A SKETCH OF LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES.
House-keeping in the Philippines presents some interesting phases. Our
club of American officials decided to run a mess, so we employed a
cook and a house boy, then each of us provided himself with a personal
servant, making a total of six servants for four men--it takes about
this proportion of servants to live in any sort of comfort in the
Philippines--and launched ourselves boldly upon the sea of domestic
economy. But there were shoals ahead of us, for the question of
regulating servants is one of no small importance in the Philippines,
and one of its most disadvantageous features is the long chain of
dependents that usually attends it.
We gave the cooks so much a day with which to buy supplies in the
local market, for our own table, making him render a daily list of
expenditures, and a fixed amount besides to purchase rice and fish for
himself and the other servants. Of course, if they wished to vary
their diet and get chicken and fresh pork, which could be had at far
distant intervals, it was wholly a matter of their option, but the
allowance was made on the basis of so much rice and fish a day for
each. This allowance was about fifteen cents a day in Spanish coin per
servant.
Thus far all was well. We had agreed to give the cook eight dollars a
month in Spanish money, thinking that good wages would procure good
service, but the visions of affluence that floated before him on such
floods of wealth were so alluring that they drew him from the kitchen
to the cooler veranda. In less than a week he had employed an
assistant at four dollars a month; in less than another week that
assistant had employed him an assistant at two dollars a month; in
less than another week that assistant to the assistant had employed
him an assistant at the princely salary of fifty cents a month; and
from fear that the chain of dependents would end only by our having
the whole Filipino race attached to our culinary force, we broke up
house-keeping and went boarding again, choosing that as the less of
the two evils.
Our house furnishings were almost wholly Philippine. The table ware
and the food on the table came from the ends of the earth. The knives
and forks were made in Germany, the plates were manufactured in
England, the glass ware and table cloth, in the United States. The
oatmeal and flour came from the United States also. The butter came
from Australia, the rice from China, the salt from Russia, and the
other eatables from sources about as various as their separate names.
Switzerland furnished the condensed milk and Illinois the canned
cream. Nearly all of the canned fruit bore labels from Spain.
Thus it can easily be seen that life in the Philippines, if lived
according to American ideals, is dependent upon a highly developed and
highly complex commerce. However, the difficulties of transportation
and the restriction of large stocks of merchandise to Manila and some
half a dozen other towns, make so great a difference between country
life and city life that a short comparison of the two will not be out
of place, and life in Manila may well be taken as being fairly typical
of the latter.
Life in Manila is pleasant, but expensive. It is pleasant from the
fact that it is not only the capital but also metropolis of the
archipelago. Thus the combination of wealth and high official position
has given to Manila a society of the highest and most refined type.
The process of beautifying and improving the city which is constantly
going on bids fair to give us at no distant day a city of which we may
well be proud.
But let him who intends living well in Manila on a small income bid
farewell at once to so idylic a dream, for it costs much to live well
there. In the city of Manila one can get almost anything he wishes,
but it must be paid for at the price it commands. Especially in the
case of eatables, this price is by no means small, because to the
first cost of articles must in most cases be added the expense of
distant shipment from American, European, or Australian ports, and not
infrequently the cost of long refrigeration must also be taken into
consideration. But, expensive though it is, it is very pleasant to
live there and those who have once enjoyed it often wish again to
quaff the cup of its delights.
In strong contrast to this pleasant life is the life of the quiet
little hamlet away in the distant islands. Indeed, the Filipino from
the distant town, who by some good fortune has been to Manila, or, by
a _coup de main_, has studied in one of the Manila colleges, is looked
up to in a true hero-worshiping attitude by all who either know him or
hear of his fame. Life in such a place is one long state of harmless
inactivity. Not a wave of trouble from the great outer world ever
disturbs its peaceful repose. One lounges forever in an air of
indolent ease and extreme aversion to anything approaching what might
be called a respectable effort.
One arises in the morning about the time the sun's first rays silver
the top leaves of the cocoanut trees and then stirs around until nine
or ten o'clock, when it is found expedient to avoid a further exposure
to the sun. From then until about five o'clock in the afternoon it is
best to take things as they come, even though one of those things be a
Filipino dinner. But then you may have your _vehiclo_ attached to a
young bull with a ring in his nose and go for a drive. If it is the
dry season you will probably enjoy the drive unless you object to the
frequent clouds of dust swept along by the evening wind. If it is in
the rainy season your pleasure will depend to a considerable extent
upon how wet you get; but, whether the season be wet or dry, your
pleasure will be regulated largely by the state of harmony existing
between the driver and the bull.
In these quiet secluded nooks successive generations of Filipinos are
born, reared, grow old and die in an even chain of events broken only
by the occasional erection of a new grass house on the identical spot
where its predecessors have stood for ages. The son lives in the house
of his father, cultivates the same few square feet of soil planted in
edible roots, climbs the same cocoanut trees, follows the same winding
path down to the stream, pounds rice in the same mortar and with the
same stick that his ancestors have used from time unremembered, and,
in case of illness, curls up on a grass mat in a corner of the room
until he dies or by some good fortune recovers. Beyond this narrow
horizon he never looks. So narrow and contracted is the life that the
languages of two towns a few miles apart are so different that one
would scarcely recognize them as belonging to the same race of people.
Such are the two extremes of life in our new far Eastern provinces:
the one is active, progressive, and cosmopolitan; the other, inactive,
decadent, and narrow; but, whether one enjoys the first or endures the
second, there comes to him after leaving a longing to lounge again in
tropic airs and listen to the lullaby of the winds among the palms.