We were so sure in the Philippines that we could not get too
much light that we built our houses to admit it in floods, and
contemptuously disregarded the English and Dutch experience of
two centuries. We called people lazy if they hid themselves at
midday, and we bravely went abroad in the full glare of the
light. Even the heavily pigmented Filipinos darkened their
houses, and were astounded at our foolishness in doing what they
did not dare to do. Collapse always came in time--if not a real
collapse, at least a degree of destruction of nervous vigor
which demanded a return to darker climates to escape chronic
invalidism or even death.--Major CHARLES E. WOODRUFF,
_Harper’s Weekly_.
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