of an exquisite sunset, all bright-red gold behind the mountains, and the
river between its banks of low bushes like a path of pink crystal. The
air was deliciously cool, or seemed so to us, and we rowed up a mile or
more before landing at the bank on the farther shore from the town, where
there were some fishing huts in a grove of palms.
We beached the boats on the mudbank, and then walked about through the
trees till we came to some huts, looking wonderfully picturesque in the
long stripes of pink light and mauve shadows amongst the tall trees.
Here a number of half-naked Filipinos were loafing about, very civil,
kindly people, and one was a very skinny old woman, who took a deep and
unbounded interest in me, and asked all sorts of extraordinary questions
about me.
The cocoanut trees in the grove bore many large green nuts in clusters at
the top, like big green footballs, and as we were all rather thirsty, we
asked if the hut folk would get one down for us to drink from.
With much politeness and amazing alacrity, one of the younger men ran
up a tree, putting his toes in the notches in the bark, and not falling
and breaking his neck by yet another Philippine miracle. He came down
with a big green nut, such an enormous thing—the same in proportion to a
cocoanut as we see them at home, as a green almond or walnut is to the
nut in a shop. We asked him to open it for us, so he squatted down and
chopped very deftly with a sort of sword which they call a _bolo_, and I
fancy I may have mentioned it to you before. These _bolos_ are a variety
of the Malay _kris_, and are made in all sorts of cruel shapes, often
inlaid very beautifully, but I believe the most frequent form is simply
that of a short, thick, curved sword, which they use with deadly effect
in fighting, and with great skill in almost every other event in life.[8]
The little brown people stood round and looked at us while we watched the
man with the _bolo_. He chopped with marvellous dexterity, slicing off
the outer covering of soft green flesh, and then making a hole in the top
of the tender unripe nut inside. The nut had a thin lining of transparent
meat, and was full of pale green liquid, like slightly soapy water in
appearance. This “milk” we drank out of a small wooden bowl produced by
the old woman, a neat little vessel made out of half a cocoanut, all in
the most approved style of the story books! The drink was refreshing
enough, but sweet and sickly. Then the man split the nut open and made
a clever little scoop with his _bolo_ out of a slice of bamboo which he
picked up from the ground, and with this he shaved off some long strips
of the white meat, of which we ate a good deal, but it was tough and
tasteless.
[Illustration: A PALM GROVE.
_To face page 232._]
So the opening of a green cocoanut was the means of dispelling almost
the last of my illusions about a Tropic Island! I have so often read
about the nectar and ambrosia of the green nut, and the wonderful yarns
of travellers who say there is no drink on earth like the green milk—one
book I remember went so far as to compare the stuff favourably with
lemonade! Perhaps it is all right if you have been shipwrecked and your
mouth is full of sea water, but then I imagine so few people who write
the descriptions can ever have had that advantage.
From the huts we went on till we came out upon wide, open mud-flats,
where there were a great many salt pits, which fill with water when
the tide rises, for the sea water stretches right up to this place and
farther. The pits were surrounded by pumps, after the fashion of the
_shadoofs_ on the Nile, and wells and all sorts of curious contrivances
of bamboo, with long rows of pipes for drying the salt—it is marvellous
what these people will do with bamboo. It was nearly dark by this time,
and the mud-flats looked very weird and melancholy, the strange frames
and poles appearing ghostly in the dusk.
We came out upon the river bank again and walked to the place where
we had left the boats. On the way I picked some sprays of small pink
blossoms which grow on big ragged bushes with thorns, and look like May,
and smell like sweet currant. They look very pretty in a vase in the
_sala_, and are the only flower I have yet brought home or had given to
me, that has lasted for so long as twenty-four hours.
C—— has been having more trouble with the Customs, and this time over a
boat he had to get from Hong Kong, as such a thing is not made and not
to be had here. It is an ordinary boat for going out to the ships, and
cost 40 _pesos_, but when C——, on being asked to value it, mentioned this
sum to the Customs authorities, they exclaimed “Impossible!”
Unfortunately it happened that he could not produce a bill for the
boat, as he had got it through an agent in Hong Kong, who charges it
to his account with the Firm in Manila, and he had not even a bill of
lading, as a friend had brought it from Hong Kong for him. The Customs
flatly refused to take his word about the price, and sent for some local
sages to value the boat. One of these worthies gave it as his opinion,
off-hand, that it was absurd to say you could buy a boat like that for
less than 60 _pesos_. Another said, “Probably ninety.” A third, “Sixty at
the lowest.”
So the authorities, like Solomon, struck the happy medium, and charged
C—— the duty (30 per cent.) on 80 _pesos_!!
And there is no redress, for the Firm’s accounts will not be settled till
the end of the month, or even later, by which time the dues on the boat
will have been paid long ago, and when once a receipt is given by the
Government, no power but a special Act of Congress can get one cent of it
refunded. Oh, and we know this to our cost! For, during all these months,
we have not ceased from appealing, reappealing, and worrying tooth and
nail about the extra £40 we had to pay for our wedding presents. I wish
to goodness we had a “pull.” We should get it back in a week.
The tariffs here seem to be put on in an incomprehensible way. In a
civilised old country it might help trade if there were an import tax
against things the people could produce themselves, but the system here
works out quite differently, for while a desire is being inculcated
for things which the natives cannot and never will be able to produce,
those articles are taxed at the same rate as they are in the most highly
developed country full of manufactories. You will think I have become a
regular blue-stocking when you read these long discourses! But you need
not have any fears on that score, for I am only trying to describe to you
the conditions under which we struggle for existence in one of the most
fertile countries in the world, and these questions are of such vital
and burning interest that I hear them discussed by the most unlikely and
domesticated ladies!
What the newspapers call “Religious Circles” have been in a great state
of excitement lately, as the Pope has sent a Cardinal Delegate to the
Philippines to rouse the Orthodox to a sense of their peril from the
_Iglesia Independiente_, the Aglipayanos. When I was in Manila, this
prelate was there, an Irishman of the name of Agius. I saw him and his
suite at the Governor’s reception, and people told me he was a very
charming person. Now he is touring about the Philippines, and this week
arrived here on a visit to the Bishop of Panay—an American, whose name I
forget.
There were great ceremonies and processions, arches and welcomes on
the arrival of the Cardinal. But the Aglipayanos did not let the
occasion pass without comment, for they turned out in full force with
counter-processions and, it must be confessed, with far larger crowds of
followers.
The day before yesterday the Cardinal arrived in great state. He drove
off to Jaro, and the road out to that town swarmed with priests, and
little carriages dashing about full of mysterious, greasy-looking
hangers-on in black coats and bowlers, the like of which no human eye has
ever before seen this side of Suez.
The next day, yesterday, there was frantic excitement! The Filipino
Archbishop arrived! With no official state, but greeted by an immense
demonstration of crowds of _Independientes_, who went out to meet their
pastor in decorated boats and launches, with bands playing, Chinese
crackers popping about, and revolutionary marches with songs. He, also,
went to Jaro, under more triumphal arches, with Welcomes, and one with
his name, Monsignore Hijaldo, in huge red letters all across it.
We drove out to Jaro in the evening to see the fun, and were well
rewarded, for the whole Plaza was as good as a play—far better than
anything the Iloilo theatre could produce intentionally.
Jaro is a collection of rather fine old houses, of the prevailing
two-storied pattern, but large and handsome, some of them with carved
wooden ornamentations and balconies with pretty pillars. They stand round
a very large green space, with a bandstand in the middle, which is the
Plaza. At one side of the Plaza is the cathedral, a long, ugly building,
like a stone tunnel, and alongside it is a smaller church, on much the
same lines, which is the Aglipayano place of worship. Opposite the two,
on the green Plaza, stands a handsome old grey stone belfry, thrown
out of the perpendicular by earthquakes, and crumbling with decay. At
each corner of the upper story is a huge white stone statue of a saint
leaning forward with some giant emblem clasped in his or her arms—such a
cumbersome, melancholy old edifice! We always stop by the belfry, when we
drive into Jaro, to let the pony rest and crop the grass, which overflows
liberally into the road, and five times out of six it happens that we are
there when a small lamp is swung up over the cathedral door, and a couple
of Filipino boys come across and go into the belfry to ring the Angelus,
which they do by swinging themselves fearlessly about on the beams of the
big bells.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AND BELFRY AT JARO.
_To face page 236._]
When we drove out yesterday evening, we first met landaus containing the
Delegate and the Bishop of Panay bowing and smiling to right and left,
and lifting up hands of benediction; with many priests, secretaries, and
retainers, most of them very fat men with very white faces.
Then, on the other side of the water, in the suburb of La Paz, which is
a big town in itself, we met the Aglipayanos—Aglipay himself and his
followers—all brown, flat-faced Filipinos, dressed something like the
R.C. priests, only with fantastically bent up hats, and driving in the
native _quilezes_ or _calesas_.
In Jaro itself the fun was fast and furious, for both the churches had
a great display of decorations outside—the _Independiente_ considerably
embellished by a long covered way built out, of latticed bamboo with
palm-branches lashed to it, and paper lanterns, and quantities of little
flags.
Across the Plaza were the two houses, both blazing with lights and
flowers, the balconies full of men in white suits and women in their
smartest dresses. In front of each house a band was playing, as if no
other music were within a hundred miles, and the din was awful—the
constabulary brass band, which was serenading the Papal Delegate, or
his house, smashing and braying Sousa Marches; while the Aglipayano
mandolines, guitars, and violins twiddled and thumped steadily at
“Hiawatha” and other Filipino airs.
To anyone blessed with a glimmering of humour you may imagine that the
whole show was a source of pure delight, and we lingered quite late,
driving up and down in the hope that there might be a speech or a row
or something. But apparently peace, if not goodwill, was the motto, as,
when we at last had to return home, we left all hands as contented and
jolly as if the other fellows did not exist at all, or lived in another
continent.
You must imagine all this in heat such as you have never felt, all the
priests, devotees, and bandsmen limp and dripping, and the faces of the
Filipinos like wet mahogany. We are in a chronic state of discomfort,
too, ourselves, which makes the sight of the black and purple robes,
the berettas, and the outfit of the secretaries and hangers-on a very
tangible addition to our own discomfort. I “guess” the “Dallergit” wishes
the “call” had “come right along” in the cool season!
I told you about the little love-birds which had been presented to me, I
think? “I had a dove, and the sweet dove died” ... but my first lovebird
did not die of grieving, for I found him one morning with a gash in his
throat which looked very like the work of a bad cat. When the wee bird
was dead and buried, the other little scrap did not seem to mind much at
first, but presently took to having fits, and soon expired too.
I miss them very much, for they were dear little creatures, and such
companions to me, with their sweet little chirping noises. People tell me
it is very difficult to keep birds at all out here, as the little ants
that swarm everywhere get under their feathers and worry them to death in
a few hours.
LETTER XXX.
PHILIPPINE SANITATION—DECORATION DAY
ILOILO, _May 29, 1905_.
I know you will be glad to hear that we are having a lull in the great
heat, as the rain is beginning, or, at any rate, the Monsoon is blowing
through rain, steadily from the S.-W., and the thermometer has gone down
from 95° to 90°, which makes a vast difference to us, though it must
still sound like great heat to you.
I have just had a letter from a Manila friend, who is spending the
hot season at Benguet, whither the “Gubernatorial party” and the
Commissioners have also fled; and where, according to the Manila papers,
I see they are having gay times ... lots of Bridge. She says:—“We are
very chilly people up here, fires every evening, and hot-water bottles
at night! This is a lovely country, all pine-woods and tree-ferns—a
curious mixture. We ride about here a very great deal, play cards, walk,
and generally have a thoroughly quiet, lovely time. I am going to a
euchre party this afternoon at a house near by; there are to be very nice
prizes, I hear. This climate is like England. You and Mr Dauncey would
like it when he can get leave. There is a sanatorium, hospital place
here, where you can go for one dollar, gold, a day per head. There is
also this house, but you could not live at that here, at least I think
not. I think this climate would do most people as much good as going
home. It is a beautiful place, and they shortly expect a railway to
run within 15 miles of it, which will make it cheaper to get here, and
quicker; at present it takes three days from Manila.”
That all sounds very tantalising to us sweltering down here, but I
_think_ we shall wait till that mythical railway is ready, for we have
several times discussed the pros and cons of a health trip to Benguet,
but when C—— went into the matter, he found that the expenses from here
and back would be more than to go to England! And then, if we did go to
this paradise of pine-trees and hot-water bottles, we should only be that
much to the good, for we should be still living on the awful Philippine
food, and the question is, should we get rid of that cuirass of prickly
heat? Also, would the water there still give _sarna_—which I think they
call in India “dhobey-itch”? And these things being so, is it not better
to go home? And being at home, would it not be the utmost folly ever to
venture within a hundred miles of a Philippine island again as long as
life lasts? I feel inclined to answer my own questions by saying—American
fashion—“That’s so!”
I missed my little love-birds so much that C—— got me some other pets,
which we hope will flourish better—three baby mongeese. They are the
dearest little things, so soft and gentle, and look like very fluffy
weasels, with large dark beady eyes and long, busy, smelling-about noses.
The people here call them _Gato del Monte_, which is, being translated,
mountain-cat, though the animal we call by that name is a very different
creature. They are found all over the islands, I believe, and there are
many in Guimaras, whence these were brought by a countryman who was going
round the offices trying to sell them, with the little things nestled in
his coat. So C—— bought them for me for a couple of _pesos_. They are
very young and very tame, in fact more than tame, for they run after me
all over the house, and as soon as I sit down, climb up and sit on my
shoulders, or curl up on my lap, and I daresay the warmth of their woolly
little bodies would be grateful and comforting amongst the pines and
tree-ferns at Benguet! C—— has made them a beautiful large cage out of a
packing-case and some wire-netting, where they spend their time asleep
in a box full of cotton wool, or else clamouring to be let out, with a
curious guggling, rippling cry, a sort of cross between a nightingale’s
“jug-jug” and a cab-whistle.
Half the ground-floor of this house was let a little time ago to a rabbit
warren of low-class Filipinos, who keep all sorts of animals in the
rooms, and throw all their refuse out into the narrow alley between this
and the next house. Unfortunately, this is all on the side where our
bedrooms are. After a time we got accustomed to the mysterious noises to
a certain extent, though the bleating of goats remained tiresome, and
the person with consumption who coughed all night still disturbed us.
The natives here die like flies of consumption, and the dreadful cough,
hollow cheeks, and glittering eyes are a very common feature in the
landscape.
Well, we weathered through the noises, though we were often inclined to
shift our quarters to the other side of the house, to the rooms which
that persistent American wished to inhabit. Fancy breakfasting with
them! I have not got over that yet! But on that side, unfortunately,
the construction of the house is such that there is no through draught,
without which one cannot sleep. Finally, however, the smell of the refuse
gave C—— an attack of tonsilitis, with a touch of fever, and as I myself
had also had some sore throats, we made the move across, and found it was
not so bad after all, for the S.-W. Monsoon blowing straight in kept the
air quite bearable.
The smells on the other side got worse and worse, and we put bowls of
disinfectant about, and complained to the landlord of the house. He
said he had no power, meaning that he was really afraid to offend and
lose his tenants, but he “would speak to the people,” advising us,
at the same time, to go to the Sanitary Inspector of the town, who
would set things right. Now, the municipality consists of natives,
and the Sanitary Inspector is a Filipino with a Filipino’s notions of
sanitation, so he can’t see what we have to complain about, and we went
on sending in complaints and protests, which met with vague replies at
first, and latterly with none at all. So at last C—— told the landlord
that if he did not have the alley cleared, we would leave the house,
whereupon _jornales_ (labourers) were promptly hired, and unimaginable
arrears of horrors dug out and removed—oh, the smell! And as to future
transgressions of the laws of cleanliness and decency, C—— has adopted
his own method for that, which consists in the simple plan of leaning
out of the window when the people below do anything he does not like,
and calling them “_Babuis_” (pigs), or “_sin verguenza_” (without shame)
in a very loud voice, which they don’t like at all; and this method has
more effect than anything else, for he says: “You can always ‘get at’ a
Filipino by making him ashamed of himself.”
[Illustration: A SUBURB OF ILOILO.
_To face page 242._]
We are lucky to be no worse off, however, for it is a marvel to me how
this town is not swept clean of inhabitants by some awful plague, when
one thinks that it is absolutely without drainage or sanitation of any
sort, and when one sees and smells the awful and ghastly rubbish heaps
which fester right amongst the houses in the town. The only saving of
the place is the Monsoons, and it is no wonder everyone feels so ill and
languid, even the natives, as soon as the wind drops. There is a costly
School of Tropical Medicine in Manila, and many learned articles appear
in the papers from time to time about germs and bacilli, and so on,
assuring us that, when the Filipinos know more mathematics and Latin,
they will know how to live more healthily; but sound common-sense would
seem to lie in the direction of a strong and efficient sanitary control
of white experts and a few schoolma’ams replaced by some paved and
drained streets.
Oh, the streets! They are a disgrace to civilisation, for I have never,
no, not in Morocco, not in little towns in the Canaries, known such
neglect, such dirt, such squalor, and such smells!
Grass grows at the sides of the streets, and in wet weather many stagnant
pools appear on pieces of waste ground and between the houses, looking
very pretty indeed amongst the brilliant greenery when the sun comes out
again, with beautiful reflections mirrored in their shallow depths, and
making little gems of scenes like bits out of a fairy pantomime. All the
same, one could quite willingly sacrifice their beauty in the cause of
health, and for the sake of matter-of-fact drainage!
Mosquitoes breed in the swampy places in which the native houses
generally stand, and at night the inhabitants frequently light fires
under their flimsy dwellings to dry the ground and destroy the insects.
At first sight these fires look very strange and alarming; we often pass
them as we drive in the evenings, and it is yet another of the local
miracles to see the dry thatch huts not taking fire from a pile of leaves
and grass burning underneath.
In connection with the swamps too, or I suppose so, the Filipinos have
another curious custom, which is, as soon as anyone is taken ill, to
shut the house up tightly, with the screens let down and fastened over
the openings that serve as doors and windows, and whenever you pass a
house all dark and hermetically sealed with tiny slits of light here
and there, you know some unfortunate soul is ill inside, and in all
probability dying, for the Filipinos have no physique, and if they
get seriously ill, they snuff out like a taper. When a poor person is
dying—really at the point of death—he or she is taken out of bed and
carried to the priest to be assoiled, which generally has the effect
of killing the invalid outright. Only two evenings ago we met one of
these melancholy little groups going along the Jaro road, two of the men
carrying a long bamboo pole on their shoulders, with a canvas hammock
slung to it, and I think the poor woman, whose head was lolling out, was
dead already.
An American hospital, to which we have all contributed by request, is
being provided for the town, and when we drive out, we often pass down
the road where this remarkable building is rising slowly from a pile
of beams and planks, all stacked ready, and cut to certain lengths. I
say it is remarkable because the hospital has apparently been designed
in America by someone who has never heard of the Philippines, for the
main supports (the _arigis_), instead of being made of great trees of
hardwoods, are quite slender posts of Oregon pine; and the cross-beams
and, in fact, all the timber work, are of the same wood, which is about
as much good as so many pieces of cardboard against insects, typhoons,
earthquakes, and so forth. I daresay these plagues do not prevail in the
country where this fantastic building was evolved.
[Illustration: AWAITING SHIPMENT.
Coffins containing Bones of American Soldiers stacked in Malate Cemetery,
Manila.
_To face page 244._]
But if the substructure of the hospital was the laughing stock of the
town, and the subject of many rather acid jests on the part of those who
had contributed to such a monument of folly, you can imagine what was
thought and said when the wards were seen in the making, and observed
to consist of screens of _nipa_ and _bejuco_ matting! All so hasty, so
shoddy, such a piece of blatant jobbery—but to hear its advocates talk
you would think the finest hospital in Eu-_rope_ was being rendered silly
and out of date!
To-morrow is Decoration Day, the anniversary of the close of the war of
the North and South, when the graves of the soldiers who fell in that
struggle are decorated in the United States.