DUMAGUETE
Our first stopping place after a two days' trip from Manila was
Dumaguete, on the southeast corner of the island of Negros. We
reached there at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, and found it
a tropically picturesque little town, surrounded by forest-grown
hills, and built mostly of nipa, with the exception of the church,
_convento_, watch-tower, and _tribunal_, which were of wood painted
a dazzling white.
All day long men and boys, innocent of even an excuse for clothes,
hovered about the ship in _bancas_ or dugouts, chattering volubly with
each other in Visayan, or begging us in broken Spanish to throw down
coins that they might exhibit their natatorial accomplishments, and,
when we finally yielded, diving with yells of delight for the bits of
silver, seeming quite as much pleased, however, with chocolates wrapped
in tin-foil as they had been with the money, and uttering shrill cries
that sounded profanely like "Dam'me--dam'me," to attract our attention.
When a coin was thrown overboard every one dived for it with becoming
unanimity, and the water being very clear, we could see their
frog-like motions as they swam downward after the vanishing prize,
and the good-natured scuffle under water for its possession. Laughing,
sputtering, coughing, they would come to the surface, shaking the water
out of their bright eyes like so many cocker spaniels, the sun gleaming
on their brown skins, their white teeth shining, as they pointed out
the complacent victor, who would hold the money up that we might see
it, before they would again begin their clamour of "Dam'me--dam'me,"
and go through a pantomime of how quickly each personally would dive
and bring it up, did we throw our donation in his direction.
When the supply of coins and candies had been exhausted, some one
bethought him of throwing chunks of ice overboard, and as none among
the natives had ever seen ice before, their amazement may well be
imagined. The first boy to pick up a piece of the glittering whiteness
let it drop with a howl, and when he caught his breath again warned
the others in shrill staccato tones that he had been burned, that
it was hot, _muy caliente_, wringing his hands as if, indeed, they
had been scorched. Presently, finding that the burn left no mark
and had stopped hurting, he shamefacedly picked up the ice again,
shifting it from one hand to the other with the utmost rapidity,
and occasionally crossing himself in the interim.
Meanwhile more ice had been thrown overboard, and the rest of the
natives, not at all deterred by their comrade's warning, examined the
strange substance for themselves. Very excited were their comments,
those in the far _bancas_ scrambling over the intervening boats to
see with their own eyes the miracle of hard water so cold that it was
hot. They smelled and tasted of it, like so many monkeys, chattering
excitedly the while, and they rubbed it on each other's bare backs amid
screams of genuine fright, while many tumbled overboard to escape the
horrible sensation of having it touch their flesh, the superstitious
being reminded, no doubt, of all the tales the padres had ever told
them of hell or purgatory.
Some thrifty and unimaginative souls tied up their bits of ice in
cloths or packed them in small boxes, to take back to the village,
while others, engrossed in their examination of the strange substance,
transferred it from one hand to the other until, miracle of miracles,
it had entirely disappeared. Others, emulating the laughing people
on the big boat, put their pieces of ice into their mouths, but not
for long at a time, as the intense cold made their teeth ache; while
still others piously crossed themselves and refused to have aught to
do with so manifest an invention of the Evil One.
Meanwhile, despite the fact of its being Christmas, the Signal
Corps officers, men, and natives were hard at work establishing an
office in the town, digging a trench for the shore end of the cable,
and setting up the cable hut, packed in sections for convenience in
transportation. Thirty Dumaguete natives were employed at twenty-five
cents a day to help dig the trench and put up the hut, and they seemed
very willing in their work and thought the remuneration princely.
So heavy was the surf in the early morning that the officers and
soldiers going ashore had to be carried from the rowboats to the
beach on the backs of natives, but it fortunately calmed down enough
before we women went over in the afternoon to allow of our entering
Dumaguete in a more conventional manner.
Being a _fiesta_, the town was full of natives from the provinces,
all smartly dressed and all beaming with good-natured curiosity at
the advent of two and a half American women,--the only _Americanas_
most of them had ever seen,--and quite an escort gathered around
us as, accompanied by the officers of the post and those from the
ship not otherwise engaged, we walked down the dusty streets toward
the cockpits, where in honour of the day there was to be a contest
of unusual interest. At every corner came new recruits to swell the
ranks of our followers. "Merry Christmas," cried everyone in Spanish or
Visayan, and "Merry Christmas" we responded, though June skies bending
down toward tropical palms and soft winds just rustling the tops of
tall bamboos, so that they cast flickering fern-like shadows over
thatched nipa roofs, but ill suggested Christmas to an American mind.
The cockpit reached, we found it to be a rudely built circular shack
of nipa, fairly crowded with natives in gala attire, and a sprinkling
of khaki-clad soldiers from the post. Native policemen, in uniforms
that strongly reminded one of the _insurrecto_ insignia, showed us to
our seats, and a few moments after our arrival two fine cocks, matched
as nearly as possible in strength and weight, were brought into the
ring by their respective owners, while the onlookers discussed the
birds' relative points. The two cocks, still held by their masters,
were then allowed to peck at each other's combs until fully angered,
when they were put into the ring a short distance apart, and while
each owner held the tail feathers of his bird, the cocks made futile
efforts to reach each other, giving vent the while to derisive crowing.
The audience, after watching this performance a moment or two,
began making their bets, both individually and through the agency
of the "farmer," who, standing in the centre of the ring, cried out
chaffingly in Visayan to faint-hearted gamesters. Then circles were
drawn on the earthen floor of the pit, and the money put up on each
cock deposited in one or the other of these rings. At the end of the
fight some one appointed cried out the name of the victorious bird,
and the winners swarmed down into the pit where they collected their
money and the original stakes. There is never any cheating at such
affairs, a sort of bolo morality existing among the natives, and all
is as methodical and well-behaved as the proverbial Sabbath school.
It was the first cock-fight most of us cable-ship people had ever seen,
and it was hard to understand the wild enthusiasm of the natives when,
after unsheathing the steel gaffs on the roosters' legs, the birds
were allowed to make their preliminary dash at one another. For a
moment they walked around the ring with an excessively polite air, each
keeping a wary lookout on his antagonist, but frigidly impersonal and
courteous. One might almost fancy them shaking hands before the combat
should begin, so ceremonious was their attitude. Then there would come
a simultaneous onslaught of feathered fury. Again and again they flew
at one another, while the volatile audience called out excitedly in
Spanish, "The black wins--No, the speckled one's ahead. Holy Virgin,
give strength to the black!" In a very few moments one cock is either
dead, or perhaps turned coward before the cruel gaff of his opponent,
and victor and vanquished leave the arena to new combatants, while
the clink of coin changing hands is heard throughout the cockpit.
The first few fights we thought rather tame, and I, personally, had
to assure myself over and over as the bloody contestants were removed
from the scene of action, that such a death was no more painful and
certainly far less ignominious than when chicken stewed or _à la
Maryland_ was to be the ultimate result of the fowl's demise.
There was one little game-cock, however, who enthused even the most
dispassionate among us. He was small and wiry, and his well kept white
feathers testified to a devoted master. How impatient that absurd
little rooster was for the fight to begin, and how he struggled to
get off his gaff and go into the fray unarmed, the weight on his legs
seeming an impediment to action, and how insolently he strutted and
crowed before his antagonist, an equally well groomed gentleman of
exceptional manners, attired in a gorgeous suit of green and gold. But
handsome as the darker rooster was, the white one seemed to be the
universal choice, and heavy were the stakes in his favour, so heavy
that when, after a few minutes' fighting, his wing was broken, a
general groan went up throughout the cockpit, a groan which merged
into sullen silence when the poor little chicken fell before the
furious onslaught of his enemy.
Again and again the victorious green and gold rooster jumped upon
his prostrate foe, pecking now at his crop, now at his eyes, in a
perfect frenzy of triumphant rage, the little white fellow lying
so still meanwhile that everyone thought him dead. But suddenly
he struggled to his feet, and, despite the grievously broken wing,
whipped the big bully in a way to raise a cheer even from the hitherto
indifferent Americans.
As for the natives, they simply shouted themselves hoarse, and,
contrary to all precedent, jumped down into the pit, throwing their
_sombreros_ on high and yelling vigorously, "_Muy valiente gallo--muy
valiente!_" The little rascal had simply been sparring for wind, and
he seemed to wink an eye at us after having chased his vanquished
enemy to a corner, for, like the coward he was, the green and gold
rooster turned tail and ran at the first opportunity.
It is to be hoped that the _muy valiente gallo_ had his wing patched
up and lived to tell his tale of bravery to many a barn-yard chick--a
war-scarred veteran whose honourable wound entitled him to the respect
of all domestic fowl. But knowing Filipino nature, I am rather inclined
to think that the white rooster made a very acceptable broth for his
master on the following day, the flesh of fighting-cocks being quite
too tough for consumption in any other form.
On our return to the ship's boat we were accompanied to the water's
edge by a juvenile contingent of natives, some of them being our
friends of the forenoon, who returned any notice of themselves on our
part by a rapturous gleam of teeth and eyes. One of them, a youngster
of perhaps ten or eleven, who gloried in the euphonious name of Gogo,
was particularly assidious in his attentions, and would come close up
to us and say, "_I-ese--i-ese--dam'me--i-ese!_" going into paroxysms
of mirth the while, and wrinkling up his handsome little face at the
mere remembrance of the water so cold it was hard.
That night the shore officers took their Christmas dinner with us on
the _Burnside_, and a very jolly evening we made of it. The saloon
was entirely covered, ceiling and all, by American and ship's flags,
interspersed with palms, while over the sideboard were suspended the
American flag and Union Jack intertwined, this last in honour of our
two cable experts, both of them being Britishers. We women donned our
smartest frocks, the electric piano, slightly out of tune, did rag-time
to perfection, the _menu_ included every conventional Christmas dish,
and yet--and yet it was not Christmas, and all the roast turkey and
plum pudding in the world could not make it so. It was a very jolly
dinner, to be sure, well served and with charming company, but it
was not a Christmas dinner. Only Half-a-Woman's presence saved it
and the day from utter failure.
The next morning the presidente of the town, other officials, and some
of the leading men and women of Dumaguete made a visit to the ship,
and were voluble in their surprise at what was shown them,--the
electric lights and fans, the steam galley and ice-machine; the
cold-storage room, where one could freeze to death in a few moments;
the little buttons on the wall which one had only to touch and a
servant appeared to take one's orders; the wonderful piano that
"played itself,"--all were duly admired and exclaimed over.
But what seemed to please and astonish them most of all were the
bath-rooms with their white porcelain tubs, tiled floors, and shining
silver knobs, which one had only to turn in order to have hot or cold
water, either salt or fresh, in the tub, the basin, or the shower. Even
the electric piano failed to impress them as did this aqueous marvel,
and they crossed themselves and called on the Virgin and all her
angels to testify that verily the American nation was a mighty one.
The men were of course greatly interested in our gallant armament of
rapid-fire guns, and when the quartermaster, who is a crack shot, hit
an improvised target in the water several times in succession with a
one-pounder in the stern of the ship, the Filipinos were astounded,
and stared at him in even greater admiration than they had shown
for the formidable little weapon. Two shotguns of newest design were
also brought on deck, and while the native women were frankly bored
at this display of ordnance and preferred to talk about the way our
gowns were made, the men were delighted, declaring they never imagined
a gun could be broken in pieces and put together again so easily.
Before our guests left, lemonade and cake were served on the
quarter-deck, and it was really amusing to watch their faces as they
discussed the coldness of the drink, while the pieces of ice in their
glasses excited as much perturbation as the untutored savages had
shown the day before. One travelled lady, however, who had been to
Iloilo once and tasted ice there, drank her lemonade with ostentatious
indifference to its temperature, as became one versed in the ways of
the world, explaining to me with condescension a few moments later
that the Iloilo ice had been much colder than ours,--an item of
physical research which I accepted politely.
We women were asked innumerable questions as to our respective ages,
the extent of our incomes, our religious beliefs, and other inquiries
of so personal a character as to be quite embarrassing. They seemed,
though, to be very genuine in their admiration of us, and evinced
great interest in our clothes, especially those of the quartermaster's
wife, who, being a recent arrival in the Philippines, had yet the
enviable trail of the Parisian serpent upon her apparel. One heavy
cloth walking-skirt of hers, fitting smoothly over the hips and with
no visible means by which it could be got into, animated the same
inquiry from these people as good King George is said to have made
anent the mystery of getting the apple into the dumpling, a problem
of no little difficulty, as any one will agree. At more than one
stopping-place we were called upon to solve the riddle of that skirt,
and I verily believe that, being women, they were even more awed
at the thought of a garment fastening invisibly at one side of the
front under a very deceptive little pocket than at all the electrical
marvels shown them on the ship.
While in Dumaguete we were driven around the town and far out into
the country surrounding it, finding everything much more tropical and
luxuriant in growth than in Manila or its vicinity. There were giant
cocoanut-palms, looking not unlike the royal palm so often spoken of
by travellers on the Mediterranean, clusters of bamboo and groups of
plantains, flowering shrubs and fields of young rice, green as a well
kept lawn at home.
Picturesque natives saluted us from the roadway, or from the windows
of their nipa shacks; naked brown children fled at our approach, and
wakened their elders from afternoon _siestas_ that they might see two
white women and a yellow-haired child drive by; carabao, wallowing
in the muddy water of a near-by stream, stared at us stolidly;
fighting-cocks crowed lustily as we passed; and hens barely escaped
with their cackling lives from under our very wheels.
A native lazily pounding rice in a mortar rested from his appearance
of labour and watched the carriage until it became a mere speck in
the distance. Two women beating clothes on the rocks of a little
stream stopped their gossip to peep at us shyly from under their
brown hands. Weavers of _abaca_ left their looms and hung out of the
windows to talk with their neighbours about the great event. Heretofore
they had thought the Americans were like Chinamen, who came to the
country, yes, and made money from it, but never settled down as did
the Spaniards, never brought their families with them and made the
islands their home. But here were two American women and a little
girl--surely evidences of domesticity.
Everyone was friendly and peaceably disposed, everyone seemed glad
to see us, if smiles and hearty greetings carry weight, and there was
apparently no race prejudice, no half-concealed doubt or mistrust of
us. Yet in a few days thereafter that very road became unsafe for
an unarmed American, while the people who had greeted us with such
childlike confidence and delight were preparing a warmer reception
for the Americans under the able leadership of a Cebu villain, who
had incited them to insurrection by playing upon their so-called
religious belief, this in many instances being merely fetishism of
the worst kind.
This instigator of anarchy boasted an _anting-anting_, a charm
against bullets and a guarantee of ultimate success in battle, which
consisted of a white _camisa_, the native shirt, on which was written
in Latin a chapter from the Gospel of St. Luke. But notwithstanding
his _anting-anting_, and the more potent factor of several hundred
natives in his ranks, he was easily defeated by a mere handful of
soldiers from the little fort, and when last heard of by our ship was
lying in the American hospital at Dumaguete awaiting transportation
to Guam. His former army was _mucho amigo_ to the Americans, and
once again the pretty drives around Dumaguete were quite safe, and
once again the native, when passing an American, touched his hat and
smilingly said good day in Visayan, a greeting which sounds uncommonly
like "Give me a hairpin."
On the evening of our second day in Dumaguete, the natives of the
town gave a ball in honour of the cable-ship, at the house of one of
the leading citizens. There, on a floor made smoother than glass with
banana leaves, we danced far into the night to the frightfully quick
music of the Filipino orchestra. One would hardly recognize the waltz
or two-step as performed by the Visayan. He seems to take his exercise
perpendicularly rather than horizontally, and after galloping through
the air with my first native partner, I felt equal to hurdle jumping or
a dash through paper hoops on the back of a milk-white circus charger.
Their _rigadon_, a square dance not unlike our lanciers, the Filipinos
take very seriously, stepping through it with all the unsmiling dignity
of our grandparents in the minuet. The sides not engaged in dancing
always sit down between every figure and critically discuss those
on the floor, but while going through the evolutions of the dance,
it seems to be very bad form to either laugh or talk much, a point of
etiquette I am afraid we Americans violated more than once. Another
very graceful dance, the name of which I have forgotten, consists of
four couples posturing to waltz time, changing from one partner to
another as the dance progresses, and finally waltzing off with the
original one, the motion of clinking castanets at different parts of
the dance suggesting for it a Spanish origin.
At midnight a very attractive supper was served, to which the
presidente escorted us with great formality. As is customary, the
women all sat down first, the men talking together in another room and
eagerly watching their chance to fill the vacant places as the women,
one by one, straggled away from the table. The supper consisted for
the most part of European edibles, but there were several Visayan
delicacies as well, all of which I was brave enough to essay, to
the great delight of the native women, who jabbered recipes for
the different dishes into my ear, and pressed me to take a second
helping of everything. All of them ate with their knives and wiped
their mouths on the edge of the table-cloth, having Spanish precedent
for such customs, and all were heartily and unaffectedly hungry after
their violent exercise in the waltz and two step.
It was very late when we finally left the _baille_, amidst much
hand-shaking and many regrets that our stay in Dumaguete was so short,
while great wonder was shown by all that we should be able to sail at
daylight on the morrow, it seeming well-nigh incredible to the native
mind that so much could have been accomplished in so short a time;
for, despite the fact that we had been in Dumaguete less than two
days, everything was completed--a marvel, indeed, when one considers
the tremendous current which made the landing of the shore end a
hazardous proceeding.
To one who has never witnessed the difficulties of propelling a rowboat
through the heavy breakers of some of these Philippine coast towns,
it would be hard to appreciate the struggles of the Signal Corps to
land shore ends at the different cable stations. More than once men
were almost drowned in its accomplishment but fortunately on the
whole trip, despite many narrow escapes, not a man was seriously
injured in the performance of his duty. Once landed on the beach,
the shore end was laid in the trench dug for it, one end of the
cable entering the cable hut through a small hole in its flooring,
where after some adjustment and much shifting of plugs and coaxing of
galvanometers, the ship way out in the bay was in communication with
the land, through that tiny place, scarce larger than a sentry-box,
in which a man has barely room enough to turn around.
Each telegraph office, when finally established, looks for all the
world like a neat housekeeper's storeroom, with its shelf after shelf
of batteries, all neatly labelled like glass jars of jellies and
jams. It positively made one's mouth water to see them, and only the
rows of wires on the wall, converging into the switchboard, and from
thence to the operator's desk, where the little telegraph instruments
were so soon to click messages back and forth, could convince one
that the jars contained only "juice," as operators always call the
electric current.
When this work on shore was completed, the ship paid out a mile and a
half of cable, cut, and buoyed it, awaiting our return from the next
station, where, because of the inaccurate charts already mentioned, it
would be necessary to first take soundings before we could proceed to
lay the cable. These buoys, so large that they were facetiously called
"men" by the punster of the ship, are painted a brilliant scarlet,
which makes them a conspicuous feature of the sea-scape. Sometimes
a flagstaff and a flag are fastened to the buoy, and often it is
converted for the ship's benefit info an extemporaneous lighthouse
by the addition of an oil lamp attached to its summit.
That night at Dumaguete the swift current unfortunately swung our
ship's anchor past the buoy to which the cable was attached, so
that at daylight the next morning, instead of sailing for Oroquieta,
Mindanao, as we bad expected, the buoy was picked up and a half mile
of cable cut out, a new mile being spliced on in its place. When this
was completed we paid out the fresh cable, buoyed it, and started for
Oroquieta, which was to have been our next cable landing, stopping
every five knots for soundings and observations.
One of the officers with the sextant ascertained the angle between
two points on the coast, while other men, under the generalship of
one of the cable experts, took deep-sea soundings, not only that the
depth of the water might be known, but also its temperature and the
character of the bottom, so one could judge of its effect upon the
cable when laid, every idiosyncrasy of that cable being already a
study of some import to the testing department.
This deep-sea sounding is a very necessary feature of cable laying,
as unexpected depths of water or unlooked for changes in submarine
geography, when not taken into account, might prove disastrous to
the cable being laid. The sounding apparatus is of great interest,
being a compact little affair consisting of a small engine that with
a self-acting brake helps regulate the wire sounding-line as it is
lowered into the water, and after sounding heaves it up again. When
this weight touches bottom the drum ceases to revolve, due to the
automatic brake, and the depth can be read off on the scale to one
side of the apparatus. A cleverly devised little attachment to the
sinker brings up in its grasp a specimen of sea bottom, so that one
can ascertain if it be sand or rock, and whether or not it is suitable
for cable laying.
The next day lingers in my memory as a profusely illustrated story,
uneventful as to incident, and bound in the blue of sea and sky,
with gilt edges of sunshine. Before our five o'clock breakfast we
saw the "Cross hung low to the dawn," and at night, anchored near
our last sounding, fell asleep under the same Cross. The morning of
the next day was but a repetition of the morning before, even to the
early rising, for at our breakfast hour the moon had not yet turned
out her light, nor were the stars a whit less brilliant than when
we went to bed. "It's too early for the morning to be well aired,"
one of our cable experts was wont to whimsically complain at these
daybreak gatherings, but by the time we had finished breakfast the
night would have whitened into dawn, and before most people were
astir an incredible amount of work had been accomplished by that
little band of men, seemingly inured to fatigue and the loss of sleep.
All that morning on the way to Oroquieta the shore end of the cable
was paid out of the tank and coiled in the hold ready for instant use
when we should reach our destination. The music of the cable on the
drum, the voice of some one in authority calling "_Cobra--cobra_,"
to the natives in the tank, and their monotonous "_Sigi do--sigi
do_," half-sung, half-chanted, seemed an integral part of the day's
beauty. Even the natives themselves, guiding the heavy, unwieldy,
treacherous cable round and round in the water-soaked tank, that only
one turn should be lifted at a time, grinned affably and perspiringly
at those of us peering over the railing at them--grimy tar-stained
figures that they were, the sunlight bringing their faces out in
strong relief against the dark backgound.
That afternoon we anchored off Oroquieta, but the surf was so heavy
that it was felt unsafe to send one of the small boats ashore,
especially as no one knew the location of the landing. Strangely
enough, no boats of any kind came out to the ship, not even a
native _banca_, so that our intercourse with Oroquieta was purely
telescopic. Through our good lens we saw many a soldier, field-glass in
hand, looking wistfully in our direction. Other soldiers walked up and
down the beach on sentry duty, still others seemed to be standing guard
over a small drove of horses in a palm grove a little to the right of
the principal buildings, while many more lounged lazily on the broad
steps of the church, or, leaning out of the windows of the _tribunal_,
evidently used as a barracks, stared stolidly at the strange ship in
the harbour. That every man wore side-arms seemed an indication the
rebels were still rampant on the northern coast of Mindanao, and the
fact of numberless native boats passing by with a pharisaical lack
of interest in our presence spoke insurrection even more plainly.
Through the glass we all took turns in watching retreat, the
little handful of khaki-clad men standing at attention as the stars
and stripes fluttered down the flagstaff. Oroquieta was a lonely
looking place, built entirely of nipa, with the exception of the
inevitable white church and _convento_, so we were not sorry when the
Powers-that-Be decided it was a poor cable landing, and gave orders for
the ship to proceed to Misamis, Mindanao, on the following day. Early
next morning we weighed anchor, and, still taking soundings, arrived
off Misamis about ten o'clock, after a sail which one never could
forget, as the coast of Mindanao is rarely beautiful and much more
tropical than anything we had seen even on the island of Negros.