A Series of Typhoons--A Chinese Feast-day--A Bank-holiday
Excursion--Lost in the Mist--Los Baños--The "Enchanted Lake"--Six
Dollars for a Human Life--A Religious Procession--Celebration of
the Expulsion of the Chinese--Bicycle Races and Fireworks.
October 5th.
Phew! We have hardly had time to breathe since the last mail, for
we have been in the midst of typhoon after typhoon, shipwrecks,
house-wrecks, and telegraph-wrecks, both simplex and duplex. Manila
had scarcely gotten over talking of the war of the elements, above
spoken of, before another cyclone was announced to the south, and
soon we were going through an experience similar to that related
the other day. When that was over, everybody began to draw breath
again, but before the lungs of the populace were fully expanded,
the wind suddenly went into that dangerous quarter, the northwest,
and up went signal No. 5 again. The blow came on more suddenly than
the former one, and all hands left the business offices to go home
and sit on their roofs. The tin was again stripped like paper from
our portico, and great masses of metal banged around outside with
the clash of cymbals. It was a terrific night. The ships in the Bay
dragged their anchors nearly to the breakwater, and in the morning
four Spanish brigs were a total wreck. One in particular went ashore
on the bar at the river's mouth, and at daylight was being swept fore
and aft by the great seas. Eight men were hanging on for dear life,
and it looked as if they would be swallowed up in the great drink, but
two big lifeboats were got out, and as the sea moderated somewhat, the
sailors were at length rescued, just as their ship went all to smash. A
thousand houses were blown down, many of the streets in Manila were
flooded, telegraph lines prostrated, and tram-car service interrupted.
But things have now quieted down, and Sunday was a big feast-day
in the Chinese quarter. All the wealthy Chinamen were celebrating
something or other, and they invited all the foreign merchants, as
well as their local friends, to the celebration. They served tea and
refreshments in their various little junk shops, and some of the more
influential members of the colony of fifty thousand gave elaborate
spreads, followed by dances and concerts. The streets were filled
with peculiar processions of men carrying banners and graven images,
and the sidewalks were lined with spectators.
I went to one of the most pretentious of the indoor functions, found
myself in a gorgeously furnished suite of apartments, decorated
in true Chinese fashion, and was royally entertained by a shrewd
Celestial who was supposed to be worth several million dollars. He
began conversation with me by saying that, in his belief, bathing was
injurious, and that he had not taken a bath in thirty years. From all
I could judge, others of his brethren seemed to hold the same views
as he, and the long rooms, halls, and corridors in due season got to
be so warm and fragrant that it was a relief to escape.
Now and then the bells in the big church rang lustily, and many
lanterns lighted it up from cornice to keystone. Hundreds of carriages
drove through the streets, apparently bound nowhere in particular,
and the bands played in all quarters.
It almost seems as if each week in the calendar brought in a religious
display of some sort in some one part of the town, and every Sunday
evening finds a big church somewhere blazing with light or a street
blinking with candles.
November 13th.
The Monday after the departure of the monthly direct mail from Manila
to the Peninsula is always devoted to our old friend "bank-holiday,"
and all the foreign merchants close their doors. This event occurred
the first of this week, and on Saturday afternoon last some of the
more energetic of us, deciding to take another little outing into the
hills, started up the river on a small launch, bound for the big lake
at the foot of the mountains. A drizzling rain was falling and the
weather did not look propitious, but we pushed on, left the mouth of
the river where the lake empties into it, and sallied out on the broad
waters of the Laguna de Bay. Numerous serving-boys, boxes of china,
food, ice, and bedding ballasted the stern of our little steamer,
and as it grew dark a feast was prepared for us on deck. In going up
the lake, the pilot, who was accustomed only to navigating the launch
along the quays of Manila itself, got quite at sea and lost his way in
the evening mist. Some of us, however, more nautical than the rest,
procured a chart, consulted a compass which the native mariner in
his stupidity chose utterly to disregard, and by dint of perseverance
brought the frail bark back into her proper course, without further
mishap than running through a series of fish-weirs.
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."
Angry at having been thus deceived, the two murderers excitedly
paddled over to the neighboring village of Los Baños, went to the
cuartel, presided over by a Spanish official, and addressed him with
these words:
"A lady over there by the Enchanted Lake promised us twelve dollars
if we would kill her husband. We have done the job and asked her for
our money, but she will only give us six. We want you to arrest her."
The official, thinking the whole thing a joke, laughingly said he
would attend to the matter. The two simple-minded criminals went off,
apparently satisfied, and disappeared.
Later, our friend the official thought there might be some truth behind
the apparent absurdity of the yarn, and on investigation found that a
murder had actually been committed. But someone more credulous than
the Spaniard gave a friendly warning to the committers of the deed,
and they were not brought to justice until some months afterward. Such
is the comparative esteem in which the native holds human life and
Mexican dollars.
Later we descended again to the bold coast-line of the Laguna de
Bay and, to the accompaniment of banging guns, which showed that
some of the rest of our party were really on the war-path, returned
launch-ward. The hunting-expedition came in soon after with large bags
of snipe and pigeon, and all hands then joined in a series of dives
off the stern of our boat, or soused around in the tepid water. The
group of savages living in the huts near by were much startled at our
taking plunges headlong. They themselves never dive otherwise than
feet first, for it is a common superstition among the Filipinos that
the evil water-spirits would catch them by the head and hold them
under if this article came along before the feet put in an appearance.
At noontime our native cooks did themselves proud in getting up a game
breakfast, and in the afternoon the launch backed off and steamed
across the narrow bay to Los Baños itself, a little town clustering
around some boiling springs whose vapor floats over a good hotel
and some elaborate bathing-establishments. This seems to be a rather
favorite resort for the Spanish population of Manila at certain times
of the year, and once or twice a week the old side-wheeler Laguna de
Bay stops here on her way up from the capital to Santa Cruz.
Behind the town the land slopes steeply up to the mountain heights
of still another extinct volcano, whose ghost exists merely to give
life to the hot waters of the springs below. In front it runs off
to the lake shore, and, all in all, the scenery is as picturesque
as the air is healthy. From Los Baños we crossed the lake, cruised
down along the abrupt mountainous shores between the two fine old
promontories of Halla Halla, that jut out like the prongs to a W,
and stopped every now and then at some particularly attractive little
native village coming down to the water's edge. At about sundown on
Monday afternoon, the prow was turned Manilaward, and after a cool
sunset sail of twenty miles we drew in at the portico of the uptown
club, all the better for our two day's trip, which cost us each but
a little over five gold dollars.
Last night there occurred another one of those religious torch-light
processions which are so common in the streets of Old Manila. It
started after sunset, inside the city walls, from a big church brightly
illuminated from top to bottom with small candle-cups that gave it
the appearance of a great sugar palace. The procession consisted of
many richly decorated floats, containing life-size figures of saints
and apostles dressed in garments of gold and purple and borne along
by sweating coolies, who staggered underneath a draping that shielded
from view all save their lower limbs and naked feet. The larger floats
were covered with dozens of candelabra and guarded by soldiers with
fixed bayonets. Other rolling floats of smaller magnitude were pulled
along by little children in white gowns, while troops of old maids,
young maids, and Spanish women marched before and behind, dressed in
black and carrying candles. The black mantillas which fell gracefully
from the heads of many of the torch-bearers gave their faces a look of
saint-like grace, except at such times as the evening breeze made the
candle-grease refractory, and one might easily have imagined himself
a spectator at a celebration in Seville.
Many bands all playing different tunes in different times and keys,
rows of hard-faced, fat-stomached priests trying to look religious
but failing completely to do so, and five hundred small boys, who,
like ours at home, formed a sort of rear guard to the solemnities,
all went to make up the peculiar performance. The whole long affair
started from the church, wound through the narrow streets, and finally
brought up at the church again, where it was saluted by fireworks
and ringing of bells.
In the balconies of the houses that almost overhung the route were
smiling crowds of lookers-on, and Roman candles and Bengola lights
added impressiveness to the scene, or dropped their sparks on the
garments of those promenading below. As the various images of the
Virgin Mary and the Descent from the Cross passed by, everyone took off
his hat and appeared deeply impressed with religious feeling. After the
carriers of the floats had put down for good their expensive burdens
in the vestry of the church, a few liquid refreshments easily started
them quarrelling as to the merits of their respective displays. One set
claimed that their Descent from the Cross was more life-like than that
carried by their rivals, and they almost came to blows over which of
the Virgin Marys wore the finest clothes.
Yesterday was the celebration of the expulsion of the Chinese invaders
from the Philippines, about a hundred years ago, and the whole city
was aglow with flags and decorations. In the afternoon everybody
went to the Luneta to see the bicycle races and to hear the music. A
huge crowd surged around the central plaza, and the best places in
the band-stand were reserved for the Spanish ladies and Government
dignitaries. The races were slow, but the crowd cheered and seemed
perfectly satisfied as one after another of the contestants tipped over
going around the sharp corners. After the races a beautiful Spanish
maiden, whose eyes were so crossed that she must have easily mixed
up the winning bicycle with the tail-ender, distributed the prizes,
and the police had hard work to keep the crowd from overwhelming the
centre of attraction. Then everybody listened to the music, walked or
drove around in carriages, and waited for the fireworks, which were
set off not long after sunset. The costly display was accompanied
by murmurings of "Oh!" from hundreds of throats. There was an Eiffel
Tower of flame, several mixed-up crosses that twisted in and out of
each other, numerous scroll-wheels, fountains, and a burst of bombs
and rockets. Some of the parachute stars gracefully floated out over
the Bay and descended into the water, causing startled exclamations
from the natives, who are not accustomed to look on fireworks with
equanimity. But as of old, everything finally ended in smoke, and the
multitude melted away, thoroughly satisfied with the celebration of
the anniversary of the victory over the Chinese.
As it seems about time to take a longer rest than usual from the labor
attendant on waiting for a boom in the hemp market, I hope next week
to start off on one of the well-equipped provincial steamers, that
makes a run of two thousand miles south, among the sugar-islands and
the hemp-ports, and in the next chapter there ought to be a rather
long account of what is said to be a very interesting voyage.