the chief points of interest being emphasised by a bang of her fan on my
knee, which conveys anything to me from her views on the Papal Supremacy
to her opinion about the sanitation of this ship, the latter subject
taxing even her powers of pantomime.
We have so far had the marvellous luck of coolness, a clouded sky, and
wind. The wind, however, is a mixed boon, for it means waves—waves
which would hardly count on the Round Pond, but make the _Butuan_ roll
heavily, and prove too much for the Filipino boys and youths, who are
thick on the ship as swarming bees. They must be thankful to get rid—on
the deck, by-the-bye—of the fearful, greasy meals which they stow away
with horrible greediness. Knowing that the Filipinos eat lightly and
sparingly, I remarked to my cabin mate, who came to sit next me at table,
about the diet of these young countrymen of hers. She, herself, like the
other native passengers, only eats very little—some chicken and a few
vegetables, rice, and fruit. The gesture she made as she looked at the
schoolboys was most expressive.
“_Babuis!_” she said, which is Visayan for pigs, and as bad as calling a
Frenchman _cochon_. “_Babuis!_ These Government Schools are ruining my
people. I thank God that I have no son who will be taught to be insolent
and unclean, and to eat like that.”
I asked her what she meant by “unclean,” and she said that the Filipinos
wash a great deal, which I knew already, and are very careful in certain
small details of cleanliness and sanitation, but that all the new
schoolboys were little better than animals.
Opposite us at table sits a very good-looking American officer in khaki
uniform, who is evidently not a keen advocate of equality, as he does not
open his lips except to the captain, and even omits the little bow which
the other passengers make on taking their seats at table. Moreover, he
does not pass things, which is not a pretty example to the very polite
Filipinos and _Mestizos_ at the table. All the Filipinos I have ever seen
have those beautiful gracious Spanish manners which may mean nothing
beyond mere politeness, but they do help to grease the wheels of life a
great deal. The contrast to the older people of these horrible, noisy,
ill-bred young “yahoos” is heartrending,—the first-fruit of the American
ideal, dressed in appalling variations on the European costume; cheeky,
gluttonous, self-important—just what one would expect of a mongrel Malay
who is told he is the social equal of white women.
As I write this to you I am sitting on the narrow deck, trying to get as
far away as I can from the schoolboy crowd, whose portion of the deck is
unspeakable, apart from the fact that they think I am an American, and
spit on my chair whenever they get a chance of approaching within range
of it.
At the end of my chair (I brought my own with me) sits my cabin mate,
looking at a lot of illustrated English papers which I have with me; and
I am afraid my letter must read very disjointedly, as I am constantly
leaving off to answer some of her endless and very intelligent questions.
Near us are camped a Spanish _Mestizo_ and his fat little wife, who wears
a great deal of sham jewellery and a cotton dressing-gown—a very superior
person, with no pretence at veiling her scorn of my Filipino friend, nor
of me for talking to her.
The Filipina laughs very good-naturedly, and says the _Mestizas_ think
themselves very great _señoras_, but she herself does not find their
snubs humiliating, “For,” she says, “I behave as I should, and we all
come from _el buen Dios_.”
She is great on _el buen Dios_, and one of the first of her innumerable
questions was to ask about my religion. When I said I was a Protestant,
she hastened, politely, to assure me that she was very broad-minded on
the subjects of heretics, and refused to believe that they were all
devils.
I remarked that I thought we were not much worse than anyone else.
“Oh,” she said, “I quite think you are no worse. Once we had a young man
to board in our house, who was in my husband’s business, and he was a
Protestant. The _padre_ used to come to me very often and tell me the
young man was a devil, and that I must send him away. But I would not do
so, for I am broad-minded, and I said he seemed as good as anyone else,
and, though he was a good man, _el buen Dios_ had made him a heretic for
His own good reasons.”
I complimented her upon her breadth of view, and asked her if she were
an Aglipayano, but at this she very indignantly declared she thought
it very wicked to side against the Holy Father, and one would surely
be punished for such heresy. “They are worse than the heretics,” she
declared, “and besides that, they are all _Insurrectos_.”
“But,” I said, “if you don’t sympathise with the _Insurrectos_, then you
like the Americans?”
“No,” she said, “I hate them,” and she made an ugly grimace.
I asked her why.
She got quite excited, and exclaimed, “Why? Why, what are they doing
here? Who asked them to govern the Philippines? Who wants them?”
“Oh,” I said, “but they are a very civilised people, and are going to do
you such a lot of good.”
She simply laughed, and pointed with her fan at the schoolboys in the
bows.
After a little while she said, “_Paciencia!_ In a little time they will
go. I hear all my people saying that the Americans will go.”
“You want to govern yourselves, then?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t think we shall be able to. Some other nation will come
and take the islands when we are left alone. The Japanese, many say; but
we do not want the Japanese.”
On the whole she has made the voyage much more pleasant for me, for she
interests me so much to talk to, and though it is uncomfortable to be at
such close quarters in the cabin, nothing could exceed her kindness and
good breeding, while the little maidservant is attentiveness itself.
At night I wanted to have the door open, but they were both very
frightened, and implored me to shut it and lock it as well, which I
readily consented to, as they were so timid, and I thought it a shame to
make them uneasy, though I felt quite brave now I was no longer alone.
I daresay you are surprised at my accounts of these and other
conversations in Spanish, but the fact is, though I have not tried to
learn the _patois_ that obtains in the Philippines, I find it impossible
not to pick up a good deal, partly from knowing Italian, I suppose, and
partly from having to talk it occasionally in spite of myself. They
speak badly, though, and the accent does not sound a bit like what one
heard in Spain, besides which, there are so many native and Chinese
words in current use. Instead of saying _andado_, they say _andao_;
_pasao_ for _pasado_; and so on, with all the past participles, besides
other variations on the pure Castilian tongue. I found that the Spanish
grammars and books I had brought with me were of so little use for
everyday life that I gave up trying to learn out of them, and just get
along on what I pick up—though I am very shy of it, and would not for the
world let any other English person hear me trying to talk! The native
language is a queer, guggling noise; when written it looks all g’s and
b’s and m’s, and full of uncouth combinations of hard consonants. Some of
the names of places are native, but many are Spanish, and the Filipinos
themselves all have fine, rolling Spanish Christian and surnames, which
were dealt out to them indiscriminately by the priests.
ILOILO, _14th_.
Now I am home again, you see, and delighted to be back in my own house,
though I had a very good time while I was away. The _Butuan_ got in
at four yesterday morning, anchoring off the mouth of the river, and
deck-washing set in at once—never was it more needed!
Oh, the scenes, the sights, the noises on that foul steamer! At the best
of times she is dirty and uncomfortable, but no words of mine can convey
her unspeakable condition with those awful Filipino boys on board—at
least, no words that can be set down on paper.
The air of the morning was fresh, when we dropped anchor off the mouth
of the river, and a nice cold breeze blew from the shore, which at first
only showed as a black line in the dark, with one or two points of light
where the town lay. Gradually it became more and more distinct in the
dawn, till we saw the outline of the corrugated roofs, the palm trees,
and the shipping on the river, while a faint, steady crowing of cocks
could be heard.
Have I told you about the cock-crowing? It is one of the features of
Philippine life, and one of the things you must get accustomed to, or lie
down and die. It begins before daylight, and goes on till after the sun
has set—the screaming of innumerable cocks, for every living Filipino
keeps one, and most have two or three.
We got a candle, and I dressed first and went on deck, where I was
eventually joined by a tremendous swell in a trailing silk skirt, French
blouse with lace yoke, long gold chain, white canvas shoes, and so on,
whom I just managed to recognise as my cabin mate.
While we leaned over the rail waiting for the _Sanidad_ (the port
doctor’s launch), she told me she thought she should be able to get
away that afternoon for Negros, but she hoped she should see me again,
and said I must be sure to come and pay her a visit if I went to Manila
again. To which end she proceeded to write down her address on a crumpled
bit of paper which she pulled out of her pocket, handing me half of it to
write mine on. I saw my piece had writing on it, and I said: “But is this
not something you want to keep?”
“No,” she said, “it is only a note of my home accounts for last month.”
I looked at the accounts and saw the first item was: “To the _padre_—for
a mass—two _pesos_;” then some vegetables and meat, and more _padre_;
then cigarettes, and again _padre_, and lower down, yet again _padre_.
“You seem to pay a lot to the _padre_,” I said.
“Ah,” she answered, “for my mother’s soul.” (_Por el alma di mi madre._)
“One must get to heaven.”
“But the missionaries tell you that you need not pay money to go to
heaven.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But with them one is certain to get to hell.”
If my cabin mate was a swell, she was completely eclipsed by the
brilliant appearance of the fat little _Mestiza_, who came up on deck
and leaned over the rail not far from us with a really heroic effort to
appear unconscious of her gorgeous clothes. Her husband was very waxed
about the moustache, and thin and pointed about the boots, and he kept
shifting his sombrero with a fat hand, which displayed one very long
little finger nail and a huge diamond ring. The Filipino schoolboys were
got up in all sorts of suits, some in tweeds, some in linen, and one in
bright blue striped silk, which had shrunk a good deal, and a straw hat
with the brim made in a pattern like an ornamental cane chair-back. The
little chaps were showing each other their clothes, and the older boys,
of fifteen and sixteen (or that was the age they looked), were fearfully
busy and important, smoking cigarettes, giving orders, and switching
their legs with little walking sticks.[5]
About six o’clock the _Sanidad_ came and gave us _pratique_, though I
think if he had come before the deck-washing he must have put us all in
quarantine for the plague. Apparently, too, there was no objection raised
to the number of passengers in proportion to the accommodation, so we
got ashore. Long before this the company’s launch had come fussing down
the river and out to the _Butuan_, with C—— standing in the bows; and as
soon as the doctor’s tour was over, I was conducted across the _Sanidad_
launch into the other, and we went straight to the wharf, and home in a
_quilez_, leaving my luggage for the shipping agent to tackle.
When I arrived at our house, old Tuyay flung herself down the staircase
into the road with screams and yells of joy, wagging not only her tail
but her whole body; and when I got into the hall there was the cat from
downstairs squeaking, and telling me some long story about all she had
noticed while I was away, and following me from room to room.
This cat has established herself with us for the last few weeks, and now
thinks it her right, not to say her duty, to smell everything that comes
into the house. She was fearfully agitated about the furniture I brought
from Manila, and while it was being rigged up, and other things shifted,
and so on, the poor pussy went nearly wild with excitement and curiosity,
to say nothing of laying herself out to be tumbled over and half killed.
LETTER XIX.
A _BAILE_—A NEW COOK AND AMERICAN METHODS
ILOILO, _March 20, 1905_.
I am sure you will be glad to hear that I feel much better for my Manila
trip, and able to go for our evening walks again, which we still enjoy
very much, though the season is getting rather hot for moving about with
much comfort.
While I was away, there was an outburst of Carnival gaiety, and C—— went
to a ball at the Spanish Club, which seems to have been a very good one.
It was fancy dress, many of the costumes were beautiful, and there was a
big supper laid out at little tables in the open air, with decorations
and paper lanterns. They danced till five in the morning, when the more
enduring and merry spirits drove round the town in open carriages; so
they seem to have had a very gay time, and I was rather sorry I had
missed it, as a fancy dress ball in Iloilo must be a rare and precious
experience.
So Lent has begun, but apparently it is not going to be made too strict,
for last night we were bidden to an amateur theatrical performance at
the Santa Cecilia (the Filipino) Club, which was a very festive affair.
The big room of the Santa Cecilia, which is upstairs, like the Spanish
one, but with a stage at one end, was very gay with festoons of pink
and white muslin, and chains made of little hoops covered with tinsel
paper. Nearly the whole audience consisted of Filipino women, in skirts
of screaming reds, blues, greens, and yellows, set off by bewildering
_camisas_, their black glossy hair adorned with many combs, and
everywhere whiffs of penetrating cheap scent.
The hall is so large that the two or three hundred people present did
not nearly fill it, though little groups of men hung about the side that
opened, with spaces between columns, on to the staircase and outer hall.
We sat for a long time past the normal hour for beginning, staring at the
drop-scene, which displayed a large picture of Saint Cecilia playing on
a piano, and looking up to heaven; and had plenty of time to take in the
paintings all round the room of Magellan, Rizal, Washington, and other
heroes, which were stuck high up in frames, or frescoed on each side of
the stage, while the band gave us waltzes, Sousa, and “Hiawatha.” This
latter tune seems to have become a sort of Filipino National Anthem, for
no entertainment of any sort can come off without it, and even a _banda
de musica_, playing in the street in the evening, won’t go away, even
after they had received money, before they have gone through “Hiawatha.”
I don’t think I ever described to you a launch party we went one evening,
on the occasion of a _despedida_ (farewell), to a departing American
official? We were a large party, English and Americans mixed, and filled
up the bows of a fair-sized launch, while abaft the engines a Filipino
string band clung on and played as best they could as the launch rolled
about in a choppy little sea off Guimaras. As we left the _Muelle_ (the
quay) these musicians struck up “Hiawatha,” and when they had got through
it they began again, and again, and again—and I have no doubt they
would have played that air contentedly the whole way out and back, and
probably fully intended to do so, if they had not been implored to stop.
It is not a bad tune, though, and went remarkably well with the clicking
of the launch’s machinery and the motion of the waves.
But, to get back to this theatrical performance—though I don’t think
there is much to say about it, for it was a very ordinary amateur show,
and except that the skins of the performers were naturally darkened and
not artificially white, and the language they spoke was Spanish, it was
indistinguishable from the same sort of thing at a charity bazaar at
home. Not musical, like the performance I told you about at the theatre,
but a playlet of a strangely exotic type that must have been rather
unintelligible to most of the brown brothers and sisters, for it was a
sort of French farce about a man and his wife living in a flat below
another couple, with the usual complications that apparently inevitably
result from such a dangerous experiment in Paris. One man acted well,
and was now and then really funny; but the humour was _not_ the most
refined fooling I have ever heard, as you may judge when I tell you that
the chief source of jokes was that one of the husbands was represented
as insinuating himself into the other household by pretending to be
a doctor, and there was no bowdlerising of his interviews with his
lady patients. The few things he left unsaid were reserved for another
character, who came in as a house-agent with the most extraordinary fund
of questions imaginable. But the entertainment hit the popular taste,
evidently, for the more broad the remarks, with no attempt at wit, the
more the “little brown sisters” laughed, in true Oriental manner.
I got very bored and tired, but did not like to go out till the first
playlet was finished, for fear of hurting our hosts’ feelings. We
afterwards heard from a friend that when the second piece was over, the
floor was cleared for a _baile_, which was kept up till quite the early
hours of the morning. In the middle of this dance, however, “a strange
thing happened,” as a certain number of the hosts suddenly appeared with
little plates to collect money for the expenses of the production. This
manœuvre, as our friend expressed it to us, “knocked many of the guests
completely out of time,” for the average person does not take much money
to a dance. Some wrote little _vales_; but our friend was rather sharp,
for when a girl held out a plate to him, he bowed very politely and took
it from her, saying, “Pray let me help you,” and so became a collector
instead of a contributor.
We went a new walk through the town a few evenings ago, on a lovely
night, when the grey streets were all black and white in the moonlight,
but the shadows quite luminous and the sky a real blue, dark and velvety.
We strolled down one or two streets and through a group of native huts by
the shore; but that part of the shore is some way from here, as, you see,
we were walking across the spit of land formed by the estuary and the
open sea.
In our walk we came to a walled-in graveyard, with an open grille in the
great doorway, through which one could see a little chapel and green
trees, looking very dark green in the moonlight. On the opposite side,
across the rough, sandy road, was a high, broken wall of concrete, with a
big iron gate, and apparently nothing but the sea beyond it. We wondered
what the gate could lead to, and thought there must be some garden on
the shore; but when we went up the one or two crumbling steps, we found
ourselves at once on the beach, and at our feet a quantity of ruined
graves, some half-opened, some newly-covered, all jumbled up in the
moonlight, and strewn with rank grass, sand, and pebbles. It seemed so
weird and uncanny, the great, strong wall shutting in nothing; and the
tall gates leading to nothing; and we afterwards learnt that this was the
Chinese graveyard, which is always being destroyed by storms, and the
wall had suffered in the bombardment. I don’t suppose the Chinese use it
much, as they always get their bodies sent back to China if they can, in
huge, gaily-painted coffins, for burial in their native soil.
I forget if I told you about the trouble we have been having with
our cook—the voluble person I described to you when he was new and
interesting. Now I know that type of Filipino so well! As time went on
the cook’s easy flow of talk became less interesting, especially as it
took the place of cooking, and I got tired of always telling him to do
his best, for he was one of those half-clever people who always do things
just not as well as they could do them. Whenever I reproved him, too, I
found a stranger in the kitchen next day, who told me that he had been
sent to take the place of my cook, who was ill “with his leg.”
Always his leg. Though no human ingenuity could find out what he was
supposed to have the matter with his leg. I was inclined to think it
was a “sulk leg,” but C—— observed darkly that he had heard before of
fellows getting “drink legs.” On these occasions the cook’s wife was
generally to be found—a pleasant-faced little woman, in a bright, clean
dress, and wearing long, gold earrings—squatting on her heels, outside
the hall-door, smoking a huge cigar. The moment I appeared she always
repeated the information about the leg, with apologies, and vanished.
When the cook had recovered from his indisposition, he would take up
his place in the kitchen, affable and fluent as ever, and no remarks
would be made by anybody, for I put up with him as long as I could on
account of his generally being sober—a rare and precious virtue. At
last, however, when I was ill he surpassed himself in crime, sending in
uneatable food to poor neglected C——, and giving me the same soup and
rissoles every day, twice a day, for a fortnight, till I could not even
bear the smell of them.
When C—— remonstrated, the cook instantly became impudent, and as
impudence is where C—— draws the forbearing line with Filipinos, he gave
the cook one good kick that sent him sprawling out on to the Azotea. C——
observed that if the cook summoned him for assault, he would half kill
him next time, but our friend did not resort to Law. He gathered himself
up and went off, and was no more seen again, though he sent the usual
stop-gap to do his work next day. However, we had no intention of letting
him farm our kitchen, so we asked the stop-gap, who was an excellent
cook, if he would like to stay on permanently, and he said he would, and
there he is “to this very day,” as they say in books.
The change has made a great difference in my housekeeping, both socially
and materially. By socially I mean that I now have a quiet, silent,
intelligent man to deal with instead of a chattering, cunning monkey;
and by materially, that this man caters for us infinitely better for a
_peso_, including firewood, than the other gem did for a _peso_ and a
half a day. He is willing to learn—real learning, not jabbering “_mi
sabe, mi sabe_,” and then sending in the things all wrong—so I have got
out my English cookery-book and explained many of our ways of preparing
various foods, which he has grasped with intelligence and admirable
results.
We are in great tribulation about ice, as a deadlock has occurred by
which we are without any in this hot season—a most serious and horrible
discomfort. From the beginning we, like everyone else, got our daily ten
pounds of ice from the Government factory—the military supply—which came
round every morning in the cart driven by the Stage Cowboy whom I think I
described to you. When this cart pulled up and the handsome driver sang
out “Hielo” (Ice!), servants flew out from all the houses and presented a
ticket, each man secured his nice cold lump and rushed upstairs again to
put it in the ice-chest.
But a month or more ago an American with a “pull” (political influence)
got the municipal contract to supply this town with ice, to be worked
in connection with the electric lighting of the streets, also placed in
his control, on which the Government withdrew their supply so as not to
interfere with private enterprise.
So far, so good. But the “’cute” financier had got an old electric plant,
which works so badly that the arc-lights are extinguished and the streets
are pitch dark at night. The ice has given out altogether. The financier,
still being paid out of the rates, has gone off to Manila, and there is
no redress anywhere, for he has a relative high up in office, is received
everywhere, and—in fact he has a “pull.”
The Government won’t renew their supply of ice except to the Americans
and the clubs. A few other people who have influence have managed to get
a lump now and then, but for the greater part we struggle on, at 90° in
the shade, with tepid water to drink, food decaying before the evening,
and butter—even tinned train-oil butter—a thing of the past.