dark hours of the morning, when even the cocks had hardly begun to tune
up for the day. The great excitement was a children’s carnival (at the
end of Lent!), got up by the Spanish Club; which event resolved itself
into the inevitable procession through the streets, for these people are
as inveterate procession-walkers as the Swiss; and whatever comes off,
they turn out and walk about the streets, quite conceited and perfectly
happy, taking the whole mummery with invulnerable seriousness.
These children were really a very pretty sight, though, and the little
things seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. At about four o’clock
they began to assemble, forming up and marching round the Plaza, and then
up the Calle Real to the Gobierno (the Government buildings), round the
grass plot in front of that building, back and down the street parallel
to this, and finally along here, when we saw them from our balcony.
One of the prettiest cars was got up as the Sea, with clouds of pale
green and blue tulle, the back of the car a great fan-shaped shell, in
which sat a very pretty little _Mestiza_ girl dressed as a mermaid,
with a long pasteboard tail, and driving two swans. Another was “the
world”—a huge globe with the four continents sitting one at each corner;
another was a monster basket full of a miscellaneous collection of
ballet-fairies, toreadors, Faust and Mephistopheles, gipsies, and so
forth, all very solemn and perfectly happy. One tiny person of two years
old was dressed as a cupid in pink muslin and roses—such a darling—and
one little girl was a funny wee clown, as broad as she was long.
After they had all gone past, we went to the Spanish Club to see the
prize-giving, which was very amusing. “Iloilo at a glance” was squeezing
and surging about in the big room upstairs, and I thought the floor
must cave in; but Mr M——, who is a member of that club, told me it was
all right, as they always put props under the floor for a _funcion_, a
characteristically Spanish and haphazard idea.
There was a band playing somewhere, and in an alcove a big tea-table
spread out, while the whole of one wall was lined with long tables
displaying the prizes—really lovely toys.
We walked about, talking to the children, all very keen to show off and
explain their costumes, and the mermaid immensely proud of the little
wheel on which her tail moved along the floor. One miniature couple in
evening dress, looking like grown-up people seen through the wrong end of
a telescope, were well worth watching and following about, for neither of
them would have sacrificed his or her dignity to a smile for anything in
the world.
The prize-giving went by vote, but the poor mites who had not got prizes
were consoled by toys doled out in a novel and pretty fashion at the
end of the show. I fancy I have seen it somewhere in a cotillon, but
can’t be sure. From the ceiling hung two huge Japanese umbrellas, with
coloured ribbons dangling from each spoke, and when they were lowered at
the end, the children filed past underneath, each taking off a ribbon and
tearing away to see what present it was good for. We saw the little man,
of the couple in evening dress, going about showing off his prize—the
first prize, I think it was—which was a beautiful doll. Then, to our
astonishment, we found that the couple were a pair of little sisters,
Filipinas, of course, for there were, none but Filipino, Spanish, and
_Mestizo_ children taking part in the _fête_, though all the American
Colony, as they call themselves, were in the room. I think there are
very few American children here, and those that there are look miserably
white, and thinner even than the Spanish or _Mestizo_ youngsters.
We left about seven, before the rush, as we had the trap waiting outside,
and the last thing we saw was the mermaid showing somebody her tail and
the poor clown crying sleepily on her mother’s shoulder.
In the evening there was a _baile_, which we summoned up energy to turn
out for, but it was hardly worth the effort, as the floor had been spoilt
by boots in the afternoon, while the band, half asleep, poor creatures,
played intolerably slow and mournful music, to which the dancers crawled
languidly about, for it was a very hot night, without a breath of air
anywhere.
LETTER XXV.
A DAY AT NAGABA
ILOILO, _April 30, 1905_.
We went last Sunday to spend the day at Nagaba, a native village opposite
Iloilo, in the island of Guimaras. We took the trip at the invitation of
some friends who had gone to spend Saturday to Monday in a native house
which happened to be empty and available for hire. I have often wanted to
visit some of the places about, but the great difficulty is how to put
up, for there are no inns, and no lodgings to be had in the villages. One
can’t go anywhere and back in a day, unless just across to Guimaras, but
even that entails going out in the heat of the day, which is never very
pleasant or very safe.
We were lucky, however, in this trip to Nagaba, as the sky was cloudy and
the breeze very fresh, and, though we left as late as ten in the morning,
we did not suffer from the heat. I am constantly reminded of a certain
book of adventure, which as children we used to love, called _The Coral
Island_. It is by Ballantyne, I think—you remember it, I am sure? Do you
remember the pictures of the three boys in the Tropic Island, standing
in white sunshine, and wearing loose caps or no hats at all? and all the
stories of their adventures, and how they set off at “about the middle
of the day” in a canoe with sufficient meat and vegetables to last for a
week, and how they went in this fashion to other small islands? This did
not seem to me odd as a child, of course; and I daresay I saw nothing
peculiar in the daily life of _The Swiss Family Robinson_, either; and
probably should have raised no objections to any of these stories a few
months ago, or minded a bit being told that English boys went about
unscorched and alive with no protection from the tropic mid-day sun, or
that meat was fit to eat after one day in a canoe, much less one week!
Well, we got over to Guimaras in a very short time, landing from the
launch in a small boat, from which C—— and I and the friend who was with
us were carried ashore by our servants, who had come with us—we had also,
by request, brought our plates, knives, forks, and tumblers!
The house we were going to was situated on a small rocky steep leading up
from the beach, a few hundred yards from a tiny village of brown _nipa_
huts amongst the green bushes and palms in a bay at the mouth of a river.
The house was a regular native dwelling, built on high poles of bamboo,
with walls of _nipa_, and floors of pieces of split cane half an inch or
so apart for coolness. The whole abode consisted of one very big room,
part of which was partitioned off as a bedroom, while all along one side
of the house towards the sea ran a broad balcony, built out over the
rocks, and shaded by tall thickly-leaved trees, with a glorious view of
the blue bay, the open green sea, and a bit of rose-purple Panay in the
distance. I don’t think I ever saw a more lovely spot, and I could not
help reflecting how different life in the Philippines must be to those
who can live in such places as Nagaba instead of a street in a town.
Though, to be practical, I suppose the food would be even worse, and
ice—but one could not get less ice than we do now in the town.
Some of us spent all the morning loafing about and talking on the
balcony, enjoying the deep shade and the fresh breeze blowing straight
in from the open sea. One of the men of the party had contrived to catch
the _anting-anting_ lizard of the house, such as I described to you
as having a call like a cuckoo and being considered very lucky by the
Filipinos. He had tethered the creature by a piece of cotton tied round
its body, so as to keep it for me to see when I arrived, and it was much
larger than I had expected—about a foot long—and not unlike the desert
lizards one sees dried in the bazaars in Upper Egypt, only the skin of
the “Philippine cuckoo” is all a pattern of green and red. The poor thing
was tame enough, but very shy, and inclined to get behind furniture or
skirts, so when I had had a good look at it, they let it go again, when
it vanished into the thick fringe of _nipa_ that protected the sides of
the balcony. This _nipa_, when one sees it close at hand, is a sort of
palm leaf folded in two, lengthways, and tied to frames of bamboo, but it
makes very nice, cool houses, and is absolutely waterproof.
One of the trees that shadowed the house was an Ylang-Ylang, from which
the scent of that name is extracted; a tall, naked, light brown, smooth
stem, with thin branches spreading out at the top, and leaves like an
acacia. The perfume is in the small green blossom, which is not at all
unlike that of a lime, and with infinite difficulty one or two of these
were pulled down by means of a fishing-rod, and given to me to dry and
put in my linen-cupboard in the native fashion. They dried up in a very
few hours, but kept their delicious scent, and when I came home, I put
them amongst my handkerchiefs, which are sweetly perfumed with them
already.
[Illustration: NATIVE HOUSES.
_To face page 204._]
Some of the men spent a riotous morning in a fresh-water swimming bath
in a grove near the house. There is a spring of perfect water, which is
brought in pipes past the house and out in long bamboo pipes on stands in
the shallow water, where ships come and take it in to supply steamers, or
to sell over in Iloilo. The flow of water is very great, enough to supply
a city, and the main pipe is so contrived that by pulling out a plug one
fills the swimming bath, which is a wonderful luxury.
We heard the others splashing and shouting in the swimming bath all the
morning, and when lunch time came, they appeared radiant and starving,
and I have not seen men do such justice to their food since I came to the
Philippines.
After lunch we all settled down in various chosen nooks for a _siesta_,
and our servant Sotero, who is a native of Nagaba, came and asked
permission to go away for the afternoon, which surprised our friends very
much, for they said they had never heard of a Filipino servant taking
anything but “French leave.”
I have not yet been able to acquire the habit of sleeping in the middle
of the day, which is perhaps one of the reasons why I never feel well out
here. So I sat about, and looked at some picture papers, and felt very
tired—I could cheerfully have gone round to the sleeping forms and done
them some injury simply because they could sleep!
About four C—— awoke, so we went a little walk amongst the rocks close to
the house, and thought we were exploring the whole island!
We wandered about amongst scrub and rocks above the shore, where we
came suddenly to a tiny hut perched up amongst big grey boulders, with
fishing nets spread out to dry and a native lounging in the window-space.
It looked such a nice little hut, just one large palm-thatch room on
high poles, with a rickety step-ladder up to the door, where a round
comfortable cat was sitting watching the fowls pecking about below. A
little farther on we came to the banana patch, with brilliant green
plants growing on a nook of dark earth amongst the grey rocks. All the
rocks were very sharp; volcanic, with rough edges, which cut our shoes,
even when we followed a tiny winding track. After we got to a little
height, we could look down on the village and the sea and bay, which all
appeared most bright and beautiful in the long rays of the low sun, and
all so peaceful and quiet.
We turned back again by a path which struck more inland, past some
more little banana fields and another little hut with its back to a
tiny precipice. It is strange how near the towns the primitive sets
in, for the people in both lots of huts were quite shy of us, and the
children ran away and hid; while in the village, through which we
passed, by making a round across some rice-fields, the people were quite
country-folk, not a bit like the cheeky, independent loungers in the
towns; answering one quite civilly and even happily when one spoke to
them.
The village was delightfully quaint, all built on high poles planted
in the sand of the shore, with many cheerful brown folk hanging out of
the open sides of the houses, while mangy dogs with pups and fat old
sows with immense families sprawled about down below. There are always
quantities of pigs in a Philippine village, for, as I think I told you,
they are the scavengers, and though the natives are not more unkind to
those benefactors than to any other animals, to call one of them a pig is
a frightful insult. In spite of all this, the favourite and most esteemed
Filipino delicacy is sucking-pig, roasted whole.
Beyond the village we went across a field of emerald grass, bordered by a
deep green hedge of curious bushes with no flowers on them. Our friends
told us that these plants come into bloom in the wet Monsoon. Now, with
the hot weather a very beautiful tree is in flower everywhere, called
the Fire tree, which was only naked brown branches for a long time, and
then burst into huge bunches of brilliant scarlet blossoms, rather like
orchids, and very handsome at a distance, but coarse and common close at
hand. The effect of these masses of showy red against the vivid green
palms is wonderful and almost too bright. There is one of these Fire
trees in the garden of the house opposite to us, here in Iloilo, which
is a gorgeous display, and a delight to me just to look at as I sit here
writing.
But, to get back to Nagaba, though there is not much to tell you, except
that some of our friends joined us, and we ended our walk by a stroll
through a cocoanut grove, where we saw an old man in a loin-cloth going
up a tree to get the sap from which they make the _tuba_.[7] He had a
long vessel made of a section of bamboo tied across his back, and a
little round bowl of half a cocoanut tied in front of his body, with a
big sharp knife beside it. He ran up the tree by means of notches cut all
the way up the trunk, and at the top he tied the vessel under a bunch
of buds, putting in it some of the stuff out of the bowl, which was red
bark to dye the drink pink. This beverage I think I have mentioned to you
before. One sees it anywhere, and the long tumblers of pink liquid are a
feature in every little native shop.
This vessel they leave there for twelve hours, during which the sap drips
out of the palm, and in the morning the man goes up and takes down the
bamboo, now full of _tuba_, which is very fresh and nice, and tastes of
cocoanut and water, and is very wholesome, not to say medicinal. If it
is left, however, the _tuba_ rapidly ferments, and by the evening is
a very strong intoxicant, which constitutes the peculiar devil of the
Philippines, and is the cause of most of the deterioration, physical,
moral, and mental, of the race.
When the American Army first came out to the Philippines, the temperance
enthusiasts in the U.S.A. hearing that a good deal of drinking was
going on out here, started an agitation, by means of which they got the
Army Canteens in the Philippines abolished. The result of this drastic
mothering was that the soldiers went off and got _tuba_, about which,
of course, the good folk in America knew nothing. Frightful scandals
happened, which unfortunately did harm to the American prestige, and even
the restoration of the canteens has not swept away the folly and evil
which were thus begun.
This cocoanut grove, by the way, is kept for _tuba_, as are most of
the palms one sees near the houses, for when the sap is taken in this
way no fruit appears. Growing cocoanuts is one of the most lucrative
speculations in the Philippines, as a tree bears fruit when it is six or
seven years old, about a hundred nuts a year, the income yielded by a
tree being about 2 _pesos_. So a grove of ten thousand trees or so is a
very paying concern, if only the planter does not make the mistake, which
I, myself, have often noticed, of placing his trees too close to one
another, so that they do not get enough room to spread out at the top and
find light and air.
We turned back from the cocoanut grove by a different path, and went back
to the house along the beach. As the tide was far out, we walked across
the firm, damp sand, where there were myriads of tiny crabs of bright
metallic blues and reds and greens, which all darted sideways into holes
as soon as one got within a yard of them.
After tea we loafed on the balcony, watching a lovely gold and rose
sunset, while sailors and others took boxes and things down to the boat;
and the man carrying our gear slipped on the rocks, and our plates and
tumblers fell out and smashed to a thousand pieces. When it was almost
dark, we returned in the launch to Iloilo, quite enchanted with our day
at Nagaba and with the house on the rocks. We are determined to go over
there one Saturday to Monday by ourselves, for it is a delightful change.
LETTER XXVI.
THE MONSOON—AN ITALIAN OPERA COMPANY
ILOILO, _May 5, 1905_.
I had two sweet little love-birds sent me yesterday, sitting jammed
up in a tiny dirty cage in which they had travelled from China. They
looked so uncomfortable and draggled, poor scraps, that I set off after
my _siesta_, and went “down town,” as the Americans call it, to see if
I could get a cage for them. More Philippine shopping! I explained and
argued at all sorts of emporiums, but no one had anything the least like
a bird cage. At last I thought the wonderful English store might produce
one, and when I got there, they said they thought they had something of
the kind, made of wood, of native manufacture. I said I thought that
would do very well, so after a lot of rummaging in a _camarin_, some very
nice cages were found—large and clean, and made of split bamboo, with a
little red and green paint here and there.
[Illustration: THE TRACK OF A TYPHOON.
_To face page 210._]
I was delighted—till I found there was no mistake about their having been
made by a Filipino! No water-pipkin; no tray to slide out; a door so
small that I could only squeeze my hand into the cage with difficulty;
and _no perches_! It was all there was to be had in Iloilo, however, so
I took it with me, and climbed in under the apron of the _calesa_—it was
raining very hard—and took my cage home and told the servants to make
perches. This they did with considerable skill, and the results looked
very nice, but when I put the birds on them, the poor things instantly
tumbled off into the soap-dish full of water, which was meant for them to
drink from. After a lot of anxious thought, it occurred to me that the
perches were much thinner than those in the little cage the birds had
arrived in, and perhaps they could not wrap their long toes round these;
and this was evidently the trouble, for as soon as larger ones were made
and fixed in, the couple got up and stuck on, whispering to each other
how nice the new perches were.
Of course the cat wants to eat them, and glares with greedy eyes, while
old Tuyay is fearfully puzzled, coming to look intently, and snuffing
very long and hard, which the wee birds don’t mind a bit. They are such
sweet things, with their tiny chirpings and pretty ways.
There is a strong S.-W. Monsoon blowing now—warm and tiring—and one’s
skin feels sticky and uncomfortable. In a month or two, however, this
will be the chronic condition of the atmosphere, and will go on till
October, but I suppose one gets used to it after a time, as to everything
else. Yesterday a Typhoon was signalled by the meteorological office,
but it has not arrived yet, and I hope it won’t come our way at all, for
the circular winds that sweep over these islands are the most frightful
storms, tearing up trees, whipping off corrugated roofs, and setting the
_nipa_ houses on fire.
There are a great many rats here, which eat up whatever the cockroaches
don’t finish—_i.e._, whatever is not in glass jars or tins. They get
through nearly as many potatoes—at the price of new potatoes at home in
May—as we do, so I invested in a large wire trap, which was set in the
_dispensa_ ten days or more ago. The boys and the _sota_ (groom) watched
the trap with the keenest interest, but never a rat would get into it to
oblige them. Now, however, while I was writing this, Domingo came in,
beaming, with the trap in his hand, and a huge grey rat in it. “What are
you going to do with it?” I asked. “Are you going to kill it?”
“_Si, señora_, by pouring petroleum on the rat and setting it alight.”
He was astonished and obviously disappointed when I peremptorily forbade
this horrible rite, which the Filipinos have learnt from the Chinese, who
think that the poor, agonised, blazing animal runs away with the ill-luck
of the house.
Then he suggested boiling water, and was again disappointed and surprised
when I didn’t join in this spree either, and went off quite gloomily to
carry out my orders—to find something large enough to stand the trap in
so as to drown the poor beast as quickly as possible.
Nothing could be found, till the _sota_ fetched a tub from the stables,
and this I made them fill with all the bath water—fresh water being far
too precious to waste, even on sentiments of humanity! They collected all
the water they could, and finally the flood reached the top of the cage,
and though the sight of the rat struggling made me feel deadly sick, I
waited till he was stiff and cold, as I did not know what cruelty these
“little brown brothers” might not indulge in if left to their own devices.
The cook had been at market, and Sotero had gone shopping, so there was
not the crowd there might have been on the Azotea, and only half the
advice. They don’t get excited, these Filipinos, unless they are fighting
or massacring—one does not see frenzied little groups shouting in each
other’s faces, and throwing their fingers about like Italians, or
low-class Arabs, or people like that—they are very slow, and their voices
always soft and gentle. I mean the Filipinos, for the _Mestizos_ differ
from them in this, as well as in having curiously harsh, discordant
voices, by which one readily detects their breed.
We went a night or two ago to a performance given by a wandering Italian
Opera Company, who were really very good indeed, acting remarkably well,
and possessing good voices. Three of them sang in various selections,
and the fourth conducted an orchestra of bare-footed, flat-faced natives
in ragged _camisas_, whose battered old straw hats hung about the
footlight-board and on the piano.
The conductor played the piano splendidly, with incredible energy in
such heat, and the result that he knocked out of his orchestra was
astonishing. The theatre was very full, and we had shared a box with some
friends, all sitting with our knees jammed together in a pattern like the
ornamentation on a runic cross.
We enjoyed the show immensely, but, oh, it was hot! And if we, looking
on, felt faint with the heat, what must it have been for the performers
and for the _Chef d’orchestre_! Talking of heat, the thermometer now
averages 90° to 93° all day in the dark, airy house, and a little while
ago, when we got some ice by luck and manœuvring, I put the thermometer
in the ice chest, and it only went down to 80°!
We have taken the house at Nagaba for next Saturday to Monday, and are
busy making preparations for going over, with an anxious eye on the sky
above and the weather-cock in the garden opposite. One has to take a good
deal to the house at Nagaba, as all they provide is the four walls, a
table, some chairs, a big native bed, and one or two hard cane couches.
For this, however, one pays the same price a day as at a big London hotel
for bed and breakfast for two people!
LETTER XXVII.
A WEEK-END AT NAGABA
ILOILO, _May 8, 1905_.
We were just going to Nagaba when I finished my last letter, I think, and
now we have just returned, after having had a most delightful time over
there.
We went over in the launch on Saturday, leaving here at half-past four,
and to look at the start from here you would have thought we were going
for good to China or Japan!