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AN EPOCH IN HISTORY
by
P. H. ELEY
[Illustration: (signed) Very Truly, P. H. Eley.]
_TO MY MOTHER,
whose tender love and
devotion for me are ever
unchanged, I dedicate
this book._
Copyright, 1904, by P. H. Eley.
CONTENTS.
1. AN EPOCH IN HISTORY.
2. MANILA.
3. A DRAMA IN ACTUAL LIFE.
4. WHAT THE TEACHERS DID.
5. A "BAILE."
6. A SKETCH OF LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES.
7. THE FILIPINO AT HOME.
8. A VISIT TO A LEPER COLONY.
9. A "HIKE."
PREFACE.
It was the good fortune of the author to take part in a movement
without precedent in the history of the world, and the incidents
concurrent with, together with those subsequent to that movement, have
furnished the material for this book. It has been the object of the
writer to weave into the story of his actual experiences an account of
those things which are as yet an unexplored field in the realm of
letters. The work is submitted to the reader in the hope that it will
prove to be pregnant with interest to those who are in sympathy with
great movements and to those who listen with delight to stories of
personal experiences in distant lands and among strange peoples.
THE AUTHOR.
_The Virginia Polytechnic Institute, April, 1904._
CHAPTER I.
AN EPOCH IN HISTORY.
Few people pause to think that Tuesday, the twenty-third day of July,
nineteen hundred and one, not only placed a mile-stone on the road of
civilization, but also marked an epoch in the history of the world.
That day placed a mile-stone on the road of civilization because it
saw the culmination of one of the greatest movements ever attempted in
behalf of common school education. It marked an epoch in the history
of the world because, for the first time within the knowledge of man,
a conquering people, instead of sending battalions of soldiers to hold
the conquered in subjection, sent a carefully selected body of men and
women to carry to them the benefits of a highly developed society.
It was on this day that the United States Government sent from San
Francisco four hundred and ninety-nine trained men and women to
establish throughout the Philippine Islands a system of free public
schools.
The ball on the tower of the Ferry Building in San Francisco had just
fallen, announcing the hour of noon on the one hundred and twentieth
meridian, when the propellers began revolving and the United States
Army Transport "Thomas" swung out into the middle of the bay, where it
dropped anchor for a few moments while some belated boxes of lemons
and a few other articles were added to the equipment of the steward's
department.
The anchor was again on its way to the surface when a row-boat driven
by four oarsmen with drawn muscles and clenched teeth glided in under
the bow of the ship. Its passenger, a belated teacher who at the last
moment had wandered from the pier, was shouting for some one to throw
him a rope, and a few moments later our last passenger whose silvery
hair little indicated the probability of such a blunder was landed in
a heap on the deck. Our ship was now under way and soon passed out of
the Golden Gate bearing on and between her decks the largest number of
teachers as well as the largest cargo of pedagogical equipment that
any vessel in the history of the world ever bore to a foreign land to
instruct an alien people. Late in the afternoon five whales came up
and spouted and played around us. We passed on and as their fountains
of spray disappeared in the distance the sun sank down to pay his
wonted devotion before the shrine of night. We were alone.
By good fortune we went by way of the Hawaiian Islands and touched at
Honolulu. We entered the harbor in the first faint light of the coming
morn while the moon still shone with resplendent glory just above the
nearer rim of the old extinct volcanic crater lying just behind the
town. High points of land lay around us on three sides, while across
the bay soft billowy clouds completed an enchanting circle from the
spell of which none of us wished ever to escape.
No traveler who lands at Honolulu will feel unrequited for his time
and his money should he visit two places in the vicinity of the town.
The first is the _Pali_ and the second, the Bishop Museum of
Polynesian Ethnology.
The first is a gigantic precipice, reached by a few hours ride from
the city by horse. As one reaches the precipice, there spreads out
before him at a dizzying depth below a verdant plain, bounded in the
distance by an emerald sea. The wind which always blows in tropical
countries is gathered in between the long projecting arms of a
mountain chain and rushes over the face of cliff with such force that
it is said by travelers to be one of the strongest continual winds on
the globe.
The Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology contains the finest
collection in existence of things illustrating the life and customs of
Polynesia. Among other things, the visitor is shown the personal god
of war of that sovereign whose grand-child was the last to hold the
sceptre of the Kanakas. There are royal documents to prove that more
than one thousand men have been beheaded before this grim-faced old
idol. Here, too, is the famous robe of birds' feathers, made to please
the fancy of this same grim old monarch. The feathers of which this
strange, but really elegant, robe is made are of a reddish color. The
birds from which they were plucked were found only in the Hawaiian
Islands and each bird had only four feathers, two being under each
wing. The extinction of the bird is attributed to the making of this
royal robe. So many of them were needed that hundreds of hunters were
employed a score or more of years to secure the number required.
Placing the wages of the hunters at a reasonable figure, the value of
the robe is over three hundred thousand dollars.
At Honolulu one sees also that famous sport of the South Sea
Islanders, _surf-shooting_. The native wades far out into the surf
with a long narrow board and then sits astride of it upon the surface
of the water. As the long billows come rolling in, he places his board
upon the convex surface of an advancing wave, then, with the poise of
a rope-dancer, he places his weight properly upon the plank and is
shot forward with precipitate rapidity.
Between Honolulu and Manila lies the imaginary line where the days of
the week are supposed to begin and end. It has long been a custom
among sailors to hold the "Revels of Neptune" on the night after a
vessel crosses either the International Date Line or the Equator, and
the ship is then turned over to the crew. Even the petty officers of
the ship are not free from being made the objects of the sport, and
passengers of especial prominence have often been treated to a bath in
a tub of cold water or had their faces lathered with a broom as a
shaving brush while a bar of old iron served the purpose of a razor.
A naval lieutenant on the battleship which conveyed Napoleon from
London to St. Helena, writing to one of the court ladies in London,
states that Napoleon offered the sailors four hundred dollars in gold
and actually gave them eighty-five dollars to escape being ducked in a
tub of cold water and shaved with a rough iron hoop when they crossed
the equator.[A]
[A] Century Magazine for September, 1889.
We reached the line on Thursday night and awoke a few hours later on
Saturday morning, having lost a day in revelry.