drop on your face a so-called

hairy caterpillar whose promenade on one's epidermis will cause it

to swell up in great welts that close one's eyes and ruffle the temper.

Rats are more numerous than mosquitoes, and the other day, on my

opening a drawer in some of our office furniture, three jumped

out. The office was transformed into an impromptu race-course, and

all hands were called to take part in the slaughter. But Manila doors

are loose-jointed, and the rodents escaped somewhere into the next

room. Since then I have had the legs sawed off of my desk, so that

these literary beggars, who delight to eat up one's valuable papers,

should not climb in and make a meal off of my private cable code--a

thing which they started to do some time ago. They have already several

times run off with the candle which was used for heating sealing-wax,

and possess such prowess that they even took it out of the candlestick.

We had a new arrival at the club lately in the person of a young

Englishman who came fresh from Britain. Someone had stuffed him

with tales of indolent life in the Far East, for he came in to his

first dinner at the club clad only in pajamas and green carpet-bag

slippers. He also thought that the Spanish language consisted in adding

final a's to words in the English tongue and shouted all over the club

next morning for sopa, sopa, with which to cleanse himself. But the

servant brought him a plate of soup, and he is now trying to remember

that soap in Spanish is translated by jabon, not sopa. Jamon, the

word for ham, however, is close enough to give him trouble and he

will no doubt ask for soap instead of ham at our next repast.

March 16th.

The pony races came off with great éclat on the first four days of

this month, and were decidedly interesting. All Manila turned out,

and such a collection of carriages I have never seen. All the Spanish

ladies put an extra coat of paint on their complexions, and, dressed

in their best bibs and tuckers, made somewhat of a ghastly show in

the searching light of early afternoon. The high, thatched-roofed

grand stand presented a duly gay appearance as the bell rang for the

first event, and the dried-up paddy-fields, far and near, crackled

with natives directing their steps toward the centre of attraction.

In front of the grand stand groups of Spaniards, Englishmen, and

sea-captains formed centres for betting, and off at the sides were

refreshment-booths to which everyone made pilgrimage as often as the

articulatory muscles were in need of lubrication.

Some of the ponies were splendid-looking little "critters" and made

almost as fast time as their larger brethren, the horses. During

race-afternoons, business in the city was entirely suspended, and

everyone who had a dollar took it to the race-course to gain other

dollars. As the currency system is all metal, bets were paid in hard

coin, and if you happened to buy a lucky ticket in that gambling

machine, the "totalizator," you would perhaps have a whole hatful

of heavy silver cart-wheels shoved at you on presenting the winning

pasteboard. And it was no uncommon sight at the close of the races

to see some of the thinly clad natives whom fortune had favored go

trudging home across the rice-fields, carrying a load of dollars in

a straw hat or a bright bandana.

One by one the vessels are dropping away from their anchorage in the

bay, and by Saturday our Vigilant will heave up anchor and start on

her twenty-thousand-mile journey to Boston via the Cape, with her big

cargo of hemp. Thanks to our attentions to the captains, they have

seemed willing to take home for us any amount of souvenirs and curios,

and I have sent along quite an assortment of stuffed bats, lizards,

and snake-skin canes, which I feel sure will cause somebody to creep

on their arrival.

Manila's best cigar, made of a special, selected tobacco, wrapped

in the neatest of silverfoil and packed in rosewood boxes tied with

Spanish ribbon, costs about five cents and is considered a rare

delicacy. One scarcely ever sees these cigars, the "Incomparables,"

outside of the city itself, and the brand is so choice that but few

smokers are acquainted with it. The foreigner in Manila thinks he

is paying dear for his weed at $20 per thousand, and some of our

professional smokers limit themselves to those favorite "Bouquets"

which correspond to our "two-for-a-quarter" variety but sell here for

$1.80 a hundred. Below these upper grades come a various assortment of

cheaper varieties, including the cheroots, big at one end and small

at the other, and the $3-a-thousand cigars which are made of the

first thing that comes handy, to be sold to the crews of deep-water

merchantmen. A native of the Philippines wants his cigarette, and

gets it. Packages of thirty are sold on almost every corner for a

couple of coppers, and to my mind the Manila cigarette is far superior

to the variety found in Cuba. Smoking is, of course, encouraged by

prices such as these, and one finds it perfectly good form to borrow

a cigarette, as well as a light, from his neighbor in the tram-car

or on the plaza. Even on the toll-bridge which spans the Pasig you

pay your copper for crossing, and get in change a box of matches;

and if you are queer enough not to want the matches, the man will

give you instead a ticket that avails for the return trip.

Sunday I left my room at the club and moved into our new house out

in the suburb of Santa Mesa. It is just a week now since the Chinese

cook came and began to christen the pots and saucepans, whose Spanish

names I shall never get to remember. He began by rendering me a small

account of the "extras" provided for our table, and I was floored the

first thing on an item of five cents put down as "Hongos." I asked him

what that was. He spluttered around in Spanish and looked about the

room to see if he couldn't find a few growing in one of our pictures of

still life on the walls. At length, being struck with an inspiration,

he seized a small fan, excitedly stuck it into one of our flower-pots,

balanced on top of it an inverted ash-tray, and danced around, pointing

first to the item on the bill and then to the peculiar growth in the

flower-pot. I confess I didn't follow his reasoning, till suddenly it

struck me that for our first dinner in the new house we had partaken

of mushrooms. Not far off from an ash-tray balanced on a Japanese fan

growing out of a flower-pot--are they? The style of decoration in our

house is especially Japanese, and, needless to say, artistic, since

there are large Japanese and Indian shops in Manila, where one can

get all sorts of gimcracks at low prices. Our servants number seven,

a small quota for two of us. Although their wages are small, amounting,

as a rule, to $4 apiece per month, yet it is necessary to have plenty

of them, in order that a certain few shall be awake when wanted.

The fresh breeze, which in the evenings and early mornings blows

down direct from the lofty mountains, is so cool that often several

blankets have been necessary in the sleeping contrivance. Mosquitoes

are still conspicuous by their absence, but the rats up in the roof

sound tremendously numerous. All night they seem to be pulling boxes

to and fro, taking up boards and nailing them down, and having a

general all-hands-round sort of a dance.

Nearly all of the older bungalows in Manila possess what are called

house-snakes; huge reptiles generally about twelve or fourteen feet

long and as thick as a fire-engine hose, that permanently reside up

in the roof and live on the rats. These big creatures are harmless,

and rarely, if ever, leave their abodes. Judging from the noise over

my cloth ceiling, a pair of these pets find pasturage up above, and I

can hear them whacking around about once a week in their chase after

rats. They are good though noisy rat-catchers, but since they must

needs eat all they catch, their efficiency appears to be limited

to their length of stomach, and one night of energetic campaign is

generally followed by several days of rest, during which the snake

sees if he has bitten off more than he can chew. If the Philippine

cats were more noble specimens of the quadruped, I should try to

place half a dozen up in this midnight concert-hall, but they are so

feeble that I fear their lives would be in danger. It is hardly to

be wondered at that these native cats are modestly retiring, when

you wake at night to hear your shoes being dragged off across the

floor by some huge rice-fed rodent, and I don't blame them at all

for having right angles at the end of their tails.

The only way to get rid of the rats seems to be to buy more snakes,

and this is simple enough, for you often see the natives hawking

them around in town, the boas curled up around bamboo poles, to which

their heads are tied.

Some of our other domestic pets are lizards, supposed to be about four

feet long, who sing every evening at 8.30 P.M., from somewhere off

down in the shrubbery; several roving turkeys and pigs that belong to

the boys that serve us, a cluster of fighting-cocks, and a family of

puppies. It is easy to be seen that our establishment is thus somewhat

of a tropical menagerie, and a performance is almost always going on

in some quarter or other.

I have just completed the purchase of a horse and carriage complete,

including the coachman, for $100, and on the first trial we passed

everything on the road. The pony is a high-stepper, and rattled along

over the ground at a terrific speed, as a good Philippine animal

should. The coachman seems to know how to drive, which is a rare

attainment among the natives, and so far, though he has run over two

boys, he has not taken off any wheels in the car-tracks.

They say it costs a good deal to live well out this way, but that is a

mistake, and if one lived at home in the same style the bills would be

at least ten times as large. To be sure, it would be possible to come

to Manila, board with a Spanish family in the old city, avoid joining

the club, and live almost for nothing. However, this is a custom not

much encouraged in the Orient, and one cannot properly take his place

among the colony of English and other Europeans without spending a

certain reasonable amount.

Business is done more on a social scale than at home, and the lowest

English clerk in the large houses feels that he must enter into the

free and easy expenditure of his better-paid chief. After office hours

are over everyone stands on the same social plane, and all business

talk is tabooed. The office-boy often calls his lord and master

"Bill," and frequently has a better-looking horse and carriage.

The U.S.S. Concord has just come into the bay and been saluted by the

fort. Some of her officers will probably come ashore to breakfast

at the club, and it will probably devolve on the four Americans

in the city to do what is needful in the way of courtesy to our

fellow-countrymen.

To-day is the beginning of Easter Week, nearly all of whose days are

holidays or holy days. This is one of the closest-observed seasons

of the year, and on next Thursday and Friday, if you will believe it,

no carriages are allowed to appear in the streets either of Manila or

of the other cities. The tram-cars, to be sure, have of late years

been allowed to run, and the doctor's carriage and the ice-carts

can obtain permits. Beyond them, however, everybody has to stay at

home or walk; and in former times tram-cars were forbidden and no

one was allowed to carry an open umbrella. It seems the proper thing

to do to make arrangements with some of the English colony to take a

trip off into the mountains, and my chum and I expect to start off

by launch on Wednesday afternoon. Our party will consist of five,

not including half a dozen servants, who are to make arrangements

for bringing the provisions and bedding.

On my return I hope to have some fodder for my pen and relate some

of our experiences in the up-country districts.