ILIGAN
Our first glimpse of Iligan was not assuring, as only the Headquarters
Building could be seen from the harbour, and in front of it,
reaching to the left for some distance, stood a long, single row of
cocoanut-palms, so tall that the green foliage was far above the top
of the house, making the trees look like stiff bouquets in absurdly
long wooden holders. At the foot of these trees water, blue as indigo
on wash day, lashed itself into a white fury against the stonework
of the pier.
Before daybreak on the following morning the Signal Corps had its
breakfast, and aside from the not always obvious compensation which
undeviating good conduct is said to bring, we had a very evident
reward for our early rising in seeing Jupiter and Venus in a brilliant
stellar flirtation, the Southern Cross as chaperone giving sanction
to the affair.
Before the night had really paled into a gray dawn, three life-boats
from the ship, each loaded with some six hundred feet of cable,
were fastened in tandem and drawn to the shore by a stout rope,
which had already been run to the beach, and the two shore ends, one
for Misamis and one for Cagayan, Mindanao, were laid with but little
trouble. As Iligan's insurrectionary population was too aristocratic
to demean itself by manual labour for any monetary consideration, the
soldiers of the infantry company stationed at Iligan were detailed to
dig the trench. But, being Americans, they worked with a right good
will, completing the trench late that afternoon. The office was also
established by this time, after which the two shore ends were laid
and buoyed, thus accomplishing a tremendous day's work.
In the early afternoon we women went ashore sight-seeing, and found
Iligan chiefly interesting for what it was not. On paper--Spanish
paper, that is--the town is represented as a city of some magnitude,
boasting handsome barracks for the soldiers, two beautiful churches,
many well-built houses and shops, a railway running from the outskirts
of the town to Lake Lanao, a handsome station for Iligan's terminal
of the line, and many other modern improvements, including fine
waterworks.
In reality, Iligan is a little nipa-shack settlement, some of the nipa
buildings being very pretty, to be sure, but hardly pretentious enough
for city dwellings. As for the railway to Lake Lanao, all that is left
of it are two old engines and some dilapidated cars in a discouraged,
broken down shed on the outskirts of the village, the shed doubtless
representing the handsome station aforementioned. Even the rails of
the road have been carried away by the Moros to be made into _bolos_
and _krises_.
As for the barracks, the natives say that the Spaniards burnt them
down on evacuating in favour of their American foe, while the churches
probably never existed save in imagination, though one place of worship
was in process of construction at the time of our visit, the skeleton
of its framework being covered by a well finished roof, which, by the
way, is a peculiarity of carpentering in these islands. The woodwork
of the structure had a weather-beaten air, which told only too plainly
how long a time had elapsed since its foundation-stone was laid, and
on all sides the houses were deserted and dropping into decay. Board
fences rotted under a pitiless sun, and gardens, overgrown with weeds
and rank vegetation, encroached on the highway, which seemed to hold
the glare of noon in its stifling dust. Degraded, wretched looking
pigs wallowed about under one's very feet, and thin babies scowled
at us fiercely from behind the skirts of their unsmiling mothers.
With the exception of two or three very good little shops, run of
course by the ubiquitous Chinaman, at which one could purchase Moro
turbans, _sarongs_--the long skirt-like garments in which Moro men and
women wrap themselves--_petates_, or sleeping mats of split bamboo,
and other like curios, Iligan is a most unattractive and desolate
place, by God forsaken and by man forgot.
Picturesque it could not help being. All Philippine coast towns
accomplish that, built as they are of _caña_ and nipa in the midst
of luxuriant foliage, and surrounded by palms and bamboos, beyond
which spread verdant plains or lofty forest hills on one side, and
on the other stretches of sunlit sea and an unobstructed view of
the blue and cloudless sky. Lovely beyond description, to be sure,
but a loveliness of which one would tire all too quickly, its very
beauty becoming monotonous, like the pretty face of an insipid woman;
its sunshine and balmy airs but an aggravation to the soul, combining
to make one long for rugged outlines, rough east winds, and climatic
hardships and privations, anything rather than the enervation of that
unending tropic softness.
Market-day, which comes every Saturday at Iligan, made a break in the
dull uniformity of our several visits there. It was full of interest
to everyone, for it is then the Moros come to town, like the beggars
in the old nursery rhyme, "some in rags and some in tags," but none
in velvet gowns, no doubt because of climatic exigencies. It was a
glorious day of dazzling sunshine, and the market-place fairly swarmed
in colour, which blinded the eyes and warmed the heart. There were to
be seen in _sarong_, or coat, or turban the faded reds and subdued
blues that artists love, with here and there a dash of vivid green,
scarlet, and purple, barbarously tropical.
The Moros were represented mostly by men and boys, lithe, graceful
creatures, their legs encased in skin-tight trousers, or else
concealed entirely by a _sarong_ wrapped closely about them, the long
end tucked into a belt at the front. Their jackets, in the gayest of
colours, fitted them not wisely for so hot a climate, but too well;
their long, lank hair, done up in a knot at the back of the head,
was usually surmounted by a resplendent turban, whose colours shrieked
and stuck out their tongues at each other, being on even worse terms
with the rest of the costume; and in their belts would be stuck a
_barong_ or _kris_, often both, and a square or semicircular box of
brass, sometimes inlaid with copper, sometimes handsomely carved,
and sometimes plain. These boxes were divided into three compartments
on the inside, one for betel-nut, one for the lime to be smeared on
the betel, and one for the leaves of the pepper-tree, in which the
combination of lime and betel is wrapped before being chewed. Dattos
of rank were followed by a slave carrying these boxes, the receptacle
in their case being large and much more beautiful in design.
It was hard to differentiate the few women in the crowd from the men,
for they also wore a _sarong_ wrapped closely about them, which, if it
slipped aside for a moment, showed a tight fitting jacket of gay cotton
worn over a _camisa_, short at the waist line, where a band of brown
flesh showed frankly between it and the top of the wide, bloomer-like
garment on the nether limbs. They also wore their hair in a knot at
the back of the head, with a long, straight wisp hanging out of the
coil, and in most instances were much less attractive than the men,
being quite as unprepossessing in appearance, and lacking the redeeming
strength and symmetry which gave beauty to the masculine figure.
Several of the Moro men, presumably chiefs by the goodly number
of slaves following in their train, protected their august heads
by means of a gaily coloured parasol; others had the parasol held
over them by one of their retainers, while at their sides gambolled
small Moro boys, either entirely naked or decorously clothed in a
very abbreviated shirt. Some of the youngsters sported old _sarongs_,
which could be discarded or put on at their discretion, and only one
boy seen throughout the morning was fully clothed.
A delightful figure was that of a Moro dressed in a faded _sarong_
drawn closely about him from waist to knee. Above this he sported
a flannel blouse on which he had fastened with safety-pins two
very dilapidated infantry shoulder-straps of a second lieutenant's
grade. He also wore on his right breast some crossed cannon of
American artillery and a huge Spanish medal. On his head was a plaid
turban, as parti-coloured as the proverbial coat of the over-dressed
Joseph. Between the straining buttons of his blue flannel blouse dark
flesh gushed forth, and from beneath the variegated headgear fell
some straight, straggling locks, too short to be confined neatly in
the coil of hair at the back of his head. He was not at all averse to
having his charms of person and dress perpetuated in a photograph, and
from the way the Moros and natives gathered around him it was evident
that he was a personage of no little importance in the community.
Scattered around the market-place were various groups of Iligan
natives and Moros from the hills, all squatting on the ground, and
haggling over the price of fish and eggs. There were Moro chiefs,
looking world-wearied and indifferent, followed by their attendant
slaves; there were thrifty Moros willing to sell one anything from a
_kris_ or a _barong_ to the very clothes on their backs; there were
handsome young Moro blades, who stared shyly at the strange white
faces and chatted volubly the while in their soft Malay tongue; there
were Philippine market women in _camisa_ and _panuela_, some of them
carrying large, flat baskets of vegetables or fruits on their heads,
the green of ripe oranges and bananas making an effective splash of
colour above their dusky hair; there were a few, a very few, Moro
women, as I have said before, and they wrapped themselves more closely
in their _sarongs_ as we approached, smiling at us broadly with the
utmost friendliness, their blackened teeth behind red, betel-stained
lips reminding one irresistibly of watermelon seeds in the fruit.
Of course the Moros asked us exorbitant prices for their arms,
Americans being made of money, and transient Americans, in particular,
having the added reputation of being utterly bereft of reasoning
faculties, but we had been warned as to their business methods by
officers of the post, so were as adamant. At first the Moros seemed
indifferent whether we purchased or not, and only when we had really
embarked in one of the life-boats for the ship did they let us have
the knives for one-half of what they had originally demanded.
One gentleman who boasted a coat, _sarong_, and wide sash of brilliant
green, the material being of Moro manufacture, and hence of great
interest to the _Burnside_ people, was possessed that one of us should
buy the outfit, and only with great difficulty and the utmost tact was
he persuaded from denuding himself then and there, so anxious was he
to make a sale; and long after the life-boat was under way did some
belated Moro rush to the beach, wildly gesticulating and calling,
evidently willing to exchange some treasured knife, _buyo_ box, or
brightly coloured turban for American gold at our own valuation,
although he had perhaps scorned a very high price for these same
things earlier in the day.
The second morning after our arrival at Iligan, on the occasion of our
first visit there, all on board were shocked to hear that one of the
buoys attached to a cable anchored in the bay was missing. It was the
buoy to which the Cagayan shore end had been fastened, and there was
not a little mystery as to how it could have got away from its mushroom
anchor. So, instead of starting to lay the cable to Misamis, we used
the machinery as a fishing tackle, and, after some little trouble,
hooked the Cagayan cable in a hundred and twenty-five fathoms of
water. Later in the day the buoy was picked up, a most disreputable
looking object, banged and battered almost beyond recognition, which
showed it had undoubtedly been struck during the night by the ship's
propeller, owing to the tremendously swift current in the harbour.
All that afternoon the cable sang its song of the drum, in preparation
for the morrow's trip, and a little after daylight the next morning
the Misamis buoy was picked up and its cable spliced to that in the
main tank, after which we left Iligan, paying out the cable so slowly
that it was five o'clock before we anchored off the Misamis buoy,
just in time for a splice to be made ere the swift darkness of the
tropics was upon us.
The signal sergeant in charge of such work had a large audience that
evening watching his skilful joining together of the two ends of
cable. How deft he was in unwinding the sheathing wire, how exact
in cutting off just the right amount of core from each end of the
cable, how careful in stripping the insulation from the cores' end
with a sharp knife not to nick the wires, which would have produced
untold trouble. Then the seven wires stranded together in each end
were unwound, carefully cleaned and scraped, that they might solder
readily, after which they were again twisted together with pliers,
and the joint completed. When this was done the rubber tape was wound
round and round the copper wires, after which the whole was put into
a vulcanizing bath of hot paraffine. Upon soaking half an hour, it was
removed from the paraffine and the jute serving was bound back again;
then the armour--a steel wire spiral jacket--was replaced, the spirals
winding back into their original position with the greatest ease. Wire
was then wound at intervals over this steel jacket to keep the spirals
in place, after which the whole, for ten or fifteen feet in length,
was served with a neat finish of spun yarn.
At sunrise the next morning we went into the harbour of Misamis for
the third time, staying just long enough to ascertain that the cable
was working satisfactorily, after which we sailed once again for
Iligan, leaving there the following day for Cagayan, taking soundings
every half hour in preparation for the laying of the cable between
those two places. The morning was so rainy and disagreeable that
no bearings could be had, but just as we were nearing the harbour
of Cagayan, at about four in the afternoon, the mist cleared away,
the sun came out wetly from behind a mass of clouds, and over the
harbour to the southeast stretched a bow of promise, with the town
of Cagayan standing at one end of the arc like the proverbial pot of
gold for which we hunted in childhood.