The life of the inhabitants of the far-away Eastern islands in which
the people of the United States are now so vitally interested opens to
our literature a new field not less fresh and original than that which
came to us when Mr. Kipling first published his Indian tales. India
had always possessed its wonders and its remarkable types, but they
waited long for adequate expression. No less wonderful and varied
are the inhabitants and the phenomena of the Philippines, and a new
author, showing rare knowledge of the country and its strange peoples,
now gives us a collection of simple yet powerful stories which bring
them before us with dramatic vividness.
Pirates, half naked natives, pearls, man-apes, towering volcanoes
about whose summits clouds and unearthly traditions float together,
strange animals and birds, and stranger men, pythons, bejuco ropes
stained with human blood, feathering palm trees now fanned by soft
breezes and now crushed to the ground by tornadoes;--on no mimic
stage was ever a more wonderful scene set for such a company of
actors. That the truly remarkable stories written by Sargent Kayme
do not exaggerate the realities of this strange life can be easily
seen by any one who has read the letters from press correspondents,
our soldiers, or the more formal books of travel.
Strangest, perhaps, of all these possibilities for fiction is the
anting-anting, at once a mysterious power to protect its possessor
and the outward symbol of the protection. No more curious fetich
can be found in the history of folk-lore. A button, a coin, a bit of
paper with unintelligible words scribbled upon it, a bone, a stone,
a garment, anything, almost--often a thing of no intrinsic value--its
owner has been known to walk up to the muzzle of a loaded musket or
rush upon the point of a bayonet with a confidence so sublime as to
silence ridicule and to command admiration if not respect.
The Editor.