SPORT.
(A CHAPTER FOR MEN.)
The Jockey Club--Training--The races--An archbishop
presiding--The Totalisator or Pari Mutuel--The Manila
Club--Boating club--Rifle clubs--Shooting--Snipe--Wild
duck--Plover--Quail--Pigeons--Tabon--Labuyao, or jungle
cock--Pheasants--Deer--Wild pig--No sport in fishing.
Manila was not so badly off for sport as might be thought. The
pony-races, conducted under the auspices of the Jockey Club, excited
the greatest interest amongst all classes.
The ponies underwent their training at the race-course in Santa Mesa,
and their owners and other members of the club were provided with
early breakfast there. The native grooms took as much interest in
the success of the pony they attended as the owner, and they backed
their favourite for all they were worth.
Only members were allowed to ride, and the weights were remarkably
heavy for such small ponies. When the races came off, business was
almost suspended for three days, and all Manila appeared at the
race-course. There were sometimes two thousand vehicles and immense
crowds on foot.
The ladies in their most resplendent toilettes were received by the
stewards, presented with elegantly-bound programmes, and conducted
to their places on the grand stand.
Presently a military band would strike up the "Marcha Real," as the
Governor-General's equipage entered the enclosure, and that exalted
personage, dressed in black frock coat and silk hat, white trousers
and waistcoat, with the crimson silk sash of a general, just peeping
from under his waistcoat, was conducted to his box, followed by his
suite and the favoured persons invited to join his party.
The highest authority in the country presided and handed the prizes to
the winning jockeys, who were brought up to him by the vice-president
of the club. But on an occasion when the Governor-General and Segundo
Cabo were absent, I witnessed the races which were presided over
by no less a personage than His Grace the Archbishop of Manila,
Fray Pedro Payo, in his archiepiscopal garments, and smoking a big
Havana cigar. The old gentleman enjoyed the sport and most graciously
presented the handsome prizes to the winners.
Betting was conducted by the totalisator, or pari-mutuel, the bet
being five dollars, repeated as often as you liked. As I presume my
readers understand this system, I shall not describe it. The natives
bet amongst themselves to a considerable amount.
Pavilions were erected by different clubs or bodies, and a
profuse hospitality characterised each day. Winners of large
silver cups usually filled them with champagne and passed them
round. Bets were made with the ladies as an excuse for giving them
presents. Dinner-parties were given in the evenings at private houses,
and there were dinners at the clubs. There were two race-meetings in
the year. No doubt this sport, temporarily interrupted by insurrection
and war, will again flourish when tranquillity prevails.
There was a boating-club in connection with the British Club at
Nagtajan, now removed to Ermita, and some very good skiffs and boats
were available. There was a regatta and illuminated procession of
boats each year.
Polo clubs and rifle clubs had a rather precarious existence,
except that the Swiss Rifle Club was well kept up, and there were
some excellent shots in it. There was a lawn tennis club, which had
ladies and gentlemen as members, and some very good games were played
there and valuable prizes given.
Shooting was a favourite sport with many Englishmen and a few mestizos.
Excellent snipe-shooting is to be had in all the paddy-fields around
Manila and the lake. But at San Pedro on the Pasig, there is a wide
expanse of rough ground with clumps of bushes, and it was here that
the most exciting sport was to be had, and it took some shooting
to get the birds as they flew across the openings between the
bushes. Snipe-shooting began in September, when the paddy was high
enough to give cover, and lasted to the end of November. The birds,
when they first arrived, were thin, but they soon put on flesh, and
by November were fat and in splendid condition for the table. There
is no better bird to be eaten anywhere than a Manila snipe. Bags of
eighty were sometimes made in a morning by two guns.
Excellent wild-duck and teal-shooting was to be got on and around
the lake and on the Pinag de Candaba, and wherever there was a sheet
of water. When crossing the lake I have seen wild fowl resting on the
surface in such enormous numbers that they looked like sandbanks. They
are not easy to approach, but I have killed some by firing a rifle
into the flock. The crested-lapwing and the golden-plover are in
plenty, and on the seashores widgeon and curlew abound. Inland, on
the stubbles, there are plenty of quail. Pigeons of all sorts, sizes,
and colours, abound at all times, especially when the dap-dap tree
opens its large crimson blossoms. Some kinds of brush-turkeys, such
as the tabon, a bird (Megapodius cuningi) the size of a partridge,
that lays an egg as large as a goose egg and buries it in a mound of
gravel by the shore, are found.
The labuyao, or jungle cock, is rare and not easy to shoot in a
sportsmanlike way, although a poacher could easily shoot them on a
moonlight night.
In the Southern Islands some remarkable pheasants of most brilliant
plumage are to be found, and whilst in Palawan I obtained two good
specimens of the pavito real (Polyplectron Napoleonis), a very handsome
game bird with two sharp spurs on each leg. They are rather larger
than a partridge, but their fan-shaped tails have two rows of eyes
like a peacock's tail, there being four eyes in each feather.
Deer and wild-pig abound, and can be shot within four hours' journey of
Manila by road. Round about Montalban is a good place for them. They
are plentiful at Jala-jala, on the lake at Porac in Pampanga, and
round about the Puerto Jamelo and Pico de Loro, at the mouth of Manila
Bay. In fact, they are found wherever there is cover and pasture for
them. The season is from December to April.
The usual way is to go with a party of five or six guns and employ
some thirty native beaters, each bringing one or two dogs.
The guns are stationed in suitable spots and the beaters and their
dogs, fetching a compass, extend their line and drive the game up to
the guns. This is rather an expensive amusement, as you have to pay
and feed the beaters and their dogs; but it is very good sport, and
in proceeding and returning to camp from two beats in the morning and
two in the afternoon, you got quite as much exercise as you want or as
is good for you. The venison and wild-pig is very good eating, but it
is difficult to get it to Manila fresh, whatever precautions you take.
Taken all round, Luzon is well supplied with game, and may be
considered satisfactory from a sportsman's point of view.
There is no sport to be had in fishing; in Luzon, so far as I know,
there are no game fish. When living on the banks of the Rio Grande,
near Macabebe, I noticed some natives taking fish at night by placing
a torch on the bow of a canoe, which was paddled by one man slowly
along near the bank, another man standing in the bow with a fish-spear
of three prongs, similar to the "grains" used in England. As the fish
came up to the light he struck at them with his spear and managed to
pick up a good many.
This appeared good sport, and I arranged for a native to come for me
in a canoe with torch, and I borrowed a spear. We started off, but
there was some difficulty in standing up in a small, narrow canoe,
and darting the spear. My first stroke was a miss, the fish escaped;
my second, however, was all right, and I shook my catch off the spear
into the canoe, but the native shouted out, "Masamang ahas po!" (a
poisonous snake, sir) not forgetting to be polite even in that
somewhat urgent situation. The snake was wriggling towards me, but
I promptly picked him up again on the spear and threw him overboard,
much to my own relief and that of the Pampanga.
It was one of those black and yellow water-snakes, reputed as
poisonous. That was enough fishing for me, and I remembered that I had
a particular appointment at home, and left fishing to professionals.
Curiously enough, fish cannot be taken by the trawl, for a mestizo
got out a trawling steamer with gear, and men to handle it, and after
repeated trials in different places, had to give it up as a bad job.