with a packet of money at the top, and, of course, a flag of Stars and
Stripes. Up these the enterprising native youth of Iloilo swarmed, to the
intense joy of the onlookers, who howled and roared with appreciation.
All sorts of dodges were allowed, which were ingenious if not
particularly sporting. One small boy tried to get to the top by covering
his hands and feet with sand, with which his pockets were laden and
bulging, while the man who eventually got to the money hoisted himself by
a device of bars of wood and rope, which betrayed him at once to C—— as
a sailor. We very nearly gave up waiting for this enterprising mariner,
who took an immense time to get up to the thin part at the top of the
pole, where he could abandon his contrivance and get his hands round the
bamboo—but he secured the prize, and the people below bellowed with
delight.
There were very few Americans amongst the crowd, all the officers and
officials being in the stand, with many ladies in light frocks and big
hats, while the rank and file could be seen in the bars round the Plaza,
not caring a rap about tugs of war or greasy poles, or their “little
brown brothers.” In the gaol the prisoners were crowded at the barred
windows, getting what fun they could out of the general atmosphere
of liberty; and as we drove round the Plaza, I saw a most ragged and
miserable young countrywoman carrying a sad, puny baby at her breast,
talking to her man through the bars of the prison, where the female
relations come and hand food in to the dark ragged fellows inside. She
slunk away round the Plaza, and her face was too pitiful for words, she
was so gaunt and haggard. We had no money with us, but I doubt if she
would have taken it if we offered it to her, as the country people are
very proud, and very sensitive about “_verguenza_,” which is Spanish for
shame. Very few of the white people seem to understand this _verguenza_,
by an appeal to which, as I told you before, wonders can be done with a
Filipino.
This little incident put me out of humour with the Declaration
celebrations, so we drove out on to the Molo road a little way and then
returned, and I had a good long rest before dinner to prepare me for the
evening’s festivities.
The day wound up with the ball at the Gobierno, which is a kind of
Government House comprising public offices, and the Law Courts, and so
forth. It is a big building across the end of the Calle Real, with a
large over-hanging balcony or verandah, under which the carriages pulled
up on a stone-flag pavement, all muddled up anyhow, anywhere, each one
turning and going out in any direction the horse chose, with the usual
shouting and confusion and swearing on all sides.
The big stone basement was decorated with palms tied against the columns,
and Stars and Stripes, and all up the staircase more Stars and Stripes
and more palms.
The ball went on chiefly in the Court Room, a long narrow apartment,
where the scheme of decoration was half a dozen huge American flags
draped over the walls; and, stowed away over one doorway, a few folds
of the red and yellow of Spain. On one side of the Court Room, through
wide arches, was another long room, and on the street side was the long
balcony, open to the night, and cool when compared to the rooms.
When we arrived, the ball was in full blast with the Official Rigodon,
which C—— and Mr M—— who went with us, did not care to dance, and I could
not, so we sat in a row and looked on, and I talked to an American friend
we had met as we came in. He asked me to dance, but I said that was not
possible for me, as my feet were still unhealed, and all bandaged up for
this dance.
“Oh,” he said cheerfully, “I guess you are right to be careful, because
if you neglect those things they turn into tropical ulcers, which are
_in_-curable.”
“Do they?” I said.
“Why, yes, I had a friend who got mosquito bites poisoned just so, and he
died of them.”
In spite of this, however, I spent a very cheerful evening, and was
quite rewarded for the trouble of going out by the spectacle itself. For
some time our American friend remained by us, as he said it was the last
chance he would have of seeing us to say good-bye, because he was going
back to the United States. We asked him if he were going on leave, but
he said no, he was giving up his appointment; which rather surprised us,
as he is one of the chief officials here, and has a very good position.
But he said he simply could not stand the Philippines any longer, and
would rather work for half the pay in any other country.
“Besides,” he said, “I am entirely out of sympathy with the whole thing,
and can’t see what we are doing here anyway.”
I said, “But you have the country to develop.”
“Oh, I’m sick of hearing that,” he said. “What I want to do is to go
right back to the States and see some development done there.”
“Where do you mean?” we asked.
“Why, in my own State alone there are hundreds of miles of virgin soil
which I reckon I want to see developed before these silly old islands.”
“Ah,” I said, “then you don’t like the Philippines?”
“Have you ever met anyone who does?”
“No,” I said, “at any rate not one American who does not loathe the
place, except one woman, the wife of a missionary, who says she likes it,
but then she spends all the disagreeable season in Japan.”
“That’s so,” he said. “And I guess if I come back it’s going to be on the
religious stunt, with no work and lots of _va_-cation.”
The guests at the ball were all sorts and conditions of men, rather what
C—— calls a “heterogeneous mass,” but most of the Americans were there
too, and several new people whom I learned were officers and their wives
from Camp Josman, over in Guimaras. One little woman particularly took my
fancy, with her pale, pretty face and masses of fair hair, and a really
lovely pink silk ball-dress. She looked so fresh and charming, but I felt
quite anxious about her nice dress, as my own black skirt was a source
of trouble on such dirty boards, where, I am sorry to say, some of the
guests did not hesitate to expectorate when they felt inclined for this
national pastime.
The floor, as I say, was simply rough, unpolished, dusty, dark-wood
planks, and all the American men, except our friend and two others, wore
day suits and boots, while many of the women had on walking shoes, which
did not improve things.
The natives were all got up in blinding colours—little, dark,
square-faced women in the harsh aniline dyes of thirty years ago—and
some of them had on very handsome diamonds. C—— and I and Mr M—— were
the only English people present. I believe the others, as well as many
of the Americans, all thought the official ball not sufficiently select,
which seemed to me a very amusing point of view in a place like Iloilo—or
anywhere else for the matter of that.
After watching the ball-room for a little while, we thought we would
like some fresh air, so we moved out on to the balcony, where the air
was fairly cool, and where the band was stationed on a platform of two
steps in height. This was the Constabulary, native brass, which sounds
very well out of doors in a procession, but is rather deafening in a
room. On the platform were two or three music-stands at which a few men
lounged, but the rest of the twenty-five sat and blew (all brass and two
flutes) wherever they pleased, most of them festooned gracefully about
the steps of the stand; some lying almost full length on one elbow; and
some huddled up with their chins on their knees, looking exactly like
performing monkeys. One man with strips of black sticking-plaster on his
flat, brown face, lay on the steps of the stand, gazing at the ceiling,
and playing his cornet in one hand.
There were benches all round the balcony, and on one of these we sat, in
company with a lot of other guests, while some energetic and perspiring
dancers came out and extended the ball to the balcony, dancing solemnly
up and down in front of the band. When some people moved away from
the bench nearest the platform, half a dozen bandsmen instantly took
possession of their vacant places and sat there, leaning back and blowing
away at greater ease. They seemed to be playing instinctively while
thinking of other things. One small boy on the bench by us was fast
asleep, with his fingers still moving up and down on the stops, which so
interested Mr M—— that he got up and put his ear down to the fellow’s
trumpet, but declared he could hear no sound coming out of it at all. The
other bandsmen watched him do this with impassive, expressionless faces,
if they looked at him at all. This was during the second Rigodon, which
we could see going on in the long Court Room, and when the last figure
was reached, a bandsman suddenly sprang up from a recumbent position on
the steps and tootled the first few bars of “Hiawatha,” which they all
struck into with a swing, and some of the sleepers opened one dull eye,
while the man with the black sticking-plaster on his face was suddenly
galvanised into walking up and down to the tune—a sort of dancing walk—in
front of the bandstand.
While we sat by the band, we were joined by another American friend, also
a “prominent citizen,” with whom I had a long and interesting shout about
the Philippines in general, and Mr Taft in particular, which was most
entertaining, for this friend was as ardent a pro-Filipino as the other
had been anti-Taft and anti-everything. This man was very enthusiastic
about Mr Taft’s scheme, as he called it, and when I said, “What scheme?”
he replied:
“Why, the way we run these Islands.”
Whereupon we entered upon a hot discussion, for I was all in favour of
roads and irrigation, and he was all for school-desks and more teachers.
I quoted a paragraph I had seen in the Manila papers, where the public
were informed that some new and wonderfully fertile valley had been
opened up in the Island of Luzon, and that the Government’s first care
had been to send ten thousand school-desks to this favoured spot.
Whereupon he said:
“Well, what is the matter with that, anyway?”
I begged him to consider what Ceylon would be now if Sir Samuel Baker had
opened it up with school-desks instead of roads and reservoirs.
“Oh,” he said, “I never thought of it in that way. But perhaps our idea
of raising these races is right. It is an experiment which time will
prove.”
And that we argued too, with a running comment of amusement on the
_baile_, in spite of the loud blasts of the band.
Before we left, we had excellent supper in a side-room, where two long
tables stood covered with food, and all the ceiling was draped with loops
of greenery and paper lanterns. There were plates set out, each with
a helping of excellent cold turkey in the middle surrounded by little
piles of stuffing and vegetables and things, which we followed by very
nice meringues, and accompanied with delicious iced drinks—ice from the
Government factory—such a treat! While we were at supper, standing at one
of the long tables, a paper lamp flared up and fell in a flaming mass
just behind me. C—— and some Spaniards promptly stamped it out. But some
of the women were frightened, so the Spaniards sang out:
“Terminado! Terminado!”
And everyone went on eating again.
A little group of natives and _Mestizos_ came into the room immediately
afterwards, but they had not seen the lamp fall, and one of the women in
a light trailing gown passed over some smouldering fragments. C—— sprang
forward and said in Spanish:
“Your dress! There has been a lamp burnt there!” And pointed to the
sparks.
But the woman merely glared over her shoulder, as if he had offered her
some insult. I could gladly have stuck my fork into her impudent, bold,
brown face, and can’t, as yet, see why in the Eternal Fitness of Things
she did not catch fire and flare up.
After supper we watched a waltz and a two-step, and then went away about
twelve.
On our way out I passed one of the alcove openings into the inner room,
where I saw a sad, white Bouguereau Madonna face looking up at a man
bending down, and recognised one of the heroines of the late _funcion_ (a
delightful Spanish slang word) next door. So I perceived that the Marble
Misery was a chronic pose, and nothing at all to do with her relations
stabbing each other. Only, I must say she looked more “in the picture,”
running down the street with her hair streaming, than in a bright
ball-room.
We had gone to the _baile_ in a hired _quilez_, as we did not want
to take our own frisky pony out on such a night of Chinese crackers
underfoot and rockets overhead, and we had told the _quilez_ man to come
back for us. To our astonishment, he did so. Not that it was much of a
treasure in the way of a carriage, for it was so badly balanced that our
weight at the back would have lifted the pony clean off the ground if
the driver had not kept the balance by squatting on the shafts over the
pony’s tail. The little animal tore along, and it was a wonder and a
mystery to see how the driver stuck on at all. It was probably chiefly
done with his toes, for Filipino toes stand apart, supple like fingers,
and are used in the most marvellous and uncanny ways. In the streets the
Filipinos wear, or ought to wear, only slippers of gaudy velvet, called
_chinelas_, but many of them now affect stockings and pointed shoes,
which I think must be one of the most doubtful blessings of civilisation.
In the procession I noticed many of the little school girls and boys with
stockings on and awful shoes, and one or two of the little girls even
wore hats, but, if I described them to you, you would not believe me!
Well, have you ever had such a long letter in your life? And yet there is
any amount more to tell you if I only had the energy to write it.
LETTER XXXVI.
COCK-FIGHTING—PULAJANES
ILOILO, _July 14, 1905_.
I know you will be sorry to hear that the last of our dear little
mongeese is dead—killed by the dogs next door a week ago. We heard
squeaking and barking and scuffling in the alley-way one evening, and
rushed to the windows, but it was all dark below, and we could see
nothing. So C—— and Sotero went down with a lamp, but there was nothing
to be seen, and when we sent in to ask the old Tagalo dressmaker about
it, they all swore they had heard nothing. So we hoped it was only a rat;
but we waited in vain for our poor little pet to come back, and she never
appeared again.
I could not bear the sight of the empty cage, and made the boys take it
away after a day or two, and now I find it stands on the Azotea, with
Sotero’s rooster sitting solemnly on a perch that has been fixed across
the middle. This is the same cock, by-the-bye, that travelled back with
us from Nagaba, and when C—— asks the boy about it, he always says it
is “going to fight for fifteen _pesos_” on some Sunday—which never
comes. The cock is as tame with Sotero as a dog, and allows itself to
be combed and stroked the way one sees all the Filipinos do to their
fighting-cocks.
[Illustration: A VILLAGE COCK-FIGHT.
_To face page 287._]
In the native huts the fighting-cock is a very precious and sacred
person, enthroned on a special perch at one end of the living-room. The
night before he fights, this warrior is watched with the greatest care
to see which point of the compass he faces, as on that omen hang many
events, for if the creature faces the east he is bound to win, but if he
is turned towards the west you may as well not take him to the battle at
all. A little hope is left, however, for when the cocks all crow before
the dawn, he who makes the first scrawk is bound to win, and you can put
your last _peseta_ on him.
The poor beasts are taken to the ring, where spurs of curved steel are
fastened to the back of their heels, which makes the fight pretty short
and decisive, and may be indirectly merciful if it helps towards a swift
death. The making of the blades is a fine art, and they are carefully
carried about in a small box with a little stone on which to sharpen
them. When one sees a Filipino on the way to a cock-fight, with his bird
sitting on his arm, there is generally another native walking beside
him, carrying this little black box containing the spurs and the little
whet-stone.
There is as much roguery and “doping” amongst these cock-fighters as
there is about horse-racing amongst “civilised” men, and some of the
dodges are really very ingenious, such, for instance, as taking tiny
pills of opium or other poison under the finger nail and dropping them in
front of your opponent’s bird when it is pecking about before the contest
begins.
Before the fight the interested parties are allowed to test the roosters,
like looking at a horse in the paddock, only they enjoy advantages which
I believe are not to be indulged in a paddock at a race-meeting, for they
may form their opinion of a bird by picking the animal up and feeling
its muscles, looking at its thighs and examining its feet, of all of
which points the Filipino is a wonderful judge, being able to graduate
his large bets on the feeling of a muscle with great certainty. All the
same, this is the occasion, if he is so minded and the other man is not
quick enough, to injure the animal by means of a sharp pin point hidden
in the palm of the hand or between the fingers.
I notice that the fighting-cocks here don’t have their breasts pulled
bare of feathers like those poor birds we saw in that old man’s house
below the walls of the Alhambra. Do you remember how bald and horrible
they looked? And how the old villain who kept them told us he pulled the
feathers out and rubbed in spirits to keep the skin hard? They don’t seem
to do that here, for I have never seen a bare-breasted cock, and never
met anyone who has heard of such a custom.
The General has gone off to Samar, the long island parallel to this, and
on the other side of Cebú—though I can only use those terms vaguely,
and by way of a general indication to you where to look on a map. The
island is now under martial law, owing to the patriotism and enterprise
of certain jolly fellows, called Pulajanes, going about with big curved
_bolos_, and old Spanish flint-locks, and in fact anything they can catch
hold of. These persons are really patriots of a most irreconcilable type,
but it suits the programme of the Government to label them _ladrones_
(robbers), and to refer to their own hard fights with them as “cleaning
up the province.” On the strength of this nickname, the Americans cut
down these patriots freely (when the Pulajanes do not do the cutting down
first), and if they catch them alive the poor devils are hanged like
common criminals.[11] The papers continue to publish long eulogiums on
the peace and prosperity of the Philippines, and all the time the richest
commercial centre of the Archipelago is under martial law, with all its
business houses shut down; and soldiers and officers continue to arrive
at the hospital here every now and then, with more or less severe wounds.
Also waggons occasionally go past from the barracks, piled up with
baggage, and followed by troops in service kit, and one hears that they
have “gone to the front.”
For some time past the staff of C——’s firm has been increased here, in
this Iloilo branch, by the absorption into it of one of their men from
Catbologan, the chief town of Samar, as their business there, along with
all the others in that island, has had to be shut down.
There is desultory fighting even here, in Panay, but we never hear of it
except as an occasional paragraph in a Manila paper.
So much for peace. As to prosperity, there is general scarcity, many
districts suffer actual famine. In Cebú the lower classes are chiefly
dependent on an allowance of so many sacks of rice a day, the gift of
the Chinamen! In that town, indeed, matters are so bad that siege-like
conditions prevail, and amongst other horrible things that happened, a
starving native woman lately killed and ate her own baby. This is not
hearsay, but sober reports in the _Manila Times_.
I am paying the penalty of my recklessness in having gone to the
Declaration Day ball, for the little walking I did that night made my
feet very painful again, and I am laid up in bed once more, reading
papers and trying to forget my American friend’s optimistic remarks about
tropical ulcers. The doctor tells me I want feeding up to get the poison
out of my system, and this I can quite believe, but fail to see how it
is to be brought about. I have tried drinking a little wine, but that
makes my prickly heat unendurable. The Spaniards here drink _tinto_—the
red Spanish wine one gets at _tables d’hôte_ in Spain—but it has to be
spirited up for export, so out here it is rather heady and sour; but I am
sure it must be more wholesome than the whisky and soda of the English
people, or the eternal tea of the American women. You will be tired of
hearing about my mosquito bites, but I must just tell you one new thing
that I have heard about this unpleasant ailment, which is that many
people think the poison is introduced by flies—one fly would be quite
enough! There were no flies, or very few, when we came here at first, in
the dry season, but with the rain they have appeared in black swarms,
and we live surrounded by large sheets of sticky paper with Tangle
Foot written on them—a delightful American expression! Here again I am
reminded of the amount of indifference shown to an animal in proportion
to its size—comparative with that of a human being. For can you imagine
anyone being tolerated, who caught cats or horses in deep, thick glue and
let them slowly struggle to death? Yet what are you to do with flies?
You can’t catch each one—first catch your fly, in fact—and then kill it
in the quickest and most scientific manner. No. It must be Tangle Foot
papers. But even though I find I am simply compelled to have them about
the house, when I see a fly trying to haul one foot after the other out
of the dreadful Tangle Foot, I can’t help appreciating the poor insect’s
point of view.
The old millionaire I told you about is still here, and everyone is
trying to be civil to him, but I hear he is very difficult to entertain,
for he insists on being the only man to talk, which he does very slowly
and in an almost unintelligible accent. He gives considerable annoyance,
too, by his bad clothes, dirty hands, and unshaven face, and one can’t
help sympathising with the men who are irritated by such slovenliness, or
agreeing with them, that it is not much good being a millionaire if you
can’t get hold of a decent tailor and a razor and some soap!
I think I told you that our friend Mr —— sent his wife and family off
to Hong Kong when the heat began? They have come back, and are giving
me so much annoyance by rhapsodies over the climate, the cheapness of
everything, and the good food in Hong Kong that at last I had to _beg_
them to say no more! Mrs —— is still comparing prices here with prices
there, and she brought back pretty things for her house, which make me
wild with envy—or would if we were not soon to pass to happier climes!
Her husband went to fetch his little tribe, and he is raving, not so
much about the comparison of prices and the joys of fresh milk, fruit,
and vegetables as the horrible imposition of being compelled to pay the
Philippine Cedula Tax all over again. Five _pesos_ a head—10 shillings
each for his wife, the three children, and the nurse! And what annoyed
him most of all, I think, was his having been away about three weeks
himself and having to pay it again too. However, it has been worth the
money to them, I should think, for they all look quite brown and jolly
compared to the people here, and quite different beings to the washed-out
folk they were when they went away. At this time of year, as I think
I told you, all the Hong Kong people who can afford it go home or to
Shanghai or Japan, as they consider Hong Kong at this season not fit to
live in!
LETTER XXXVII.
A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
ILOILO, _July 14, 1905_.