From Manila to Capiz
I Am Appointed to a School at Capiz, on Panay Island--We Anchor
at the Lovely Harbor of Romblon--The Beauty of the Night Trip to
Iloilo--We Halt There for a Few Days--Examples Showing That the
Philippines Are a "Mañana" Country--Kindness of Some Nurses to the
Teachers--An Uncomfortable Journey from Iloilo to Charming Capiz.
In due time our appointments were made, and great was the wrath that
swelled about the Exposition Building! The curly-haired maiden who
had fallen in love with a waiter on the _Thomas_ wept openly on his
shoulder, to the envy of staring males. A very tall young woman who
was the possessor of an M.A. degree in mathematics from the University
of California, and who was supposed to know more about conic sections
than any woman ought to know, was sent up among the Macabebes, who
may in ten generations arrive at an elementary idea of what is meant
by conic sections. Whether she was embittered by the thought of her
scintillations growing dull from disuse or of scintillating head axes,
I know not, but she made little less than a tragedy of the matter. The
amount of wire-pulling that had been going on for stations in Manila
was something enormous, and the disappointment was proportionate.
I had stated that I had no choice of stations, was willing to go
anywhere, and did not particularly desire to have another woman
assigned with me. I had my doubts about the advisability of binding
myself to live with some one whom I had known so short a time; and
subsequent experience and the observation of many a quarrel grown
out of the enforced companionship of two women who never had any
tastes in common have convinced me that my judgment was sound. I
was informed that my station would be Capiz, a town on the northern
shore of Panay, once a rich and aristocratic pueblo, but now a town
existing in the flavor of decayed gentility. I was eager to go,
and time seemed fairly to drag until the seventh day of September,
on which date the boat of the _Compañia Maritima_ would depart for
Iloilo, the first stage of our journey.
September the seventh was hot and steamy. We had endless trouble
getting ourselves and our baggage to the Bridge of Spain, where the
_Francisco Reyes_ was lying. Great familiarity has since quite worn
away the nervousness which we then felt on perceiving that our watches
pointed to half an hour after starting time while we were yet adorning
the front steps of the Exposition Building. Local boats never leave
on time. From six hours to three days is a fair overtime allowance
for them.
We finally arrived at the steamer in much agony and perspiration. The
old saying about bustle and confusion was applicable to the _Francisco
Reyes_ if one leaves out "bustle." There were no immediate signs of
departure, but there were evidences of the eleven o'clock meal. The
muchachos were setting the table under an awning on the after-deck. A
hard-shell roll with a pallid centre, which tastes like "salt-rising"
bread and which is locally known as _bescocho_, was at each plate
together with the German silver knives and spoons. The inevitable
cheese was on hand, strongly barricaded in a crystal dish; and when
I saw the tins of guava jelly and the bunch of bananas hanging from a
stanchion, I had that dinner all mapped out. I had no time, however,
to speculate on its constituent elements, because my attention was
attracted by the cloth with which the boy was polishing off dishes
before he set them down. This rag was of a fine, sooty-black color,
and had a suggestion of oil about it as if it had been on duty in
the engine-room. The youth grew warm, and used it also to mop his
perspiring countenance. I ceased to inspect at that point, and went
forward.
Several black and white kids of an inquisitive turn of mind were
resting under my steamer chair, which had been sent on board the day
before. They seemed to feel some injury at being dispossessed. I
guessed at once that we carried no ice, and that the goats were
a sea-faring conception of fresh meat. As their numbers diminished
daily, and as we enjoyed at least twice a day a steaming platter of
meat, _garbanzos_, peppers, onions, and tomato sauce, I have seen no
reason to change my opinion.
Passengers continued to arrive until nearly two o'clock. There were
one or two officers with their muchachos, and some twenty or more
schoolteachers. Six were women, and we found ourselves allotted the
best there was.
We got away about three o'clock, and, after fouling a line over a row
of cascos and threatening their destruction, sailed down the Pasig and
out into the Bay, We passed Corregidor about sunset, met a heavy sea
and stiff wind outside, and I retired from society. This was Saturday
night. On Sunday noon we cast anchor in the lovely harbor of Romblon,
and, defying sickness, I came on deck to admire.
The harbor at Romblon resembles a lake guarded by mountains which are
covered with cocoanut trees clear to their summits. At one end--the
end toward the entrance, which no unfamiliar eye can detect--a great
plateau mountain called Tablas stretches across the view in lengthened
bulk like the sky-line of some submarine upheaval. The waters are gayly
colored, shadowed into exquisite greens by the plumy mountains above;
and in a little valley lies the white town of Romblon with its squat
municipal buildings, its gray old church, and a graceful _campanile_
rising from a grassy plaza. They have dammed a mountain stream, so that
the town is bountifully supplied with pure cold water, and with its
clean streets and whitewashed buildings, it is a most attractive place.
The inhabitants of Romblon were eager to sell us mats, or _petates_,
the making of which is a special industry there. Their prices had
suffered the rise which is an inevitable result of American occupation,
and were quite beyond our means. I succeeded afterwards in getting
some Romblon mats through a Filipino friend for about one-fifth the
price asked that day.
Our stay at Romblon was not lengthy. We got out some time in the late
afternoon, and proceeded on our way. I cannot remember whether we
occupied all that night and the next day in getting down to Iloilo or
whether we made Iloilo in twelve hours. I do remember the night trip
down the east coast of Panay, with Negros on the invisible left,
and all about us a chain of little islands where the fisher folk
were engaged in their night work of spearing fish by torchlight. Dim
mountainous shapes would rise out of the sea and loom vaguely in the
starlit distance, the curving beaches at their bases outlined by the
torches in the bancas till they looked like boulevards with their lines
of flickering lamps. I remember that we fell to singing, and that after
we had sung everything we knew, an officer of the First Infantry who
was going back to his regiment after a wound and a siege in hospital
said enthusiastically: "Oh, don't stop. You don't know how it sounds
to hear a whole lot of American men and women singing together."
It was somewhere between ten and midnight when a light flashed ahead,
and beyond it lay a little maze of twinkles that they said was
Iloilo. The anchor chains ran out with a clang and rattle, for our
Spanish captain took no chances, and would not pick his way through
the Siete Pecadores at night.
The Siete Pecadores, or Seven Sinners, are a group of islands, or
rocks--for they amount to little more than that--some six miles north
of Iloilo, just at the head of Guimaras Strait. On the east the long,
narrow island of Guimaras, hilly and beautifully wooded, lies like
a wedge between Panay and Negros. Beyond it the seven-thousand-foot
volcano, Canlaon, on Negros, lifts a purple head. On the west lies the
swampy foreshore of Panay with a mountain range inland, daring the
sunlight with scarpy flanks, on which every ravine and every cleft
are sunk in shadows of violet and pink. The water of the straits is
glassy and full of jelly-fish, some of the white dome-like kind, but
more of the purple ones that float on the water like a petalled flower.
Iloilo was a miniature edition of Manila, save that there were more
gardens and that there was a rural atmosphere such as is characteristic
of small towns in the States. The toy horses and the toy carromatas
and quilices were there, and the four-horse wagons with a staring
"U. S." on their blue sides. There were the same dusky crowds in
transparent garments, the soldiers in khaki, the bugle calls, and
the Stars and Stripes fluttering from all the public buildings.
As Iloilo was not well supplied with hotels, we women were barracked in
a new house belonging to the American Treasurer, whose family had not
yet arrived from the States, We found our old friend, the army cot,
borrowed from the military quartermaster. There was a sitting-room
well equipped with chairs and tables. Our meals were obtained from
a neighboring boarding-house which rejoiced in the name "American
Restaurant," and was kept by a Filipina. She was a good soul, and had
learned how to make cocoanut balls, so that we bade a glad adieu to
the bananas and guava jelly.
Our own particular waitress was a ten-year-old child, who said "hello"
and smoked a cigar as long as herself. In a moment of enthusiasm
one of our number who was interested in temperance and its allied
reforms tipped Basilia a whole Mexican media-peseta. When the reformer
became aware of Basilia's predilection for the weed, she wanted her
media-peseta back, but Basilia was too keen a financier for that. The
media-peseta was hers--given in the presence of witnesses--and she
somewhat ostentatiously blew smoke rings when she found the reformer's
eye fixed upon her.
At Iloilo we picked up the word _tao_, which means "man," especially
"laboring man," for the Filipinos usually fall back upon the Spanish
words _caballero_ and _señor_ to designate the fortunate individuals
whose hands are unstained with toil. We had picked up the vernacular
of the street carromata in Manila. This is very simple. It consists
of _sigue, para, derecho, mano_, and _silla_. For the benefit of such
readers as do not understand pidgin Spanish, it may be explained that
these words signify, respectively, "go on," "stop," "straight ahead,"
"to the right," and "to the left." The words _mano_ and _silla_
mean really "hand" and "saddle"; I have been told that they are
linguistic survivals of the days when women, rode on pillions and the
fair incubus indicated that she wished to turn either to the side of
her right hand or to the skirt side.
By this time we had begun to understand--just to understand in
infinitely small proportion--what the old resident Americans
meant when they joked about the Philippines as a _mañana_
country. When we inquired when a boat would be in, the reply was
"Seguro mañana"--"To-morrow for sure." When would it leave? "Seguro
mañana." Nothing annoys or embarrasses a Filipino more than the
American habit of railing at luck or of berating the unfortunate
purveyor of disappointing news, or, in fact, of insisting on accurate
information if it can be obtained. They are ready to say anything at
a minute's notice. A friend of mine in Ilocos Norte once lost a ring,
and asked her servant if he knew anything about it. The boy replied
instantly, "Seguro raton," which is an elliptical form of "Surely
a rat ate it." The boy had not stolen the ring, but he jumped at
anything to head off complaint or investigation.
Time is apparently of no value in the Philippines. On the second day
of our stay in Iloilo the Treasurer sent up two pieces of furniture
for our use, a wardrobe and a table. They were delivered just before
lunch, about ten o'clock, and the Treasurer would not be at home
to sign for them till nearly one. When I came in from a shopping
expedition, I found eight or ten taos sitting placidly on their
heels in the front yard, while the two pieces of new furniture were
lying in the mud just as they had been dumped when the bearers eased
their shoulders from the poles. The noonday heat waxed fiercer, and
the Treasurer was delayed, but nobody displayed any impatience. The
men continued to sit on their heels, to chew their betel nut, and
to smoke their cigars, and, I verily believe, would have watched the
sun set before they would have left. In an hour or so the Treasurer
appeared, and settled the account, the taos picked up the furniture
and deposited it in the house, and the object lesson was over.
In spite of shopping, time hung somewhat heavy on our hands at
Iloilo. We made few acquaintances, for there were few civilian
women, and the army ladies, so we were informed, looked askance at
schoolteachers, and had determined that we were not to be admitted
into "society." The army nurses asked us to five o'clock tea, and we
went and enjoyed it. They were, for the most part, gentlewomen born,
and the self-sacrifice of their daily lives had accentuated their
native refinement. I have few remembrances more pleasant than those
of the half-hour we spent in their cool _sala_. As for the tea they
gave us and the delicious toast, mere words are inadequate to describe
them. We became sensible that the art of cooking had not vanished from
the earth. After the garbanzos and the bescochos and the guava jelly,
how good they tasted!
In the course of two or three days we were notified that the _vapor
General Blanco_ would leave for Capiz on Saturday at five P.M., and
some ten or twelve of us, destined for the province of that name, made
ready to depart. I was the only woman in the party, but our Division
Superintendent, who was personally conducting us and who was having
some little difficulty with his charges, assured me that I was a deal
less worry to him than some of the men were. I told him that I was
quite equal to getting myself and my luggage aboard the _Blanco_. I
had employed a native servant who said he knew how to cook, and I was
taking him up to Capiz with an eye to future comfort. Romoldo went
out and got a _carabao_ cart, heaping it with my trunks, deck chair,
and boxes. I followed in a _quilez_, and we rattled down to the wharf
in good time.
The _General Blanco_ was not of a size to make her conspicuous, and
I reflected that, if there had been another stage to the journey
and a proportional shrinkage in the vessel, it surely would have
had to be accomplished in a scow. Although by no means palatial,
the _Buford_ was a fair-sized, ocean-going steamer. The _Francisco
Reyes_ was a dirty old tub with pretensions to the contrary; and
the _General Blanco_--well, metaphorically speaking, the _General
Blanco_ was a coal scuttle. She was a supercilious-looking craft,
sitting at a rakish angle, her engines being aft. She had a freeboard
of six or seven feet, and possessed neither cabin nor staterooms,
the space between the superstructure and the rail being about three
feet wide. You could stay there, or, if you did not incommode the
engineer, you could go inside and sit on a coal pile. There was a
bridge approached by a rickety stair, and I judged that my deck chair
would fill it completely, leaving about six inches for the captain's
promenade. Behind the superstructure there was a sort of after-deck,
nearly four feet of it. When my trunks and boxes had been piled up
there, with the deck chair balancing precariously atop, and with
Romoldo reclining luxuriously in it, his distraught pompadour was
about on a level with the top of the smokestack.
I really didn't see any room aboard for me, and sat down on a
hemp bale to consider. Shortly after, the Division Superintendent
arrived, accompanied by several young men. He looked blank, and they
whistled. Then he went on board to talk with the captain, while his
assembled charges continued to ornament the hemp bales. Filipinos of
all ages and sizes gathered round to stare and to comment.
At last the Division Superintendent came back with the information
that the _Blanco_ would tow up a _lorcha_ which was lying a little
distance down the river, and that we should find her a roomier and
cooler means of transportation than the steamer. "Lorcha" is the name
given to the local sailing vessels. Our lorcha was about sixty feet
long, and, according to one of the teachers who had once seen Lake
Michigan, was "schooner rigged." There was a deck house aft, which
was converted into a stateroom for me. There were two bunks in it,
each of which I declined to patronize. Instead I had my steamer chair
brought over, and found there was plenty of room for it. There were
little sliding windows, which with the open door afforded fairly
decent ventilation. But the helm was just behind the deck house,
and the helmsman either sat or stood on the roof, so that all night
his responses to the steersman on the _Blanco_ interfered with my
sleep. Then, too, they kept their spare lanterns and their cocoanut
oil and some coils of rope in there. At intervals soft-footed natives
came in, and I was never certain whether it was to slay me or to get
some of their stores. Once a figure blocked out the starlight at one
of the windows, and I heard a rustling and shuffling on the shelf
where my food tins were piled. So I said, "Sigue! Vamos!" and the
figure disappeared.
The men opened their army cots on the forward deck, where the big sail
cut them off from the rest of the ship. The next morning they reported
a fine night's rest. I could not make so felicitous a report, for my
stateroom was considerably warmer than the open air, and a steamer
chair, though comfortable by day, does not make an acceptable bed.
We breakfasted from our private stores, and I found myself longing for
hot coffee, instead of which I had to drink evaporated milk diluted
with mineral water. The day was sunny, the heat beat fiercely off the
water, and I burned abominably. Near noon we sighted a town close to
the coast, and knew that we were nearing our journey's end.
We skirted the horn of a crescent-shaped bay, found a river's mouth,
and entered. Here at least was the tropical scene of my imagination--a
tide-swollen current, its marshy banks covered with strange foliage,
and innumerable water lanes leading out of it into palmy depths. Down
these lanes came bancas, sometimes with a single occupant paddling
at the stern, sometimes with a whole family sitting motionless on
their heels. Once we passed the ruins of what had been a sugar mill
or a _bino_ factory--probably the latter. Then the _Blanco_, puffing
ahead, whistled twice, we rounded a curve and came full upon the town.
Though subsequent familiarity has brought to my notice many details
that I then overlooked, that first impression was the one of greatest
charm, and the one I love best to remember. There were the great,
square, white-painted, red-tiled houses lining both banks of the river;
the picturesque groups beating their clothes on the flat steps which
led down to the water; and the sprawling wooden bridge in the distance
where the stream made an abrupt sweep to the right.
On the left of the bridge was a grassy plaza shaded with almond trees,
a stately church, several squat stone buildings which I knew for jail
and municipal quarters, and a flag staff with the Stars and Stripes
whipping the breeze from its top. Over all hung a sky dazzlingly blue
and an atmosphere crystal clear. Back of the town a low unforested
mountain heaved a grassy shoulder above the palms, and far off there
was a violet tracery of more mountains.
I knew that I should like Capiz.