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-Project Gutenberg's Yesterdays in the Philippines, by Joseph Earle Stevens
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Yesterdays in the Philippines
-
-Author: Joseph Earle Stevens
-
-Release Date: December 3, 2019 [EBook #60842]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
-Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
-made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
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-
-
-                     YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES
-
-                                   BY
-
-                          JOSEPH EARLE STEVENS
-
-                        AN EX-RESIDENT OF MANILA
-
-
-
-                              ILLUSTRATED
-
-                                NEW YORK
-                        CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
-                                  1898
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                         IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-    INTRODUCTION                                              Page xiii
-
-
-    I
-
-    Leaving "God's Country"--Hong Kong--Crossing to Luzon--Manila
-    Bay--First View of the City--Earthquake Precautions--Balconies and
-    Window-gratings--The River Pasig--Promenade of the Malecon--The
-    Old City--The Puente de España--Population--A Philippine Bed--The
-    English Club--The Luneta--A Christmas Dinner at the Club,    Page 1
-
-
-    II
-
-    Shopping at the "Botica Inglesa"--The Chit System--Celebrating
-    New Year's Eve--Manila Cooking Arrangements--Floors and
-    Windows--Peculiarities of the Tram-car Service--Roosters
-    Everywhere--Italian Opera--Philippine Music--The Mercury at 74°
-    and an Epidemic of "Grippe"--Fight Between a Bull and a Tiger--A
-    Sorry Fiasco--Carnival Sunday,                              Page 22
-
-
-    III
-
-    A Philippine Valet--The Three Days Chinese New Year--Marionettes
-    and Minstrels at Manila--Yankee Skippers--Furnishing a
-    Bungalow--Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes--A New Arrival--Pony-races
-    in Santa Mesa--Cigars and Cheroots--Servants--Cool Mountain
-    Breezes--House-snakes--Cost of Living--Holy Week,           Page 43
-
-
-    IV
-
-    An Up-country Excursion--Steaming up the River to the
-    Lake--Legend of the Chinaman and the Crocodile--Santa Cruz
-    and Pagsanjan--Dress of the Women--Mountain Gorges and River
-    Rapids--Church Processions--Cocoanut Rafts--A "Carromata" Ride to
-    Paquil--An Earthquake Lasting Forty-five Seconds--Small-pox and
-    other Diseases in the Philippines--The Manila Fire Department--How
-    Thatch Dealers Boom the Market--Cost of Living,             Page 60
-
-
-    V
-
-    Visit of the Sagamore--Another Mountain Excursion--The Caves of
-    Montalvan--A Hundred-mile View--A Village School--A "Fiesta"
-    at Obando--The Manila Fire-tree--A Move to the Seashore--A
-    Waterspout--Captain Tayler's Dilemma--A Trip Southward--The Lake
-    of Taal and its Volcano--Seven Hours of Poling--A Night's Sleep
-    in a Hen-coop,                                              Page 87
-
-
-    VI
-
-    First Storm of the Rainy Season--Fourth of July--Chinese "Chow"
-    Dogs--Crullers and Pie and a Chinese Cook--A Red-letter Day--The
-    China-Japan War--Manila Newspapers--General Blanco and the
-    Archbishop--An American Fire-engine and its Lively Trial--The
-    Coming of the Typhoon--Violence of the Wind--The Floods
-    Next--Manila Monotony,                                     Page 112
-
-
-    VII
-
-    A Series of Typhoons--A Chinese Feast-day--A Bank-holiday
-    Excursion--Lost in the Mist--Los Baños--The "Enchanted Lake"--Six
-    Dollars for a Human Life--A Religious Procession--Celebration
-    of the Expulsion of the Chinese--Bicycle Races and Fireworks,
-                                                               Page 137
-
-
-    VIII
-
-    A Trip to the South--Contents of the "Puchero"--Romblon--Cebu,
-    the Southern Hemp-centre--Places Touched At--A Rich Indian
-    at Camiguin--Tall Trees--Primitive Hemp-cleaners--A New
-    Volcano--Mindanao Island--Moro Trophies--Iligan--Iloilo--Back
-    Again at Manila,                                           Page 149
-
-
-    IX
-
-    Club-house Chaff--Christmas Customs and Ceremonies--New Year's
-    Calls--A Dance at the English Club--The Royal Exposition of the
-    Philippines--Fireworks on the King's Fête Day--Electric Lights and
-    the Natives--The Manila Observatory--A Hospitable Governor--The
-    Convent at Antipolo,                                       Page 173
-
-
-    X
-
-    Exacting Harbor Regulations--The Eleanor takes French Leave--Loss
-    of the Gravina--Something about the Native Ladies--Ways of
-    Native Servants--A Sculptor who was a Dentist--Across the Bay
-    to Orani--Children in Plenty--A Public Execution by the Garrote,
-                                                               Page 195
-
-
-    XI
-
-    Lottery Chances and Mischances--An American Cigarette-making
-    Machine and its Fate--Closing up Business--How the
-    Foreigner Feels Toward Life in Manila--Why the English
-    and Germans Return--Restlessness among the Natives--Their
-    Persecution--Departure and Farewell,                       Page 213
-
-
-    CONCLUSION                                                 Page 230
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-                                                            Facing page
-
-    How We Dressed for $2.50                               Frontispiece
-    Our Office and the Punkah under which the Old Salts
-        Sat for Free Sea Breezes                                      8
-    Plaza de Cervantes, Foreign Business Quarter                     14
-    Puente de España. Manila's Main Highway Across the Pasig         20
-    The Busy Pasig, from the Puente de España                        26
-    A Philippine Sleeping-machine                                    32
-    The English Club on the Banks of the Pasig                       40
-    The Bull and Tiger Fight--Opening Exercises                      46
-    Suburb of Santa Mesa                                             54
-    Our Destination was a Town Called Pagsanjan at the Foot of a
-        Range of Mountains                                           60
-    The Rapids in the Gorges of Pagsanjan                            66
-    Cocoanut Rafts on the Pasig, Drifting down to Manila             72
-    The Little Native School under the Big Mango-tree                78
-    Calzada de San Miguel                                            84
-    A Native Village Up Country                                      90
-    A "Chow" Shop on a Street Corner                                 98
-    Puentes de Ayala, which Help two of Manila's Suburbs to Shake
-        Hands Across the Pasig                                      106
-    Calzada de San Sebastian                                        114
-    Ploughing in the Rice-fields with the Carabao                   122
-    Types of True Filipinos Waiting to Call Themselves Americans    130
-    On the Banks of the Enchanted Lake                              138
-    In the Narrow Streets of Old Manila. A Procession               144
-    A Citizen from the Interior                                     152
-    How the World's Supply of Manila Hemp is Cleaned                160
-    Moro Chiefs from Mindanao                                       168
-    Manila Fruit-girls in a Street-Corner Attitude                  176
-    A Typical "Nipa" House                                          184
-    The Little Flower-girl at the Opera                             192
-    Rapid Transit in the Suburbs of Manila                          202
-    The Fourth of July, '95. Execution by the Garrote               210
-    Paseo de la Luneta                                              220
-    Captain Tayler, the Genial Skipper of the Esmeralda             226
-    Map of Philippines                                 At End of Volume
-
-
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION
-
-
-By the victory of our fleet at Manila Bay, one more of the world's
-side-tracked capitals has been pulled from obscurity into main lines
-of prominence and the average citizen is no longer left, as in days
-gone by, to suppose that Manila is spelt with two l's and is floating
-around in the South Sea somewhere between Fiji and Patagonia. The
-Philippines have been discovered, and the daily journals with their
-cheap maps have at last located Spain's Havana in the Far East. It is
-indeed curious that a city of a third of a million people--capital
-of a group of islands as large as New England, New York, Delaware,
-Maryland, and New Jersey, which have long furnished the whole world
-with its entire supply of Manila hemp, which have exported some
-160,000 tons of sugar in a single year and which to-day produce as
-excellent tobacco as that coming from the West Indies--it is curious,
-I say, that a city of this size should have gone so long unnoticed
-and misspelt. But such has been the case, and until Admiral Dewey
-fired the shots that made Manila heard round the world, the people of
-these United States--with but few exceptions--lived and died without
-knowing where the stuff in their clothes-lines came from.
-
-Now that the Philippines are ours, do we want them? Can we run
-them? Are they the long-looked-for El Dorado which those who have
-never been there suppose? To all of which questions--even at the risk
-of being called unpatriotic--I am inclined to answer, No.
-
-Do we want them? Do we want a group of 1,400 islands, nearly 8,000
-miles from our Western shores, sweltering in the tropics, swept
-with typhoons and shaken with earthquakes? Do we want to undertake
-the responsibility of protecting those islands from the powers in
-Europe or the East, and of standing sponsor for the nearly 8,000,000
-native inhabitants that speak a score of different tongues and live
-on anything from rice to stewed grasshoppers? Do we want the task of
-civilizing this race, of opening up the jungle, of setting up officials
-in frontier, out-of-the-way towns who won't have been there a month
-before they will wish to return?
-
-Do we want them? No. Why? Because we have got enough to look after
-at home. Because--unlike the Englishman or the German who, early
-realizing that his country is too small to support him, grows up
-with the feeling that he must relieve the burden by going to the
-uttermost parts of the sea--our young men have room enough at home
-in which to exert their best energies without going eight or eleven
-thousand miles across land and water to tropic islands in the Far East.
-
-Can we run them? The Philippines are hard material with which to
-make our first colonial experiment, and seem to demand a different
-sort of treatment from that which our national policy favors or has
-had experience in giving. Besides the peaceable natives occupying
-the accessible towns, the interiors of many of the islands are
-filled with aboriginal savages who have never even recognized the
-rule of Spain--who have never even heard of Spain, and who still
-think they are possessors of the soil. Even on the coast itself are
-tribes of savages who are almost as ignorant as their brethren in the
-interior, and only thirty miles from Manila are races of dwarfs that
-go without clothes, wear knee-bracelets of horsehair, and respect
-nothing save the jungle in which they live. To the north are the
-Igorrotes, to the south the Moros, and in between, scores of wild
-tribes that are ready to dispute possession. And is the United States
-prepared to maintain the forces and carry on the military operations
-in the fever-stricken jungles necessary in the march of progress to
-exterminate or civilize such races? Have we, like England for instance,
-the class of troops who could undertake that sort of work, and do we
-feel called upon to do it, when the same expenditure at home would go
-so much further? The Philippines must be run under a despotic though
-kindly form of government, supported by arms and armor-clads, and to
-deal with the perplexing questions and perplexing difficulties that
-arise, needs knowledge gained by experience, by having dealt with
-other such problems before.
-
-Are the Philippines an El Dorado? Like Borneo, like Java and the Spice
-Islands, the Philippines are rich in natural resources, but their
-capacity to yield more than the ordinary remuneration to labor I much
-question. Leaving aside the question of gold and coal, in the working
-of which, so far, more money has been put into the ground than has
-ever been taken out, the great crops in these islands are sugar, hemp,
-and tobacco. The sugar crop, to be sure, has the possibilities that
-it has anywhere, where the soil is rich and conditions favorable. The
-tobacco industry has perhaps more possibilities, and might be made
-a close rival to that in Cuba. But the hemp crop is limited by
-the world's needs, and as those needs are just so much each year,
-there is no object in increasing a supply which up to date has been
-adequate. There are foreigners in the Philippines, who have been
-there for years, who have controlled the exports of sugar or hemp or
-tobacco, who have made their living, and who from having been longer
-on the ground should be the first to improve the opportunities that
-may come with the downfall of Spanish rule. There are some things
-which the United States can send to the Philippines cheaper than the
-Continental manufacturers, but not many. She can send flour and some
-kinds of machinery, she can put in electric plants, she can build
-railways, but at present she can't produce the cheap implements,
-and the necessaries required by the great bulk of poor natives at
-the low price which England and Germany can.
-
-The Philippines are not an El Dorado simply because for the first
-time they have been brought to our notice. They should not yield
-more than the ordinary return to labor, and the question is, does the
-average American want to live in a distant land, cut off from friends
-and a civilized climate, only to get the ordinary return for his
-efforts? To which, even though of course there is much to be said on
-the other side, I would answer, No. We have gone to war, remembering
-the Maine, to free Cuba, and at the first blow have taken another
-group of islands--a Cuba in the East--to deal with. I have not the
-space here to discuss the solution of the problem, but, for my part,
-I should like to see England interested in buying back an archipelago
-which she formerly held for ransom, leaving us perhaps a coaling port,
-and opening up the country to such as chose to go there. Then, with
-someone else to shoulder the burden of government and protection, we
-should still have all the opportunities for proving whether or not the
-islands were the El Dorado dreamed of in our clubs or counting-rooms.
-
-At the close of 1893, I went to Manila for Messrs. Henry W. Peabody &
-Co., of Boston and New York, in the interest of their hemp business,
-and, associated with Mr. A. H. Rand, remained there for two years. We
-two were the representatives of the only American house doing business
-in the Philippines, and made up practically fifty per cent. of the
-American business colony in Manila. The years from 1894 to 1896 were
-peculiarly peaceful with the quiet coming before the storm, and we were
-fortunate enough to be able to make many excursions and go into many
-parts of the island that later would have been dangerous. But as the
-short term of our service drew to a close, rumors of trouble began to
-circulate. The natives had long suffered from the demands made by the
-Church and the tax-gatherer, and there was a feeling that they might
-again attempt to throw off the Spanish yoke, as they attempted, without
-success, some years before. It was at this period that Messrs. Peabody
-& Co. decided it would be to their unquestionable advantage to retire
-from the islands and to place their business in the hands of an English
-firm, long established on the ground, and well equipped with men who,
-unlike ourselves, looked forward to passing the rest of their days
-in the Philippines. And the move was a good one, for no sooner had
-we left Manila than revolution broke out. The Spanish troops were at
-the south, and that mysterious native brotherhood of the Katipunan
-called its members to attack the capital. A massacre was planned,
-but the right leaders were lacking and the attempt failed. The troops
-were recalled, guards doubled, drawbridges into old Manila pulled up
-nightly, arrests and executions made. As is well known, one hundred
-suspects were crowded into that old dungeon on the river, just at the
-corner of the city wall, and because it came on to rain, at night-fall,
-an officer shut down the trap-door leading to the prisoners' cells to
-keep out the water. But it also kept out the air, and next morning
-sixty out of the one hundred persons were suffocated. Then Manila
-had her Black Hole. Later, other suspects were stood on the curbing
-that surrounds the Luneta and were shot down while the big artillery
-band discoursed patriotic music to the crowds that thronged the
-promenade. And from then until Admiral Dewey silenced the guns at
-Cavité and sunk the Spanish ships that used to swing peacefully at
-anchor off the breakwater, the Spaniards had their hands full with
-a revolution brought on by their own rotten system of government.
-
-If in place of the more systematic narratives of description, the more
-serious presentations of statistics, or the more exciting accounts
-of the bloody months of the revolution and the wonderful victory of
-our gallant fleet, which are to be looked for from other sources, the
-reader cares to get some idea of casual life in Manila, by accepting
-the rather colloquial chronicle of an ex-resident that follows, I shall
-have made some little return to islands that robbed me of little else
-than two years of a more hurried existence in State Street or Broadway.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES
-
-I
-
-    Leaving "God's Country"--Hong Kong--Crossing to Luzon--Manila
-    Bay--First View of the City--Earthquake Precautions--Balconies and
-    Window-Gratings--The River Pasig--Promenade of the Malecon--The
-    Old City--The Puente de España--Population--A Philippine Bed--The
-    English Club--The Luneta--A Christmas Dinner at the Club.
-
-
-"I wouldn't give much for your chances of coming back unboxed," said
-the Captain to me, as the China steamed out from the Golden Gate on
-the twenty-five day voyage to Hong Kong via Honolulu and Yokohama.
-
-"That's God's country we're leaving behind, sure enough," said he,
-"and you'll find it out after a week or two in the Philippines. There's
-Howe came back with us last trip from there; almost shuffled off on
-the way. Spent half a year in Manila with small-pox, fever, snakes,
-typhoons, and earthquakes, and had to be carried aboard ship at Hong
-Kong and off at 'Frisco. Guess he's about done for all right."
-
-And as Howe happened to be the unfortunate whose place in Manila I
-was going to take, you know, I heeded the skipper's advice and looked
-with more fervor on God's country than I had for some days. For it
-was a dusty trip across country from Boston on the Pacific express;
-and because babies are my pet aversion every mother's son of them
-aboard the train was quartered in my car--three families moving West
-to grow up with the country, and all of them occupying the three
-sections nearest mine. I got so weary of the five cooing, coughing,
-crying "clouds-of-glory-trailers," that it seemed a relief at San
-Francisco to wash off the dust of the Middle West and get aboard the
-P. M. S. Company's steamer China bound for the far East.
-
-But the Captain, like the whistle, was somewhat of a blower, and liked
-to make me and the missionaries aboard feel we were leaving behind all
-that was desirable. And how he bothered the twoscore or more of them
-bound for the up-river ports of Middle China! When, after leaving the
-Sandwich Islands, the voyage had proceeded far enough for everybody on
-the passenger-list to get fairly well acquainted with his neighbors,
-these spreaders of the gospel followed the custom established by their
-predecessors and made plans for a Sunday missionary service. Without so
-much as asking leave of the skipper, they posted in the companion-way
-the following notice:
-
-
-                         Service in the Saloon,
-
-                            Sunday, 10 A.M.
-
-                  Rev. X. Y. Z. Smith, of Wang-kiang,
-                      China, will speak on mission
-                       work on the Upper Yangtse.
-
-                            All are invited.
-
-
-But they counted without their host. The Captain had never schooled
-himself to look on missionaries with favor, and he accordingly made
-arrangements to cross the meridian where the circle of time changes and
-a day is dropped early on Sunday morning. He calculated to a nicety,
-and as the passengers came down to Sabbath breakfast they saw posted
-below the other notice, in big letters, the significant words:
-
-
-                           Sunday, Nov. 29th.
-
-                      Ship crosses 180th meridian
-
-                               9.30 A.M.,
-
-                     After which it will be Monday.
-
-
-In Yokohama and Hong Kong the wiseacres were free in saying they
-wouldn't be found dead in Manila or the Philippines for anything. They
-had never been there, but knew all about it, and seemed ready to wave
-any one bound thither a sort of never'll-see-you-again farewell that
-was most affecting. It is these very people that have made Manila the
-side-tracked capital that it is and have scared off globe-trotters from
-making it a visit on their way to the Straits of Malacca and India.
-
-Hong Kong, the end of the China's outward run, bursts into view
-after a narrow gateway, between inhospitable cliffs, lets the
-steamer into a great bay which is the centre of admiration for bleak
-mountain-ranges. The city, with its epidemic of arcaded balconies,
-lies along the water to the left and goes stepping up the steep
-slopes to the peak behind, on whose summit the signal-flags announce
-our arrival. The China has scarcely a chance to come to anchor in
-peace before a storm of sampans bite her sides like mosquitoes,
-and hundreds of Chinawomen come hustling up to secure your trade,
-while their lazy husbands stay below and smoke.
-
-Hong Kong rather feels as if it were the "central exchange" for the
-Far East, and from the looks of things I judge it is. The great bay is
-full of deep-water ships, the quays teem with life, and the streets are
-full of quiet bustle. It is quite enough to give one heart disease to
-shin up the hills to the residence part of the town, and it took me
-some time to find breath enough to tell the Spanish Consul I wanted
-him to visé my passport to Manila.
-
-This interesting stronghold of Old England in the East is fertile in
-descriptive matter by the wholesale, but I can't rob my friends in
-the Philippines of more space than enough to chronicle the doings of
-a Chinese tailor who made me up my first suit of thin tweeds. Ripping
-off the broad margin to the Hong Kong Daily Press, he stood me on a
-box, took my measure with his strip of paper, making sundry little
-tears along its length, according as it represented length of sleeve
-or breadth of chest, and sent me off with a placid "Me makee allee
-same plopper tree day; no fittee no takee." And I'm bound to say that
-the thin suits Tak Cheong built for $6 apiece, from nothing but the
-piece of paper full of tears, fit to far greater perfection than the
-system of measurement would seem to have warranted.
-
-The voyage from Hong Kong to Manila, 700 miles to the southeast, is one
-of the worst short ocean-crossings in existence, and the Esmeralda,
-Captain Tayler, as she went aslant the seas rolling down from Japan,
-in front of the northeast monsoon, developed such a corkscrew motion
-that I fear it will take a return trip against the other monsoon to
-untwist the feelings of her passengers. On the morning of the second
-day, however, the yawing ceased; the skipper said we were under the
-lee of Luzon, the largest and most northern island of the Philippines,
-and not long after the high mountains of the shore-range loomed up
-off the port bow. From then on our chunky craft of 1,000 tons steamed
-closer to the coast and turned headland after headland as she poked
-south through schools of flying-fish and porpoises.
-
-By afternoon the light-house on Corregidor appeared, and with a big
-sweep to the left the Esmeralda entered the Boca Chica, or narrow
-mouth to Manila Bay. On the left, the coast mountains sloped steeply
-up for some 5,000 feet, while on the right the island of Corregidor,
-with its more moderate altitude, stood planted in the twelve-mile
-opening to worry the tides that swept in and out from the China
-Sea. Beyond lay the Boca Grande, or wide mouth used by ships coming
-from the south or going thither, and still beyond again rose the lower
-mountains of the south coast. In front the Bay opened with a grand
-sweep right and left, till the shore was lost in waves of warm air,
-and only the dim blue of distant mountains showed where the opposite
-perimeter of the great circle might be located.
-
-It was twenty-seven miles across the bay, and the sun had set with
-a wealth of color in the opening behind us before we came to anchor
-amid a fleet of ships and steamers off a low-lying shore that showed
-many lights in long rows. Next morning Manila lay visibly before us,
-but failed to convey much idea of its size, from the fact that it
-stretched far back on the low land, thus permitting the eye to see
-only the front line of buildings and a few taller and more distant
-church-steeples. Not far in the background rose a high range of
-velvet-like looking mountains whose tops aspired to show themselves
-above the clouds, and on the right and left stretched flanking ranges
-of lower altitude.
-
-In due season my colleague came off to the anchorage in a small launch,
-and we were soon steaming back up a narrow river thickly fringed
-with small ships, steamers, houses, quays, and people. It was piping
-hot at the low custom-house on the quay. Panting carabao--the oxen
-of the East--tried to find shade under a parcel of bamboos, shaggy
-goats nosed about for stray bits of crude sugar dropped from bags
-being discharged by coolies, piles of machinery were lying around
-promiscuously dumped into the deep mud of the outyards, natives with
-bared backs gleaming in the sun were lugging hemp or prying open
-boxes, and under-officials with sharp rods were probing flour-sacks
-in the search for contraband. Spanish officials in full uniform,
-smoking cigarettes, playing chess, and fanning themselves in their
-comfortable seats in bent-wood rocking-chairs, were interrupted by
-our arrival, and made one boil within as they upset the baggage and
-searched for smuggled dollars.
-
-Here, then, was the anti-climax to the long journey of forty days from
-Boston, and those were the moments in which to realize the meaning of
-the expression made by the Captain of the China as she left the Golden
-Gate: "Take a last look, for you're leaving behind God's country."
-
-Before arrival, while yet the Esmeralda was steaming down the coast,
-I was resolved to refrain from judging Manila by first impressions. I
-felt primed for anything, and was bound to be neither surprised nor
-disappointed. At first, I may admit, my chin and collar drooped,
-but on meeting with my new associate I gave them a mental starching
-and stepped with courage into the rickety barouche that, drawn by two
-small and bony ponies, took us to the office of Henry W. Peabody &
-Co., the only American house in the Philippines.
-
-And having entered the two upstair rooms, that looked out over
-the little Plaza de Cervantes, I was introduced to bamboo chairs,
-a quartette of desks, and half a dozen office-boys, who were rudely
-awakened from their morning's slumber by the scuffle of my heavy
-boots on the broad, black planks of the shining floors. Across the
-larger room, suspended from the ceiling, hung the big "punka," which
-seems to form a most important article of furniture in every tropical
-establishment. On my arrival the boy who pulled the string got down
-to work, and amid the sea-breezes that blew the morning's mail about,
-business of the day began.
-
-The first thing I noticed was that cloth instead of plaster formed
-the walls and ceilings, and seemed far less likely than the mixture
-of lime and water to fall into baby's crib or onto the dinner-table
-during those terrestrial or celestial exhibitions for which Manila is
-famous. For the Philippines are said to be the cradle of earthquake
-and typhoon, and in buildings, everywhere, construction seems to
-conform to the requirements of these much-respected "movers." Tiles
-on roofs, they say, are now forbidden, since the passers-by below are
-not willing to wear brass helmets or carry steel umbrellas to ward
-off a shower of those missiles started by a heavy shake. Galvanized
-iron is used instead, and, while detracting from the picturesque,
-has added to the security of households who once used to be rudely
-awakened from their slumbers by the extra weight of tile bedspreads.
-
-And Manila houses. Down in the town, outside the city walls, the
-regular, or rather irregular, Spanish type prevails, and nature,
-in her nervousness, seems to have done much in dispensing with
-lines horizontal and perpendicular. The buildings all have an
-appearance of feebleness and senility, and look as if a good blow
-or a heavy shake would lay them flat. But in the old city, behind
-the fortifications, are heavy buttressed buildings of by-gone days,
-built when it was thought that earthquakes respected thick walls
-rather than thin, and the sturdy buttresses so occupy the narrow
-sidewalks that pedestrians must travel single file. The Spanish--so
-it seems--rejoice to huddle together in these gloomy houses of
-Manila proper, but the rich natives, half-castes, and foreigners all
-prefer the newer villas outside the narrow streets and musty walls;
-and just as much as the Anglo-Saxon likes to place a grass-plot or
-a garden between him and the thoroughfare in front of his residence,
-so does the Spaniard seek to hug close to the street, and even builds
-his house to overhang the sidewalk. Save for carriages and dogs, the
-lower floors of city houses are generally deserted, and, on account of
-fevers that hang about in the mists of the low-ground, everyone takes
-to living on the upper story. Balconies, which are so elaborate that
-they carry the whole upper part of the house out over the sidewalk,
-are a conspicuous feature in all the buildings of older construction,
-and with their engaging overhang afford opportunities for leaning out
-to talk with passers-by below, or a convenient vantage-ground from
-which to throw the waste water from wash-basins. Huge window-gratings
-thrust themselves forward from the walls of the lower story, and are
-often big enough to permit dogs and servants to sit in them and watch
-the pedestrians, who almost have to leave the sidewalk to get around
-these great cages.
-
-It may be just as well, before going farther, to say something about
-this town that is sarcastically labelled "Pearl of the Orient"
-and "Venice of the Far East" by poets who have only seen the
-oyster-shell windows or back doors on the Pasig on the cover-labels
-of cigar-boxes. It seems big enough to supply me with the pianos and
-provisions which kind friends suggested I bring out with me in case
-of need, and the main street, Escolta, is as busy with life and as
-well fringed with shops as a Washington street or a Broadway.
-
-Spanish, of course, is the court and commercial language and, except
-among the uneducated natives who have a lingo of their own or among the
-few members of the Anglo-Saxon colony--it has a monopoly everywhere. No
-one can really get on without it, and even the Chinese come in with
-their peculiar pidgin variety.
-
-The city squats around its old friend the river Pasig, and shakes
-hands with itself in the several bridges that bind one side to the
-other. On the right bank of the river, coming in from the bay and
-passing up by the breakwater, lies the old walled town of Manila
-proper, whose weedy moats, ponderous drawbridges, and heavy gates
-suggest a troubled past. Old Manila may be figured as a triangle,
-a mile on a side, and the dingy walls seem, as it were, to herd in
-a drove of church-steeples, schools, houses, and streets. The river
-is the boundary on the north, and the wall at that side but takes up
-the quay which runs in from the breakwater and carries it up to the
-Puente de España, the first bridge that has courage enough to span
-the yellow stream.
-
-The front wall runs a mile to the south along the bay front, starting
-at the river in the old fort and battery that look down on the berth
-where the Esmeralda lies, and is separated from the beach only by
-an old moat and the promenade of the Malecon, which, also beginning
-at the river, runs to an open plaza called the Luneta, a mile up the
-beach. The east wall takes up the business at that point, and wobbles
-off at an angle again till it brings up at the river fortifications,
-just near where the Puente de España, already spoken of, carries all
-the traffic across the Pasig. Thus the old city is cooped up like
-pool-balls, in a triangle three miles around, and the walls do as
-much in keeping out the wind as they do in keeping in the various
-unsavory odors that come from people who like garlic and don't take
-baths. Here is the cathedral--a fine old church that cost a million
-of money and was widowed of its steeple in the earthquakes of the
-'80s--and besides a lot of smaller churches are convent schools,
-the city hall, army barracks, and a raft of private residences.
-
-Opposite Old Manila, on the other bank, lies the business section,
-with the big quays lined with steamers and alive with movement. The
-custom-house and the foreign business community are close by the
-river-side, while in back are hundreds of narrow streets, store-houses,
-and shops that go to make up the stamping ground of the Chinese who
-control so large a part of the provincial trade.
-
-Everything centres at the foot of the Puente de España, which pours
-its perspiring flood into the narrow lane of the Escolta, and people,
-carriages, tram-cars, and dust all sail in here from north, east,
-south, and west. As on the other side, the busy part of the section
-runs a mile up and down the river and a mile back from it, while out
-or up beyond come the earlier residential suburbs. In Old Manila,
-the Church seems to rule, but on this side the Pasig the State makes
-itself felt, from the custom-house to the governor's palace--a couple
-of miles up stream.
-
-As to population, Manila, in the larger sense, may hold 350,000 souls,
-besides a few dogs. Of the lot, call 50,000 Chinese, 5,000 Spaniards,
-150 Germans, 90 English, and 4 Americans. The rest are natives or
-half-castes of the Malay type, whose blood runs in all mixtures of
-Chinese, Spanish, and what-not proportions, and whose Chinese eyes,
-flat noses, and high cheek-bones are queer accompaniments to their
-Spanish accents. Thus the majority of the souls in Manila,--like the
-dogs--are mongrels, or mestizos, as the word is, and the saying goes
-that happy is the man who knows his own father.
-
-I spent my first night in Manila at the Spanish Hotel El Oriente, and
-it was here that I became acquainted with that peculiar institution,
-the Philippine bed. And to the newly arrived traveller its peculiar
-rig and construction make it command a good deal of interest, if not
-respect. It is a four-poster, with the posts extending high enough
-to support a light roof, from whose eaves hang copious folds of deep
-lace. The bed-frame is strung tightly across with regular chair-bottom
-cane, and the only other fittings are a piece of straw matting spread
-over the cane, a pillow, and a surrounding wall of mosquito-netting
-that drops down from the roof and is tucked in under the matting. How
-to get into one of these cages was the first question that presented
-itself, and what to do with myself after I got in was the second. It
-took at least half an hour to make up my mind as to the proper mode
-of entrance, when I was for the first time alone with this Philippine
-curiosity, and I couldn't make out whether it was proper to get in
-through the roof or the bottom or the side. After finally pulling away
-the netting, I found the hard cane bottom about as soft as the teak
-floor, and looked in vain for blankets, sheets, and mattresses. In
-fact, it seems as if I had gotten into an unfurnished house, and the
-more I thought about it the longer I stayed awake. At last I cut my
-way out of the peculiar arrangement, dressed, and spent the decidedly
-cool night in a long cane chair, preferring not to experiment further
-with the sleeping-machine until I found out how it worked.
-
-Next morning my breakfast was brought up by a native boy, and consisted
-of a cup of thick chocolate, a clammy roll, and a sort of seed-cake
-without any hole in it. How to drink the chocolate, which was as
-thick as molasses, seemed the chief question, but I rightly concluded
-that the seed-cake was put there to sop it out of the cup, after the
-fashion of blotting-paper. Fortified with this peculiar combination,
-I started on my second business day by trying to remember in what
-direction the office lay, and wandered cityward through busy streets,
-often bordered with arcaded sidewalks, which were further shaded from
-the sun by canvas curtains.
-
-After beginning the morning by ordering a dozen suits of white sheeting
-from a native tailor--price $2.50 apiece--I was introduced to the
-members of the English Club, and began to feel more at home stretched
-out in one of the long chairs in the cool library. It seems that
-the club affords shelter and refreshment to its fourscore members at
-two widely separated points of the compass, one just on the banks of
-the Pasig River, where its waters, slouching down from the big lake
-at the foot of the mountains, are first introduced to the outlying
-suburbs of the city, and the other in the heart of the business
-section. The same set of native servants do for both departments,
-since no one stays uptown during the middle of the day and no one
-downtown after business hours. As a result, on week-days, after the
-light breakfast of the early morning is over at the uptown building,
-the staff of waiters and assistants hurry downtown in the tram-cars
-and make ready for the noon meal at the other structure, returning
-home to the suburbs in time to officiate at dinner.
-
-At the downtown club is the 6,000-volume library, and after the
-noonday tiffin it is always customary to stretch out in one of the
-long bamboo chairs and read one's self to sleep. This is indeed a land
-where laziness becomes second nature. If you want a book or paper on
-the table, and they lie more than a yard or two from where you are
-located, it is not policy to reach for them. O, no! You ring a bell
-twice as far off, take a nap while the boy comes from a distance, and
-wake up to find him handing you them with a graceful "Aquí, Señor!" In
-fact, I have even just now met an English fellow who, they tell me,
-took a barber with him on a recent trip to the southern provinces, to
-look after his scanty beard that was composed of no more than three or
-four dozen hairs, each of which grew one-eighth of an inch quarterly.
-
-On the day before Christmas one of the guest-rooms at the uptown
-club was vacated, and I moved in. The building is about two and
-a half miles out of the city, and its broad balcony, shaded by
-luxuriant palms and other tropical trees, almost overhangs the main
-river that splits Manila in two. The view from this tropical piazza
-is most peaceful. Opposite lie the rice-fields, with a cluster of
-native huts surrounding an old church, while, blue in the distance,
-sleeps a range of low mountains. To the left the river winds back
-up-country and soon loses itself in many turns among the foothills
-that later grow into the more adult uplifts on the Pacific Coast,
-while to the right it turns a sharp corner and slides down between
-broken rows of native huts and more elaborate bungalows.
-
-The club-house is long, low, and rambling. The reading, writing,
-and music rooms front on the river, and the glossy hard-wood floors,
-hand-hewn out of solid trees, seem to suggest music and coolness. It
-is possible to reach the city by jumping into a native boat at the
-portico on the river bank, or to go by one of the two-wheel gigs,
-called carromatas, waiting at the front gate, or to walk a block and
-take the tram-car which jogs down through the busy highroad.
-
-It is very difficult to absorb the points of so large a place at one's
-first introduction, so I won't go further now than to speak of that
-far-famed seaside promenade called the Luneta, where society takes
-its airing after the heat of the day is over.
-
-Imagine an elliptical plaza, about a thousand feet long, situated
-just above the low beach which borders the Bay, and looking over
-toward the China Sea. Running around its edge is a broad roadway,
-bounded on one side by the sea-wall, and on the other by the green
-fields and bamboo-trees of the parade-grounds. In the centre of the
-raised ellipse is the band-stand, and on every afternoon, from six
-to eight, all Manila come here to feel the breeze, hear the music,
-and see their neighbors. Hundreds of carriages line the roadways,
-and mounted police keep them in proper file. The movement is from
-right to left, and only the Archbishop and the Governor-General are
-allowed to drive in the opposite direction.
-
-The gentler element, in order not to encourage a flow of perspiration
-that may melt off their complexions, take to carriages, but the
-sterner sex prefer to walk up and down, crowd around the band-stand,
-or sit along the edge of the curbing in chairs rented for a couple
-of coppers. Directly in front lies the great Bay, with the sun
-going down in the Boca Chica, between the hardly visible island of
-Corregidor and the main land, thirty miles away. To the rear stretches
-the parade-ground, backed up by clumps of bamboos and the distant
-mountains beyond. To the right lie the corner batteries and walls of
-Old Manila, and to the left the attractive suburb of Ermita, with the
-stretch of shore running along toward the naval station of Cavité,
-eleven miles away. To take a chair, watch the people walking to and
-fro, and see the endless stream of smart turn-outs passing in slow
-procession; to hear a band of fifty pieces render popular and classic
-music with the spirit of a Sousa or a Reeves, is to doubt that you
-are in a capital 8,000 miles from Paris and 11,000 miles from New
-York. Footmen with tall hats, in spotless white uniforms, grace the
-box-seats of the low-built victorias, while tastefully dressed Spanish
-women or wealthy half-castes recline against the soft cushions and
-take for granted the admiration of those walking up and down the mall.
-
-The splendidly trained artillery-band, composed entirely of natives,
-but conducted by a Spaniard, plays half a dozen selections each
-evening, and here is a treat that one can have every afternoon of
-the year, free of charge. There are no snow-drifts or cold winds to
-mar the performance, and, except during the showers and winds of the
-rainy season, it goes on without interruption.
-
-After the music is over the carriages rush off in every direction,
-behind smart-stepping little ponies that get over the ground at a
-tremendous pace, and the dinner-hour is late enough not to rob one
-of those pleasant hours at just about sunset. There are no horses in
-Manila--all ponies, and some of them are so small as to be actually
-insignificant. They are tremendously tough little beasts, however,
-and stand more heat, work, and beating than most horses of twice
-their size.
-
-Our Christmas dinner at the club has just ended, and from the bill
-of fare one would never suspect he was not at the Waldorf or the
-Parker House. Long punkas swung to and fro over the big tables,
-small serving boys in bare feet rushed hither and thither with
-meat and drink, corks popped, the smart breeze blew jokes about, and
-everyone unbent. Soups, fish, joints, entrées, rémoves, hors-d'oeuvres,
-mince-pies, plum-puddings, and all the delicacies to be found in cooler
-climes had their turn, as did a variety of liquid courses. Singing,
-speeches, and music followed the more material things, and everyone was
-requested to take some part in the performance. By the time the show
-was over the piano was dead-beat and everybody hoarse from singing
-by the wrong method.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-    Shopping at the "Botica Inglesa"--The Chit System--Celebrating
-    New Year's Eve--Manila Cooking Arrangements--Floors and
-    Windows--Peculiarities of the Tram-car Service--Roosters
-    Everywhere--Italian Opera--Philippine Music--The Mercury at 74°
-    and an Epidemic of "Grippe"--Fight Between a Bull and a Tiger--A
-    Sorry Fiasco--Carnival Sunday.
-
-
-                                                            January 7th.
-
-My third Sunday in Manila is a cool breezy day, with fresh winds
-blowing down from the mountains. The weather has lately been as
-temperate as one could wish, and has corresponded to some of our soft
-spring conditions. From noon until three o'clock has usually seemed
-warm, but the mornings have made walking pleasant, the afternoons
-have given opportunities for tennis, and the evenings have hinted
-that an overcoat would not be amiss. One could hardly ask for any
-more comfortable place to live in than Manila as it stands to-day,
-and although sanitary appliances are most primitive, the city seems
-to be healthy and without noisome pestilence.
-
-During the holiday season, just over, foreign business has been
-suspended and everyone socially inclined. Shopping has been in
-vogue, and on one of my expeditions for photographic materials I was
-introduced to the "Botica Inglesa," or English chemist's shop, which
-seems to be the largest variety-store in town. Here it is possible
-to buy anything from a glass of soda to a full-fledged lawn-mower,
-including all the intermediates that reach from tooth-brushes to
-photographic cameras.
-
-And speaking of shopping brings mo to the "chit" system, which has
-been such a curse to the Far East. In making purchases, no one pays
-cash for anything, since the heavy Mexican dollars--which are the
-only currency of the islands--are too heavy to lug around in the
-thin suits made of white sheeting. One simply signs an "I.O.U." for
-the amount of the bill in any shop that he may choose to patronize,
-and thinks no more about it till at the end of the month all the
-"chits" which bear his name are sent around for collection.
-
-Result: one never feels as if he were spending anything until the first
-day of the incoming month ushers in a host of these big or little
-reminders. If your chits at one single shop run into large amounts,
-the collector generally brings along with him a coolie or a wheelbarrow
-with which to lug away the weight of dollars that you pour into his
-hands, and when two or three collectors come in together the office
-reminds one of a "money-'changer's. Counterfeit money is so prevalent
-that one after the other of your callers bites the silver or drops
-it on the floor to detect lead, and to listen to the resulting sound
-is not to feel complimented by their opinion of your integrity. So
-it goes, many of the shop-keepers being swindled out of their dues
-by debtors who choose to skip off rather than to pay, and waking up
-at the end of the month to find their supposed profits existing only
-in the chits whose signers have skedaddled to Hong Kong or Singapore.
-
-New Year's Eve was celebrated with due hilarity and elaborate
-provisions. The club bill of fare was remarkable, and when it is
-realized there are no stoves in Manila, the wonder is that the cooking
-is so complex. A Manila stove is no more nor less than a good-sized
-earthen jar, shaped something like an old shoe. The vamp of the shoe
-represents the hearth; the opening in front, the place for putting in
-the small sticks of wood; and the enclosing upper, the rim on which
-rests the single big pot or kettle. In a well-regulated kitchen,
-there may be a dozen of these stoves, one for each course, and their
-cost being only a peseta, it is a simple matter to keep a few extra
-ones on hand in the bread-closet. And so, as one goes through the
-streets where native huts predominate, he sees a family meal being
-cooked in sections, and is forced to admire the complexity of the
-greasy dishes that are evolved from so simple a contrivance.
-
-As the Manila cooking arrangements are rude, so I suspect are the
-pantry's dish-washing opportunities. I really should hesitate to enter
-even our club-kitchen, for certain dim suggestions which are conveyed
-to the senses from spoons and forks, and certain plate surfaces that
-would calm troubled waters if hung from a ship's side, all hint at
-unappetizing sights. All in all, the less one sees of native cooking,
-in transitu, the greater will one's appetite be.
-
-I had expected an early introduction to earthquakes, but none have
-occurred so far, and I am almost tempted to get reckless. Soon after
-my arrival I was inclined to put my chemical bottles in a box of
-sawdust, empty part of the water out of my pitcher, and pack my watch
-in cotton-wool in anticipation of some nocturnal disturbance. For the
-old stagers who saw the city fall to pieces back in the '80's deem
-it their duty to alarm the new arrival, and almost turn pale when a
-heavy dray rolls by over the cobblestones in the street near the club,
-or make ready to fly out-of-doors at the first suspicion of vibration.
-
-A word or two more about the floors in Manila houses. I don't suppose
-there is a soft-wood tree in the islands, and as a result one sees
-some very interesting hard-wood productions. The floors come under
-this category. Rough-hewn as they are--out of huge hand-sawed hard-wood
-planks--they are models. By certain processes of polishing with banana
-leaves and greasy rags, they are made to shine like genius itself,
-and give such a clean, cool air to the houses that one is compelled
-to regard them with admiration. In fact, there is a certain charm
-in Manila about many specimens of hand-work that one encounters
-everywhere. The stilted regularities--as our good professor used to
-say--of machine-made articles are frequently conspicuous by their
-absence, and instead one sees the inequalities, the lack of exact
-repetition, the informality of lines that are not just perpendicular or
-horizontal, all of which make up the charm of work that is handmade,
-that reflects the movements of a living arm and mind rather than
-those of a wheel or a lever.
-
-The curious windows that are everywhere are likewise instructive. Like
-the blinds, they slide in grooves on the railings of the balconies,
-and serve to shut out the weather from the interior. They consist
-of frames containing a multitude of small lattice-work squares, into
-which are placed thin, flat, translucent sea-shells which admit light,
-but are not look-throughable. We have all heard of shell-roads, but
-never of shell-windows, and one misses the presence of glass until
-he has got accustomed to a Manila house, whose sliding sides are one
-vast window that is rarely closed.
-
-Manila streets, outside of the city proper, are smooth, hard, and well
-shaded by the arching bamboos. They are already proving attractive to
-the bicycle, which, though very expensive out here at the antipodes,
-is growing in favor, especially among the wealthier half-castes,
-or mestizos.
-
-Tram-car service is slow, but pretty generally good. The car is a
-thing by itself, as is the one lean pony that pulls it. It takes
-one man to drive and one to work the whip, and if the wind blows
-too hard, service is generally suspended. The conductor carries a
-small valise suspended from his neck, and whistles through his lips
-"up-hill" to stop, and "down-hill" as the starting-sign. The usual
-notice, "Smoking allowed on the three rear seats only," is absent,
-for everyone smokes, even to the conductor, who generally drops the
-ash off a 15-for-a-cent cigarette into your lap as he hands you a
-receipt for your dos centavos. The chief rule of the road says:
-
-"This car has seats for twelve persons, and places for eight on each
-platform. Passengers are requested to stand in equal numbers only on
-both platforms, to prevent derailment."
-
-And so if there are four "fares" on the front and six on the back
-platform, somebody has to stumble forward to equalize the weight. No
-one is allowed to stand inside, and if the car contains its quota
-of passengers, the driver hangs out the sign, "Lleno" (full), and
-doesn't stop even for the Archbishop. It is just as well, perhaps,
-to sit at the front end of the car if you are afraid of small-pox,
-for the other morning a Philippine mamma brushed into a seat holding a
-scantily clothed babe well covered with evidences of that disease. One
-sympathizes with the single pony that does the pulling as he sees
-thirty people besides the car in his load, and it is no uncommon
-thing on a slight rise or sharp turn for all hands to get off and
-help the vehicle over the difficulty. The driver holds the whip by
-the wrong end and lets the heavy one come down with double force on
-the terribly tough hide of the motive power. Aside from tram-cars
-some of these little beasts, however, are possessed of great speed,
-and with a reckless cochero in charge, it is no uncommon sight to
-see three or four turnouts come tearing down the street abreast,
-full tilt, clearing the road, killing dogs and roosters, and making
-one's hair stand on end.
-
-Speaking of roosters, they are the native dog in the Philippines. The
-inhabitants pet and coddle them, smooth down their plumage, clean
-their combs, or pull out their tail-feathers to make them fight,
-to their heart's content, and it is a fact that these cackling
-glass-eaters really seem to show affection for their proprietors,
-in as great measure as they exhibit hatred for their brothers. Every
-native has his fighting-cock, which is reared with the greatest care
-until he has shown sufficient prowess to entitle him to an entrance
-into the cock-pit. In case of fire, the rooster is the first thing
-rescued and removed to a place of safety, for babies--common luxuries
-in the Philippines--are a secondary consideration and more easily
-duplicated than the feathered biped. It is almost impossible to walk
-along any street in the suburban part of the town without seeing
-dozens of natives trudging along with roosters under their arms,
-which are being talked to and petted to distraction. At every other
-little roadside hut, an impromptu battle will be going on between two
-birds of equal or unequal merit, the two proprietors holding their
-respective roosters by the tails in order that they may not come
-into too close quarters. The cock-pits, where gatherings are held on
-Thursdays and Sundays, are large enclosures covered with a roof of
-thatch sewed onto a framework of bamboo; they are open on all sides,
-and banked up with tiers of rude seats that surround a sawdust ring
-in the centre. Outside the gates to the flimsy structure sit a motley
-crowd of women, young and old, selling eatables whose dark, greasy
-texture beggars description, while here and there in the open spaces
-a couple of natives will be giving their respective roosters a sort of
-preliminary trial with each other. As the show goes on inside, shouts
-and applause resound at every opportunity, and at the close of the
-performance a multitude of two-wheeled gigs carry off the victors with
-their spoils, while the losers trudge home through the dust on foot.
-
-Other familiar street-scenes consist of Chinese barbers, who carry
-around a chair, a pair of scissors, and a razor wherever they go,
-and stop to give you a shave or hair-cut at any part of the block;
-or Chinese ear-cleaners, who scoop out of those organs some of the
-unprintable epithets hurled by one native at another. Cascades of
-slops not uncommonly descend into the street as one walks along
-beneath a slightly overhanging second story of some of the houses,
-and one is impressed, if not wet, by this favorite method of laying
-the street-dust.
-
-Besides the daily afternoon music on the Luneta, a full-fledged Italian
-opera troupe has come to town and has begun to give performances in
-the Teatro Zorilla. "Carmen" and "The Cavalleria Rusticana" are on
-the bill for this week, and many other of the old standbys are going
-to have their turn later.
-
-In respect to music, side-tracked though it is, Manila seems to be more
-favored than her sister capitals in the Far East, and everyone appears
-to be able to play on something. Such of the native houses as are too
-frail to support pianos shelter harps, violins, and other stringed
-instruments, while some of the more expensive structures contain the
-whole selection. Of an evening--in the suburbs--it is no uncommon thing
-to hear the strains of a well-played Spanish march issuing from under
-the thatch of a rickety hut, or to find an impromptu concert going on
-in the little tram-car which is bringing home a handful of native youth
-with their guitars or mandolins. Every district has its band, some of
-the instruments in which are often made out of empty kerosene-cans,
-and the nights resound with tunes from all quarters. In fact, the
-Philippine band is one of the chief articles of export from Manila,
-and groups of natives with their cheap instruments are shipped off
-to Japan, India, and the Spice Islands, to carry harmony into the
-midst of communities where music is uncultivated. All in all, it is
-extremely curious that out of all the peoples of the Far East the
-Filipinos are the only ones possessing a natural talent for music,
-and that the islands to-day stand out unique from among all the
-surrounding territory as being the home of a musical race, who do not
-make the night as hideous with weird beatings of tom-toms as they do
-poetic with soft waltzes coaxed from gruff trombones.
-
-
-
-                                                           January 18th.
-
-Manila is pretty well, thanks. The weather has been cool and
-comfortable. Showers have come every day or two to lay the dust,
-and one could not want a more salubrious condition of things. The
-sunsets from the Luneta have been more than pyrotechnic, and I now
-believe that nowhere do you see such displays of color as in the
-Orient, Land of the Sunrise. During these three weeks of my stay,
-so far there have been five holidays, and we have had ample time
-to take afternoon walks up the beach, or play tennis at the club,
-or indulge in moonlight rows on the Pasig.
-
-A week ago on the island just opposite the club, where lies a
-good-sized village, containing an old church, there was a religious
-festival, which lasted all the week. This was the Fiesta of Pandacan,
-and all the natives for miles around came pouring down by our veranda,
-in bancas and barges, on their way across the river. Every night
-during the week, bands of music played on one side of the stream and
-on the other side, and then crossed to their respective opposites,
-playing in transitu, and then setting up shop on shore again. Then
-there were fireworks, bombs, and rockets galore, so that the early
-night was alive with noise and sparks. On the evening of the grand
-wind-up we crossed over to see the sights, in one of the usual
-hollowed-out tree-trunk ferryboats. Crowds of gayly dressed natives
-surged around the plaza, near the old church, while everywhere along
-the edges squatted old men and women, cooking all sorts of greasy
-"chow" on those peculiar Philippine stoves described in the last
-chapter. Everybody smoked, as well as the pots and kettles, and
-the air was therefore foggy. The little, low-thatched houses were
-jauntily decorated with lanterns and streamers, and at all the open
-fronts leaned out rows of grinning natives.
-
-Here and there were small "tiendas," or little booths, where cheap
-American toys, collar-buttons, pictures, and little figures of the
-Saviour were sold, and great was the hubbub. The houses, as well as
-the people, are very low of stature, and as we walked along the narrow,
-almost cunning streets, our shoulders level with the eaves of many of
-the shanties, and above the heads of many of the people, we felt indeed
-like giants. Many were the pianos in those native huts, and peculiar
-mixtures of strikingly decent playing fell upon the ear from all sides.
-
-The whole circus wound up with a grand pyrotechnical illumination of
-the old church from base to tower, and a score of loud explosions,
-caused by the setting off of many dozen bombs at the same time, made up
-in noise what the religious celebration lacked in spirituality. Then
-all the bands came back and played their lungs out as they crossed
-the river, and all the people rushed for bancas, and came chattering
-home. Thus did this pretty little religious show consume, in noise
-and sparks, the contributions of a very long time.
-
-The grand opera company which is here is doing remarkably well, and
-"Faust" was given the other evening to a crowded house. The theatre
-Zorilla is round, like a circus, and in the centre of the ring sit
-the holders of our regular orchestra seats, facing the stage, which
-chops off the segment of the circle opposite the main entrance. In a
-rim surrounding the central arena stretches the single row of boxes,
-a good deal like small open sheep-pens, separated from each other
-only by insignificant railings. Next comes the surrounding aisle,
-and in the broad outside section of the circle, rising up in steep
-tiers, are the seats for the natives and gallery gods, who invariably
-bring their lunch with them, to pass away the time during the long
-intermissions. The orchestra is a native one, led by an Italian
-conductor, and doesn't tuck its shirt into its trousers. The musicians,
-who battle with the difficult score, grind out their music quite as
-successfully as some of our home performers, who would scorn the dark
-faces and flying shirt-tails of their Philippine brethren.
-
-During the performance the management introduced a ballet, whose
-members were native Filipinas. It was too laughable. The faces and
-arms of the women who formed the corps seemed first to have been
-covered with mucilage, and then besprinkled with flour in order to
-bring the dark-brown complexion up to the softer half-tints of the
-Italian performers. The native lady, as a rule, is unacquainted with
-French shoes or high heels, slippers being the every-day equipment,
-and when these flowery beings came forward on to the stage, saw
-the huge audience, and tried to go through the mazes of the dance
-in European footgear, they felt entirely snarled up, even if they
-didn't look more than half so. But this only served to keep the
-audience in a good humor, and everybody seemed to enjoy both the
-singing and the deviltry of Mephistopheles, whose part was well
-taken. The waits between the acts were long, and the drop-curtain
-was covered with barefaced advertisements of dealers in pills, hats,
-and carriages. But there were cool little cafés across the roadway
-running by the theatre, and one forgot the delay in the pleasure of
-being refreshed by Spanish chocolate and crisp buñuelos.
-
-In front of the main entrance to the theatre stood two firemen, with
-hose in hand, ready to play on anything as soon as the orchestra
-stopped or a lamp fell, but otherwise nothing was particularly
-strange. The whole structure was oil-lighted with rickety chandeliers,
-which shed a dangerous though brilliant glare down upon a large
-audience of most exquisitely dressed Spanish people, mestizos and
-foreigners. Pretty little flower-girls wandered about trying to dispose
-of their wares to the rather over-dressed dudes of the upper half-caste
-400, and their mammas often followed them around to assist in making
-sales. If it begins to rain in the afternoon, before the performance,
-everybody understands that the show is to be postponed, provided
-clearing conditions do not follow, and those who hold tickets are,
-as a rule, grateful not to be obliged to risk their horses and their
-starched clothes to the treatment of a possible downpour.
-
-The Luneta is still a close rival to the opera, and each afternoon a
-dozen of us will generally meet there to refresh ourselves with the
-music and the passing show. Toward sundown, in the afternoons, of
-late, the big guns in the batteries up along the walls of Old Manila,
-hard by, have been used in long-distance sea target-practice, and it
-has been interesting, on the way from the office to the promenade,
-to walk along the beach and see the cannon-balls zip over the water
-and slump into it miles from their destination. The same target serves
-every afternoon, and seems perfectly safe from being hit. I wish I
-could say as much for the fleet of American ships that are lying off
-the breakwater, at the anchorage.
-
-
-
-                                                           February 8th.
-
-It seems peculiar to see the moon standing directly overhead o'nights,
-and casting a shadow of one's self that is without meaning. I never
-yet realized we had so little shape before, looking from above,
-as when I saw this new species of shadow the other night, and was
-really sorry that the angels never had a chance to look at us from
-a better point of view.
-
-To be politic, and begin with the weather as usual, a cold snap
-lately has given everyone the "grippe." The mercury actually stood
-at 74° all one day, and couldn't be coaxed to go higher. Think of the
-suffering that such low temperature would occasion among a people who
-have no furnaces or open fireplaces. You may think I am facetious,
-but 74° in the Philippines means a great deal to people who are always
-accustomed to 95°.
-
-The opera-talk continues, and "Fra Diavolo" was most successfully
-performed to a crowded house the other evening. "The Barber of Seville"
-was given Sunday night with equal éclat, and the prima donna was a star
-of the first water, whose merits were recognized in the presentation
-of some huge flower-pieces, probably paid for by herself. But the
-opera has had a rival, and those who are not so musically inclined
-have spent most of their spare moments in discussing the great bull
-and tiger fight which took place Sunday afternoon.
-
-It was a queer show, and not altogether edifying. The old bull-ring,
-squatting out in the rice-fields of Ermita suburb, was to be used
-for the last time, and the occasion was to be of unusual interest,
-since the flaming posters announced, in grown-up letters:
-
-
-                     STRUGGLE BETWEEN WILD BEASTS.
-
-      Grand Fight to the Death between Full-blooded Spanish Bull,
-       and Royal Bengal Tiger, Direct from the Jungles of India.
-
-
-For days before the show came off, conversation in the cafés along the
-Escolta invariably turned to the subject of the coming exhibition,
-and it was evident that the managers fully intended both to reap
-a large harvest of heavy dollars and to wind up the career of the
-bull-ring association in a blaze of blood and glory.
-
-The steaming Sunday afternoon found everybody directing his steps
-toward the wooden structure which consisted of a lot of rickety
-seats piled up around a circular arena. The reserved sections
-were covered with a light roof, to keep off the afternoon sun,
-but the bleaching-boards for those that held only "billetes de sol"
-were exposed to the blinding glare. The audience, a crowd of three
-thousand persons, with dark faces showing above suits of white
-sheeting, found the centre of the ring ornamented with a huge iron
-cage some two rods square, while off at the sides were smaller cages
-containing the "fieras," or wild beasts.
-
-The show opened amid breathless excitement, with an exhibition of
-panthers, and a man dressed in pink tights ate dinner in the big cage,
-after setting off a bunch of firecrackers under one of the "fieras,"
-who didn't seem inclined to wake up enough to lick his chops and
-make-believe masticate somebody. The daring performer lived to digest
-his glass of water, with one cracker thrown in, and a deer was next
-introduced into the enclosure. The panther, at command of the keeper
-to get to business, seemed unwilling to attack his gentle foe, and
-on continued hissing from the big audience, the two animals were at
-length withdrawn.
-
-Then great shouts of "El toro! El toro!" arose, as off at the small
-gate, at one side, appeared the bull, calmly walking forward, under
-the guidance of two natives, who didn't wear any shoes. And renewed
-applause arose, as the small heavy cage containing the R. B. tiger was
-rolled up to a sliding-door of the central structure. The bull was
-shoved into the iron jail, the gate closed, a dozen or more bunches
-of firecrackers were set off in the small box holding the tiger, in
-order to waken him up, the slide connecting the two was withdrawn,
-and, with a deafening roar, the great Indian cat rushed forth and
-tried to swallow a man who was standing outside the bars waving a
-heated pitchfork. The bull stood quietly in one corner wagging his
-tail, and after blinking his eyes once or twice, proceeded to examine
-his antagonist, in a most friendly spirit. In fact, there seemed to
-be no hard feeling at all between the two beasts, and the tiger only
-wanted to get at the gentleman outside the cage, not at the bull. The
-audience howled, jeered at the tiger, bet on the bull, and criticised
-the man with the pitchfork as he gave the tiger several hard pokes
-in the ribs. This served to anger the beast so that he finally did
-make a dive at the bull, and promptly found himself tossed into the
-air. But as he came down, he hung on to the bull's nose, and dug his
-claws into the tough hide. Curiously enough, the bull didn't seem to
-mind that in the least, and the two stood perfectly still for some
-five minutes, locked in close quarters.
-
-To make a long story short, there occurred four or five of these mild
-attacks, always incited by the man with the pitchfork, during which the
-bull stepped on the tiger, making him howl with pain, and the latter
-badly bit the former on the legs and nose. After the fourth round,
-both beasts seemed to be in want of a siesta. It was growing dark,
-and the dissatisfied audience cried for another bull and another
-tiger. The first animal was finally dragged away, after the tiger
-had retreated to his cage, and a fresh bull with more spirit was
-introduced. Now, however, the tiger was less game than ever, and no
-amount of firecrackers or pitchforkings could induce him to stir from
-the small cage. He seemed far too sensible, and literally appeared
-to be the possessor of an asbestos skin.
-
-It had now got pretty dark, and the audience joined in the pandemonium
-of howls coming from the various cages. People began to light matches
-to see their programmes, and the circus-ring looked as if it were
-filled with fireflies. Then the programmes themselves were ignited
-for more light, and cries of "Give us back our money," "What's
-the matter with the tiger?" and others of a less printable order,
-arose. Men jumped into the ring, but the tiger refused to move for
-anybody. In the hope of stirring things up, a couple of panthers
-were again hastily wheeled up and pushed into the cage, where the
-bull was standing with an expression of wonder on his face. But the
-bull merely licked one panther on the nose and wagged his tail at the
-other, while the show was declared off on account of darkness. Then
-everybody filed out in disgust, and the man with the tiger, panthers,
-and pitchfork made arrangements to sail for foreign shores by the first
-steamer. Such was the last performance in the Plaza de Toros de Manila.
-
-It was a pleasant contrast after the fight to adjourn to the
-Luneta. The day was Carnival Sunday, and all the young children
-of the community were rigged up in many sorts of inconceivable
-gowns. Clowns and ballet-dancers, devils and angels, all wandered
-up and down the smooth walk, and the crowd was immense. Numbers of
-the older people also took part, and many of the smart traps were
-occupied with grotesque figures. The artillery-band rendered some of
-its finest selections. The ships off in the bay were almost completely
-reflected in the calm water. The mountains rose blue, like velvet,
-in the distance, and a red glow in the Boca Chica told where the sun
-had gone down for us, only to rise on the distant snows of New England.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-    A Philippine Valet--The Three Days Chinese New Year--Marionettes
-    and Minstrels at Manila--Yankee Skippers--Furnishing a
-    Bungalow--Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes--A New Arrival--Pony-Races
-    in Santa Mesa--Cigars and Cheroots--Servants--Cool Mountain
-    Breezes--House-snakes--Cost of Living--Holy Week.
-
-
-                                                          February 16th.
-
-News to begin with. I have engaged a Philippine valet, price $4.50
-per month; a man with a wife, two children, and a fighting-cock,
-who buys all his better half's pink calico gowns and all the food for
-the party on this large salary. It is a wonder what revolutions have
-taken place in my wardrobe. My heavy clothes, already grown musty
-from disuse, have been taken out, sun-dried, and laid carefully
-away. I no longer have to decide what to wear each morning, for it
-is settled for me beforehand. Everything that my "boy" wishes me to
-don is laid out on a chair during my early pilgrimage to the bath,
-and all that is necessary to do on my return is to get into them. It
-is quite a luxury, and I shall certainly be inclined to bring this
-cheap gentleman back with me when I return to Boston. My neckties,
-which have hitherto snarled themselves up in the corner of a drawer,
-now are hanging from a neat clothes-line, side by side. My books and
-papers on the centre table are arranged with unnatural formality,
-and the smaller articles, such as lead-pencils, buttons, pin-cushions,
-are all adjusted in definite geometrical formation. At breakfast and
-dinner in the club-house I no longer have to whistle to be waited on,
-for my slave is always behind the chair, ready to spill the soup on
-my coat or pass the plum-pudding. These serving-boys all belong to
-the Tagalog race, which seems to include in its numbers most of the
-native inhabitants in Manila and the adjacent towns. They all have
-straight, thick black hair, speak their peculiar Tagalog language,
-and only pick up enough Spanish to carry them through the performance
-of their simple duties.
-
-And still the holidays, more or less, continue. About this time of
-year there is one a week, and just now the Chinese New Year occupies
-about three days. The business part of the town is quiet. All the
-Chinese merchants have driven off on a picnic, and it is impossible
-to hire carriages of any sort.
-
-Manila, on the whole, is waking up, and besides the opera we now
-have the marionette troupe, something entirely new to the average
-citizen. It seems there are four sisters travelling around the
-world with their little collection of string-pulled puppets, giving
-exhibitions in all the larger centres. Their fame had preceded them,
-and so the other night when the doors of the Teatro Filipino were
-thrown open, a huge crowd assembled to see the performance. The stage
-was a fairly large one, but so arranged optically that it made the
-figures appear larger than they really were. The actors (puppets) were
-remarkable for their lifelikeness, and if one had not seen the strings
-stretching upward he would have taken them to be animate beings. Their
-costumes were complete and elaborate in every particular. First came
-a tight-rope walker, then an acrobat balancing a pair of chairs,
-and then Old Mother Hubbard, out of whose voluminous petticoats
-jumped half a dozen little men and women, all of whom danced and
-cut up as if they were really reasoning bipeds instead of material,
-loose jointed, wax-faced dolls. Old Mamma was especially good, and
-as she stirred up her little children with a long staff, looked at
-first this one and then that, shook her head, pointed her finger,
-and danced with the others, she brought down the house with applause.
-
-Later on came a minstrel troupe, with two end-men, a leader who waved
-a baton, a harpist, and two other musicians. They all played, and the
-end-men cracked jokes. Next came a clog-dance between two darkies,
-and it was difficult to believe that they were not alive. Further on
-came a bulldog, which grabbed a policeman by the nether breeches and
-pulled a huge piece out of them; a bull, who chased a farmer and threw
-him over a rail fence (this took wonderfully well, for the Spaniards
-go crazy over anything with a bull in it); then a boarding-house
-scene, with a folding-bed that shut up its occupants inside; next,
-a balloon ascension, in which a man on the ground was suddenly
-caught up into the air by an anchor thrown out from the balloon;
-then the death of the two aëronauts, who fall from a dizzy height;
-next, a ride in a donkey-cart by two lovers, who find themselves
-run away with and get snarled up on the wagon, to be kicked black
-and blue by the donkey. Finally came a very complete little play of
-"Bluebeard," with complete scenery, costumes, and ballet. All of the
-scenery was of the lightning-change sort, and the Spaniards, mestizos,
-and natives in the audience sat and looked on with open-mouthed wonder,
-too astonished to laugh, too senseless to cry, and able but to clothe
-their faces with expressions of wonder.
-
-To change the subject rather abruptly, the captain of the Esmeralda,
-the little steamer on which I came from Hong Kong, has been good
-enough to ask me on board his vessel to tiffin as often as she comes
-into port. As Captain Tayler's table is noted both for its excellence
-and profusion, the very few of us who comprise the American colony,
-as well as all the Englishmen in town, always covet an invitation to
-spend Sunday in his company and enjoy various dishes that are not to
-be procured in Manila markets.
-
-Besides the several steamers that ply between ports on the neighboring
-coast, there is now a large fleet of American ships at anchor in the
-bay, and our office, which shelters the only American firm in the
-Philippines, is a great centre for the various Yankee, nasal-twanged
-skippers, who, dressed in hot-looking, ready-made tweeds, come
-ashore without their collars to ask questions about home topics and
-read newspapers six weeks old. They delight to enjoy the sea-breezes
-generated by our big punka, and only leave the office on matters of
-urgent necessity. Several of the captains have their whole families
-with them, and one, who is especially well-to-do, owns his own ship,
-carries along a bright tutor, who is preparing some of the skipper's
-sons for college, and has transformed the vessel into a veritable
-institution of learning. On nearly every evening the whole fleet
-in a body go to some one ship, sing songs and have refreshments,
-and the other night Governor Robie was the host. Being invited to
-partake of the festivities, we two Yankees went off into the bay at
-about sunset, ate a regulation New England dinner, with rather too
-much weight to it for hot climates, and met all the belles of the
-fleet. The moon overhead was full, and with a good piano, violin,
-hand-organ, and a couple of ocarinas, giving vent to sweet sounds,
-we had an impromptu dance on the quarter-deck. We stayed out on the
-ship of our host and hostess all night. They apologized because the
-bunks in the state-rooms assigned to us were so hard, little realizing
-that we couldn't sleep worth a continental on account of their being
-so ridiculously soft after our Philippine cane arrangements.
-
-Everybody is talking horse now, and business will be at a standstill
-during the first few days of the coming month, when the pony races
-take place at the suburban course in Santa Mesa. As a result,
-every afternoon that some of us do not go rowing or play tennis, we
-adjourn to the race-track, and, in company with groups of Spaniards
-and wealthy mestizos, watch the smart ponies circle around the track.
-
-And, speaking of the race-course, I have just made arrangements with
-one of my new friends to take a bungalow situated on a low rise that
-backgrounds the track at the quarter-mile post. It stands, prettily
-shaded by bamboo-trees, on practically the first bit of upland that
-later grows into the lofty mountains of the interior, and the view
-off over the race-course and low-lying paddy-fields, squared off into
-sections, toward the city, is most picturesque. On another side we
-look off over the winding river toward the mountains, which hardly
-appear five miles away, and still another view is a bamboo grove,
-against which is backed up our little stable with various outbuildings,
-including the kitchen. A broad veranda runs entirely around the main
-building, where the living-rooms are located, and Venetian roll-blinds
-let down from the piazza-roof keep off the afternoon sun.
-
-Yesterday I had my first experience in making extensive purchases
-of furniture, and was interested to see about twelve coolies start
-off from the city toward our country residence, three miles away,
-loaded down with beds, tables, chairs, and other articles. Four of
-them started off later on with the upright piano balanced on a couple
-of cross-sticks resting on their shoulders, and trotted the whole
-distance without sitting down to play the "Li Hung Chang March" more
-than twice. These living carriers rather take the place of express
-wagons in the East, and a long caravan of furniture-laden Celestials,
-solemnly going along through the highway at a jog-trot, is no uncommon
-sight. We shall need dishes, knives, pots and kettles, and a whole
-World's Fair of trumpery, before we get started, and I shall have to
-be busy with a Spanish dictionary, in order to get familiar with the
-right names for the right things.
-
-You have asked me how the mosquitoes fare upon the newly arrived
-foreigner. To tell the truth, I have not seen more than half a dozen
-since coming to Manila, and those all sang in tune. Everybody sleeps
-under nettings, of course, but so far I have not seen as many biters
-flying around at night as there are in the United States of America. To
-be sure, one sees a good many lizards hanging by the eye-teeth to the
-walls, or walking about unconcernedly up-side-down on the ceilings,
-but they do good missionary work by devouring the host of smaller bugs,
-and it is one of our highest intellectual pursuits here in Manila to
-stretch out in a long chair and go to sleep gazing upward at these
-enterprising bug-catchers pursuing their vocation. And, now and then,
-from some piazza-roof or ceiling will drop on your face a so-called
-hairy caterpillar whose promenade on one's epidermis will cause it
-to swell up in great welts that close one's eyes and ruffle the temper.
-
-Rats are more numerous than mosquitoes, and the other day, on my
-opening a drawer in some of our office furniture, three jumped
-out. The office was transformed into an impromptu race-course, and
-all hands were called to take part in the slaughter. But Manila doors
-are loose-jointed, and the rodents escaped somewhere into the next
-room. Since then I have had the legs sawed off of my desk, so that
-these literary beggars, who delight to eat up one's valuable papers,
-should not climb in and make a meal off of my private cable code--a
-thing which they started to do some time ago. They have already several
-times run off with the candle which was used for heating sealing-wax,
-and possess such prowess that they even took it out of the candlestick.
-
-We had a new arrival at the club lately in the person of a young
-Englishman who came fresh from Britain. Someone had stuffed him
-with tales of indolent life in the Far East, for he came in to his
-first dinner at the club clad only in pajamas and green carpet-bag
-slippers. He also thought that the Spanish language consisted in adding
-final a's to words in the English tongue and shouted all over the club
-next morning for sopa, sopa, with which to cleanse himself. But the
-servant brought him a plate of soup, and he is now trying to remember
-that soap in Spanish is translated by jabon, not sopa. Jamon, the
-word for ham, however, is close enough to give him trouble and he
-will no doubt ask for soap instead of ham at our next repast.
-
-
-
-                                                             March 16th.
-
-The pony races came off with great éclat on the first four days of
-this month, and were decidedly interesting. All Manila turned out,
-and such a collection of carriages I have never seen. All the Spanish
-ladies put an extra coat of paint on their complexions, and, dressed
-in their best bibs and tuckers, made somewhat of a ghastly show in
-the searching light of early afternoon. The high, thatched-roofed
-grand stand presented a duly gay appearance as the bell rang for the
-first event, and the dried-up paddy-fields, far and near, crackled
-with natives directing their steps toward the centre of attraction.
-
-In front of the grand stand groups of Spaniards, Englishmen, and
-sea-captains formed centres for betting, and off at the sides were
-refreshment-booths to which everyone made pilgrimage as often as the
-articulatory muscles were in need of lubrication.
-
-Some of the ponies were splendid-looking little "critters" and made
-almost as fast time as their larger brethren, the horses. During
-race-afternoons, business in the city was entirely suspended, and
-everyone who had a dollar took it to the race-course to gain other
-dollars. As the currency system is all metal, bets were paid in hard
-coin, and if you happened to buy a lucky ticket in that gambling
-machine, the "totalizator," you would perhaps have a whole hatful
-of heavy silver cart-wheels shoved at you on presenting the winning
-pasteboard. And it was no uncommon sight at the close of the races
-to see some of the thinly clad natives whom fortune had favored go
-trudging home across the rice-fields, carrying a load of dollars in
-a straw hat or a bright bandana.
-
-One by one the vessels are dropping away from their anchorage in the
-bay, and by Saturday our Vigilant will heave up anchor and start on
-her twenty-thousand-mile journey to Boston via the Cape, with her big
-cargo of hemp. Thanks to our attentions to the captains, they have
-seemed willing to take home for us any amount of souvenirs and curios,
-and I have sent along quite an assortment of stuffed bats, lizards,
-and snake-skin canes, which I feel sure will cause somebody to creep
-on their arrival.
-
-Manila's best cigar, made of a special, selected tobacco, wrapped
-in the neatest of silverfoil and packed in rosewood boxes tied with
-Spanish ribbon, costs about five cents and is considered a rare
-delicacy. One scarcely ever sees these cigars, the "Incomparables,"
-outside of the city itself, and the brand is so choice that but few
-smokers are acquainted with it. The foreigner in Manila thinks he
-is paying dear for his weed at $20 per thousand, and some of our
-professional smokers limit themselves to those favorite "Bouquets"
-which correspond to our "two-for-a-quarter" variety but sell here for
-$1.80 a hundred. Below these upper grades come a various assortment of
-cheaper varieties, including the cheroots, big at one end and small
-at the other, and the $3-a-thousand cigars which are made of the
-first thing that comes handy, to be sold to the crews of deep-water
-merchantmen. A native of the Philippines wants his cigarette, and
-gets it. Packages of thirty are sold on almost every corner for a
-couple of coppers, and to my mind the Manila cigarette is far superior
-to the variety found in Cuba. Smoking is, of course, encouraged by
-prices such as these, and one finds it perfectly good form to borrow
-a cigarette, as well as a light, from his neighbor in the tram-car
-or on the plaza. Even on the toll-bridge which spans the Pasig you
-pay your copper for crossing, and get in change a box of matches;
-and if you are queer enough not to want the matches, the man will
-give you instead a ticket that avails for the return trip.
-
-Sunday I left my room at the club and moved into our new house out
-in the suburb of Santa Mesa. It is just a week now since the Chinese
-cook came and began to christen the pots and saucepans, whose Spanish
-names I shall never get to remember. He began by rendering me a small
-account of the "extras" provided for our table, and I was floored the
-first thing on an item of five cents put down as "Hongos." I asked him
-what that was. He spluttered around in Spanish and looked about the
-room to see if he couldn't find a few growing in one of our pictures of
-still life on the walls. At length, being struck with an inspiration,
-he seized a small fan, excitedly stuck it into one of our flower-pots,
-balanced on top of it an inverted ash-tray, and danced around, pointing
-first to the item on the bill and then to the peculiar growth in the
-flower-pot. I confess I didn't follow his reasoning, till suddenly it
-struck me that for our first dinner in the new house we had partaken
-of mushrooms. Not far off from an ash-tray balanced on a Japanese fan
-growing out of a flower-pot--are they? The style of decoration in our
-house is especially Japanese, and, needless to say, artistic, since
-there are large Japanese and Indian shops in Manila, where one can
-get all sorts of gimcracks at low prices. Our servants number seven,
-a small quota for two of us. Although their wages are small, amounting,
-as a rule, to $4 apiece per month, yet it is necessary to have plenty
-of them, in order that a certain few shall be awake when wanted.
-
-The fresh breeze, which in the evenings and early mornings blows
-down direct from the lofty mountains, is so cool that often several
-blankets have been necessary in the sleeping contrivance. Mosquitoes
-are still conspicuous by their absence, but the rats up in the roof
-sound tremendously numerous. All night they seem to be pulling boxes
-to and fro, taking up boards and nailing them down, and having a
-general all-hands-round sort of a dance.
-
-Nearly all of the older bungalows in Manila possess what are called
-house-snakes; huge reptiles generally about twelve or fourteen feet
-long and as thick as a fire-engine hose, that permanently reside up
-in the roof and live on the rats. These big creatures are harmless,
-and rarely, if ever, leave their abodes. Judging from the noise over
-my cloth ceiling, a pair of these pets find pasturage up above, and I
-can hear them whacking around about once a week in their chase after
-rats. They are good though noisy rat-catchers, but since they must
-needs eat all they catch, their efficiency appears to be limited
-to their length of stomach, and one night of energetic campaign is
-generally followed by several days of rest, during which the snake
-sees if he has bitten off more than he can chew. If the Philippine
-cats were more noble specimens of the quadruped, I should try to
-place half a dozen up in this midnight concert-hall, but they are so
-feeble that I fear their lives would be in danger. It is hardly to
-be wondered at that these native cats are modestly retiring, when
-you wake at night to hear your shoes being dragged off across the
-floor by some huge rice-fed rodent, and I don't blame them at all
-for having right angles at the end of their tails.
-
-The only way to get rid of the rats seems to be to buy more snakes,
-and this is simple enough, for you often see the natives hawking
-them around in town, the boas curled up around bamboo poles, to which
-their heads are tied.
-
-Some of our other domestic pets are lizards, supposed to be about four
-feet long, who sing every evening at 8.30 P.M., from somewhere off
-down in the shrubbery; several roving turkeys and pigs that belong to
-the boys that serve us, a cluster of fighting-cocks, and a family of
-puppies. It is easy to be seen that our establishment is thus somewhat
-of a tropical menagerie, and a performance is almost always going on
-in some quarter or other.
-
-I have just completed the purchase of a horse and carriage complete,
-including the coachman, for $100, and on the first trial we passed
-everything on the road. The pony is a high-stepper, and rattled along
-over the ground at a terrific speed, as a good Philippine animal
-should. The coachman seems to know how to drive, which is a rare
-attainment among the natives, and so far, though he has run over two
-boys, he has not taken off any wheels in the car-tracks.
-
-They say it costs a good deal to live well out this way, but that is a
-mistake, and if one lived at home in the same style the bills would be
-at least ten times as large. To be sure, it would be possible to come
-to Manila, board with a Spanish family in the old city, avoid joining
-the club, and live almost for nothing. However, this is a custom not
-much encouraged in the Orient, and one cannot properly take his place
-among the colony of English and other Europeans without spending a
-certain reasonable amount.
-
-Business is done more on a social scale than at home, and the lowest
-English clerk in the large houses feels that he must enter into the
-free and easy expenditure of his better-paid chief. After office hours
-are over everyone stands on the same social plane, and all business
-talk is tabooed. The office-boy often calls his lord and master
-"Bill," and frequently has a better-looking horse and carriage.
-
-The U.S.S. Concord has just come into the bay and been saluted by the
-fort. Some of her officers will probably come ashore to breakfast
-at the club, and it will probably devolve on the four Americans
-in the city to do what is needful in the way of courtesy to our
-fellow-countrymen.
-
-To-day is the beginning of Easter Week, nearly all of whose days are
-holidays or holy days. This is one of the closest-observed seasons
-of the year, and on next Thursday and Friday, if you will believe it,
-no carriages are allowed to appear in the streets either of Manila or
-of the other cities. The tram-cars, to be sure, have of late years
-been allowed to run, and the doctor's carriage and the ice-carts
-can obtain permits. Beyond them, however, everybody has to stay at
-home or walk; and in former times tram-cars were forbidden and no
-one was allowed to carry an open umbrella. It seems the proper thing
-to do to make arrangements with some of the English colony to take a
-trip off into the mountains, and my chum and I expect to start off
-by launch on Wednesday afternoon. Our party will consist of five,
-not including half a dozen servants, who are to make arrangements
-for bringing the provisions and bedding.
-
-On my return I hope to have some fodder for my pen and relate some
-of our experiences in the up-country districts.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-    An Up-country Excursion--Steaming up the River to the
-    Lake--Legend of the Chinaman and the Crocodile--Santa Cruz
-    and Pagsanjan--Dress of the Women--Mountain Gorges and River
-    Rapids--Church Processions--Cocoanut Rafts--A "Carromata" Ride to
-    Paquil--An Earthquake Lasting Forty-five Seconds--Small-pox and
-    other Diseases in the Philippines--The Manila Fire Department--How
-    Thatch Dealers Boom the Market--Cost of Living.
-
-
-                                                         March 27, 1894.
-
-The Easter holidays have come and gone, and one of the favorite
-vacation trips from Manila has been brought to a close. Five of us have
-seen lake, mountain, and river scenery; have been taking interesting
-walks, drives, swims; have camped out in a good house and enjoyed the
-hospitality of our native Indian friends. Whistling for the punka-boy
-to go ahead, I will now set down the record of our trip.
-
-The week from the 18th of March to the 25th was practically one long
-holiday, but it was Wednesday, the 21st, in the afternoon, that we
-left Manila for the interior. Rand and I got up the trip by procuring
-a large and commodious steam-launch for five days--gratis. Having
-done our share, we left our three companions to look after the "chow"
-and other kindred topics. To my "boy" I merely said, "Wednesday we are
-going up to the laguna; prepare what is necessary for four days." That
-was all, and on Wednesday afternoon I found him at the launch with my
-clothes and bedding all ready to start. Here also were assembled hams,
-boxes of ice, and other provisions, big bundles of personal effects,
-and the four "boys" (a "boy" may be seventy years old if he likes)
-whom we were going to take along.
-
-The whistle blew, the special artist with his camera ambled aboard,
-amidst a pile of sun-hats, oranges, and excitement, and soon the
-Vigilante was steaming up the river on her sixty-mile trip. Familiar
-objects were first passed, but soon after leaving the uptown club new
-scenes presented themselves. The launch stirred up large waves astern
-that washed both banks of the river with great energy, and the first
-incident was the swamping of three banca-loads of grass that were on
-their way down to Manila under charge of Indian pedlers. Turn after
-turn opened up new scenes; our house on the hill began to fade away,
-and soon we skimmed through native villages where white blood was
-"not in it." The hills increased in size, the river lessened, and
-great bamboo-trees hung over toward the central channel. At one point,
-high up on the bluffs, perched a Chinese pagoda-like chapel, said to
-have been constructed by a wealthy Celestial as a thanks-offering for
-his escape from a crocodile. He was bathing in the river, so the story
-goes, when suddenly he saw the monster making for him. He threw up his
-hands and vowed to build a monument to his patron saint if escape was
-vouchsafed him. And no sooner had he spoken than the crocodile turned
-to stone and lies there to-day, a long, low black mass, fretting the
-current that ripples over it. As we passed the rock it looked as if
-it had never been anything else, but the afternoon was too pleasant
-to doubt the veracity of the legend. On we went. The mountains ahead
-grew more to look like masses of rock and trees and less like soft
-blue velvet. Pasig, an important town, was left behind, the lowlands
-came again, a multitude of fish-weirs stuck up ahead, and before we
-knew it the great lake was holding us on its rather muddy waters just
-where it slobbered into the mouth of the river, its only outlet.
-
-On all sides save the one by which we had entered rose the mountains
-right out of the water, and I was reminded of Norway or Scotland. It
-was like a sea, and the farther shore was below the horizon. The sun
-had set and the full moon rose just ahead as we kept along the coast
-to the north. At half after eight o'clock we anchored off a little
-town called Santa Cruz that seemed to be backed up by two very lofty
-mountain-peaks, and we were soon surrounded by two bancas filled with
-natives who began to transfer our many effects. And so we left the
-launch, were slowly poled ashore, and next found ourselves on a sandy
-beach surrounded by much people and baggage. Dispatching two of our
-retinue up into the town to fetch enough of the two-wheeled covered
-gigs called carromatas for our assembly, in about three-quarters of
-an hour we had the felicity of seeing seven come racing down the road
-to the lake shore. Our destination, by the way, was a town called
-Pagsanjan, about three-quarters of an hour from Santa Cruz, and
-situated just at the foot of a range of mountains. The chattels were
-soon loaded, there was a cracking of whips, a creaking of harness,
-and the long procession started off at a rattling gait through the
-town and out into the rich cocoanut groves beyond.
-
-At Manila, outside of bamboo and banana trees, there is no sign of
-really equatorial vegetation, but up in the mountains there was no
-deception, and Nature did her best to let us know that the temperate
-zone was far away. We bounced along at a terrific pace and presently
-saw the lights of our little village. Rattling through an old stone
-archway, we drew up before the house of a certain Captain Feliz,
-to whom we had been recommended. The genial old man, whose face and
-corporosity were charmingly circular in their rotundity, welcomed us
-with open-armed hospitality, and saying he knew of just the house
-that would accommodate our party, started to lead us to it. After
-a few steps he suddenly stopped, apologized smilingly, said he had
-forgotten his set of false teeth, and must return for them. And coming
-back shortly after, he took out his teeth, commented on their grace
-and usefulness, and said he could speak much better Spanish with than
-without them.
-
-In due season we drew up at a very thick-walled stone house on the high
-bank just above the river, and were invited to take possession. Our
-"boys" got out the provisions in short order, for a late supper; our
-pieces of straw matting were spread out around the edges of the shining
-floor of the large "sala" which had been placed at our disposal for a
-dormitory; pillows and light coverings were duly regulated, and after
-eating a bit, we said good-night to our new friends and turned in on
-the floor to rest. I found the hardwood planks so soft after my bed
-at Manila that before long I arose, arranged eight chairs in facing
-pairs, spread out my sleeping-arrangements, and soon fell asleep in
-a very good improvised bed which was high enough from the floor to
-keep cockroaches from using me as a promenade. Thursday morning we
-arose early, washed ourselves on the balcony that overlooked the
-fashionable avenue of the village, and, as is the true Philippine
-custom, sprinkled the street with solutions of soapsuds.
-
-Now, as I have said before, the Thursday and Friday before Easter are
-tremendously sacred days in the Philippines, and no carriages of any
-description are permitted to move about. The little town was still as
-death, and the early-morning hush was only broken now and then by the
-weird caterwaulings of the peculiar Passion songs which the natives
-in these parts sing off and on during Lent. Later on, as we finished
-breakfast, groups of women began coming out of the various houses and
-directed their steps church-ward. Most of them were gorgeously dressed
-in all colors of the solar spectrum--with a little cloth added on--and
-it was instructive to see an expensively gowned Indian woman emerge
-from a shabby little nipa hut that didn't look as if it could incubate
-such starched freshness. For the dresses that some of these people
-wear are costly; and even their piña neckerchiefs often cost $100.
-
-After breakfast we went down to the river and got into five
-hollowed-out tree-trunks, preparatory to the start up into the
-mountain-gorges. It was worse than riding a bicycle, trying to balance
-one of the crazy affairs, and for a few moments I feared my camera and
-I would get wet. However, nobody turned turtle, and we were paddled
-up between the high cocoanut-fringed banks of the wonderfully clear
-river before the early morning sun had looked over the mountains into
-whose cool heart we were going.
-
-Then came the first rapids, with backgrounds of rich slopes showing
-heavy growths of hemp and cocoa palms. Another short paddle and the
-second set of rapids was passed on foot. A clear blue lane of water
-then stretched out in front of us and reached squarely into the
-mountain fastnesses through a huge rift where almost perpendicular
-walls were artistically draped with rich foliage that concealed
-birds of many colors, a few chattering monkeys, and many hanging
-creepers. Again it seemed like a Norwegian fjord or the Via Mala,
-but here, instead of bare rocks, were deeply verdured ones. Above,
-the blue sky showed in a narrow irregular line; below, the absolutely
-clear water reflected the heavens; the cliffs rose a thousand feet,
-the water was five hundred feet deep, the birds sang, the creepers
-hung, the water dripped, and we seemed to float through a sort of
-El Dorado, a visionary and unreal paradise. At last we glided in
-through a specially narrow lane not more than fifty feet wide;
-a holy twilight prevailed; the cliffs seemed to hold up the few
-fleecy clouds that floated far over our head, and we landed on a
-little jutting point for bathing and refreshments. It seemed as if we
-were diving into the river Lethe or being introduced to the boudoir
-of Nature herself. In an hour we pushed on, passed up by three more
-rapids, and halted at last at the foot of a bridal-veil waterfall
-that charmed the eye with its beauty, cooled the air with its mists,
-and set off the green foliage with its white purity. Here we lunched,
-and in lieu of warm beer drank in the beauties of the scenery.
-
-The return was a repetition of the advance, except that we shot
-one or two of the rapids, and that the banca holding the boy and
-the provisions upset in a critical place, wetting the crackers
-that were labelled "keep dry." We got back to our house by
-early afternoon, and all agreed that an inimitable, unexcelled,
-wouldn't-have-missed-it-for-the-world excursion had passed into
-history.
-
-Good old Captain Feliz took us to call on some of the native
-villagers in the late afternoon, who exhibited quite a bit of Indian
-hospitality. At one house was a pretty Indian girl who spoke Spanish
-very well and entertained our party of six with as much grace as an
-American belle. Of course the presence of five "Ingleses" in town
-was quite an event in a place fifty miles from Manila, and as we
-walked through street after street each house-window presented at
-least seven curious faces; dogs barked, fighting-cocks crowed, and
-the occupations of the moment were suspended.
-
-After dinner we sat out on the balcony to watch the procession
-that wound around through the various streets, starting from
-the fortress-like church and finally bringing up there. These
-church parades are a good deal like our torch-light processions,
-except that here images, not mud-besprinkled men, carry most of
-the torches. In this affair there were a dozen or more floats,
-each one bearing a saint, an apostle, or somebody else, and each
-decorated with very costly drapery, ornaments, and elaborate candelabra
-illuminators. Scattered all along between the floats straggled natives
-carrying poles on which were images of a candle, a hand, a spear, a
-pair of nails, a cock, a set of garments, and other symbolic articles
-relating to the crucifixion. Then came Peter on a very elaborate
-moving pedestal, and in his hand he held the traditional bunch of
-keys. Then a Descent from the Cross, with two apostles standing up
-on step-ladders. Next came the band of the procession--three men
-singing to the tune of an old violin--and finally the Virgin Mary
-with glass tears rolling down her wax cheeks. On each side of the
-line from start to finish trooped the populace, mostly women dressed
-in black and carrying candles.
-
-Next day was Good Friday. No traps of any description to be had, as
-none were allowed to run, and so we spent the day about the town and in
-walking up into the hills. A look into the great, solid old church in
-the morning showed us a fragrant and gaudily dressed audience kneeling
-in various postures on the tiled floors, while numerous dogs of various
-cross breeds and tempers meandered in through the door and among
-the worshippers. From the church we strolled across a very primitive
-bamboo bridge over a branch river, and wandered through a luxurious
-cocoanut grove beneath whose tall trees were situate a couple of very
-rudimentary cocoanut-oil mills and the houses of the operators. The
-machinery was very crude. One might think he was back in the days of
-stone knives, seeing these simple contrivances, the awkward levers,
-the foot-power grindstones, and the old pots and kettles. In the river
-near the mills were thousands of cocoanuts ready to be tied together
-in rafts for floating down to Manila, and everybody's business up this
-way seemed to consist in watching this oily fruit fall from the trees.
-
-In the early evening, just before another religious procession started,
-we heard a great clatter up in the belfry of the old church, and
-learned that the hubbub was made by "devil-frighteners." On inquiring
-as to the nature of this weird clap-trap symphony, it seems that on
-these especially holy days men are stationed up in the bell-towers
-with huge wooden rattles, which they so manipulate from time to time
-that the noise is said to act as a scare-crow to the various devils
-who are supposed to be hovering about seeking whom they may devour.
-
-After another peaceful night's rest, some of us took our morning jump
-into the river, and all prepared for a twelve-mile carromata drive out
-along the lake shore beneath the mountains, to a little village called
-Paquil, said to be possessed of a crystal spring bathing-pool. The road
-for a good bit of the way was of the Napoleon-crossing-the-Alps style,
-and it got to be so bad I rather thought we were in for a walk. Not a
-bit of it. The carromatas are built strong as the rocks themselves,
-the wheels are huge and solid, the ponies tough as prize-fighters,
-and the driver urges the whole affair along at a tremendous pace. So
-we bounced along, and most of our time was spent, not on the seat,
-but midway between it and the roof, which occasionally came down
-and thumped our heads. On the way we passed through numerous little
-villages, and in one out-of-the-way place we called on an American,
-Thomas Collins, who has been practically shut in out here for
-twenty-five years. It seems that he got cheated out of a hundred and
-fifty thousand dollars' worth of valuable wood a good while ago by
-the officials of a certain provincial district, and has been trying
-to get the claim paid ever since. He was a queer chap, and had almost
-forgotten how to speak American; but at last he managed to remember
-the word "hell," and then his ideas began to flow more freely.
-
-When we arrived at Paquil our conductor, the genial Captain Feliz,
-walked up to the house of an acquaintance and asked him to put it
-at our disposal. As before, the request was father to the grant,
-and we dumped our chattels down into a parlor full of wax virgins
-and crucifixes. The bath, for which the village is quite famous, is a
-large pool five feet deep, with a pebble bottom. At one end a stream
-of clear water gushes forth from the hillside, while at the other an
-overflow brook carries off the surplus and goes bubbling down through
-the village to the lake. We had our swim after all the native bathers
-had left, and got back to our house in time for a tiffin that had
-been brought with us in the baskets. In the early afternoon we took
-our siesta, in the later hours started for our jogglety return drive,
-and at Pagsanjan found prepared for us a feast of sucking pigs.
-
-On Sunday morning we were ready for our return to Manila. The seven
-gigs arrived, we said hearty farewell to our friends, presented Captain
-Feliz some empty bottles and two teapots, and rattled out through the
-town toward Santa Cruz, where our launch was in waiting. The trip was
-cool and pleasant across the lake, but it was hot when in about four
-and a half hours we got to the low river-country again. The sail down
-was like the sail up, and by dinner-time we backed water to bump into
-the portico of the club, where all hands disembarked for dinner. Thus
-ended what I suppose is the most popular and most delightful excursion
-which the foreigner can make from the capital of the Philippines in
-the few days which the church feasts at Easter put at his disposal.
-
-
-
-                                                              April 6th.
-
-The other night I dreamt I was climbing up a long hill on a
-bicycle. Once at the top, I started down over the other side at a
-terrific pace. Somehow or other, by mistake, the wheel ran off into a
-gutter at the side of the road, and bounced around in such a dangerous
-manner that it all but upset. However, with tremendous exertion,
-I managed to jump the mechanism back onto the smooth ground again,
-and continued safely down to the bottom of the hill at a two-forty
-gait. Arrived at the bottom, I conveniently woke up, and heard a rat
-under the bed trying to slide one of my shoes off across the floor.
-
-Next morning, on coming down to the office, several of my business
-friends asked me if I had felt the severe earthquake shock during the
-night. I said "No," and inquired as to the particulars. It seems that
-the shock lasted some forty-five seconds, and my chum was awakened by
-his bed commencing to rock around and by the four walls of his room
-attempting to move in different directions. Nothing in the city was
-much injured, I believe, and next day the really excellent observatory,
-conducted by the Jesuits, gave out a full illustrated description of
-the affair.
-
-Up at our new bungalow, the only incidents worthy of note have been
-the attempted stealing of my pony and the consumption of my best
-shoes by one of our house-rats.
-
-A Philippine burglar, curiously enough, takes off his clothes, smears
-his dark skin with cocoanut-oil, and prowls around like a greased
-pig that cannot be caught. One of these slippery thieves got into our
-stable, unhitched my pony, and took him almost to the front gate before
-the sleepy coachman found his wits. But prompt action saved the day,
-and the lubricated robber escaped, leaving his booty pawing the ground.
-
-But with my shoes I was not so fortunate. I woke up suddenly to
-hear something being dragged across the floor. Thinking it was only
-a rat making off with a boot-jack with which to line his nest, I
-refrained from tempting Providence by leaving the protection of the
-mosquito-netting. Next morning I found that one of these rodents had
-pulled a pair of my patent-leather shoes off a low shelf beneath the
-bed, dragged them out into the hallway behind a hat-rack, and eaten up
-the most savory portions of the bindings. Complimentary to the prowess
-of the rat or to the lightness of my shoes--which? I keep them now as
-articles on which the patent has run out--worthless, but curiosities.
-
-Otherwise things have run smoothly, and each evening we lie in the
-long chairs on the broad veranda, watching the Southern Cross come
-up over the hills, or the score of brush-fires of dried rice-stalks
-that illuminate the darkness away off toward the mountains. The
-music from our piano seems to give much delight to the members of
-the servants' hall, now nine in number, besides several puppies and
-game-cocks. The other night, although in the midst of the hot season,
-we had a prodigious cold snap again, when the thermometer went down
-to sixty, after being ninety-five during the day, and two blankets
-were not at all uncomfortable.
-
-I see by the papers that there are at least two cases of small-pox
-in Boston, that everybody is alarmed and hundreds are getting
-vaccinated. Curious state of affairs--isn't it?--when every day out
-here you see small children running around in the streets, covered with
-evidences of this disease. Nobody thinks anything about small-pox in
-Manila, and one ceases to notice it if a Philippine mamma sits opposite
-you in the tram-car, holding in her lap a scantily clothed child whose
-swarthy hide is illuminated with those unmistakable markings. Some
-weeks ago there were even four hundred deaths a week in Manila from
-this disease alone; and from the way in which the afflicted mix with
-the hale and hearty, you can only wonder that there were not four
-thousand. But small-pox flourishes best in the cool, dry days of our
-winter months, and is now being stamped out by the warmer weather. An
-effort is being made to have everybody vaccinated, and the steamers
-from Japan have brought down whole cargoes of lymph, but the natives
-do not see any reason why they should undergo this experiment, and
-would much prefer to have the small-pox than to be vaccinated. And this
-being the case, it is no wonder that almost seventy-five per cent. of
-them bear those uncomplimentary marks of the disease's attention.
-
-Now that I have inoculated my page with a reference to this rather
-unpleasant subject, it is only a bit of sad truth to tell of
-the only fatality caused by the malady in our little Anglo-Saxon
-colony. Recently I went into the Bay with a young Englishman who
-had always lived in terror of this one disease, and had avoided
-both contact with the natives and excursions into the infected
-districts. The launch took me to the vessel which we were loading, and
-then carried him on to that receiving cargo from his concern. Later
-she returned with him, picked me up, and together we went ashore to
-stop a moment at the club before going home for the day. I never saw
-him again, poor chap, though I did take over his stable, for next
-morning he was taken with black small-pox and died in a week.
-
-The families of the lightermen in the Bay--crowded as they are into
-the hen-coops over the stern of the bulky craft--are full of it, and
-hence the fatal ending to our little afternoon excursion. As a rule,
-however, the members of the English-speaking colony get so used to
-this disease that they have no especial fear in suddenly turning a
-sharp corner of running into some native sufferer.
-
-In days gone by, when cholera decimated Manila's numbers, when
-people died faster than they could be buried, when business was at
-a standstill and the city one great death-house, were the times that
-tried men's souls. But now that those big water-mains which run along
-the ground bring fresh water from far up into the hills, the natives
-have given up the deadly practice of drinking from the river, and,
-thanks to the good supply system, no longer give the cholera free
-admittance.
-
-Besides small-pox, then, fever is about the greatest enemy, and certain
-types of the malarial variety seem so common that the sufferers from
-them often walk into the club, drop into a chair, and say, "Got the
-fever again. Means another lay-off." If they can keep about, the old
-stagers never give up; but novices buy thermometers and cracked ice,
-and either go through a terrific siege, like my friend, whose eight
-weeks' struggle shrunk his head so that in convalescence his hat
-touched his ears, or escape with a week's initiation. Typhoid seems
-also common, and there is generally one member of the colony, for
-whom the rest are anxious, stretched out in ice-baths and wishing
-he had never seen the Philippines. The old hands--who, by the way,
-seem to be regular sufferers from the fever--all say the only way to
-be safe is to drink plenty of whiskey, but so far I have found that
-the less one takes the better off he is.
-
-Someone in the States has suggested that if things get too hot it would
-be well to run over to Hong Kong for a change of scene. But if there
-is any place in the world that is hotter, stickier, more disagreeable
-than Hong Kong, in the months from May to October, let us hear from
-it. It is far worse in summer than Manila, for, completely shut in
-as it is by the mountains, it does not receive the benefit of the
-southwest monsoon, which blows with great force over the Philippines
-during the above months. Even Japan itself gets a good roasting for
-the two or three months of the hot season, and there is not much left
-to do but to seek cold weather in Australia. Our only very hot months
-here are said to be April and May; sometimes part of June. The sun now
-is directly overhead and going fast to the north of us, but so far the
-temperature has never been unbearable. The mercury stands at about
-ninety-five from twelve to three each day, but somehow or other one
-does not feel it so much in the cool white suits, unless he attempts
-to fall asleep on some of the sheet-iron roofs. The nights are still
-cool and comfortable, and what with a cold snap now and then, such
-as I spoke of above, fans are having a poor sale. In the afternoon,
-walking, rowing, and tennis are still possible, and the bands of the
-Luneta still have enough wind left to give us the "Funeral March" or
-"Prize Song."
-
-
-
-                                                             April 28th.
-
-Manila fare, like Manila life, is not unwholesome, but it lacks
-variety, and one rather tires, now and then, of soup, chicken,
-beefsteak, and toothpicks--four staples. But fortunately for us who
-like variety, though unhappily for five or six hundred other people,
-there occurred a vast conflagration yesterday afternoon that sent
-about five or six hundred houses sailing off through the air in the
-form of smoke.
-
-As we were getting ready to leave the office for the day, clouds of
-smoke suddenly began to rise over the iron house-roofs to the eastward,
-and we knew that one of Manila's semi-annual holocaustic celebrations
-was in progress. The church bells began to ring, and all sorts of
-people and carriages started toward the centre of interest.
-
-The Manila Fire Department consists of about six hand-engines and a
-few hose-carts, and if a fire gets started it generally burns along
-until an open field, a river, or a thick mass of banana-trees stops
-its progress. The English houses, to be sure, have recently gotten out
-from home one of their small steam "garden-pumps," and many of the
-young Britons have had weekly practice in manipulating its various
-parts. When the alarm for the present fire rang you might have seen
-several servants, employed in their respective homes by the members
-of the new Volunteer Fire Department, slowly wandering toward the
-shed where the engine was kept, with some nicely folded red shirts,
-coats with brass buttons, helmets with Matterhorn-like summits, and
-axes that shone from lack of work. These youths did not seem to be in
-any hurry, and it turned out that when they reached the engine-house,
-when their masters had togged up sufficiently well to impress the
-spectators, and when the engine finally got to the fire, the buildings
-had been translated into their new and rather more ethereal form.
-
-The fire was two miles, more or less, from the centre of the town. The
-Volunteer Fire Brigade had to haul the engine the entire distance,
-as they feared that if the usual carabao oxen were hitched on, the
-speed over the pavements would be too great. After reaching the centre
-of action, an hour was spent in waiting for the man who brought some
-spare coal in a wheelbarrow and in choosing a location which would
-not be uncomfortable for the brigade. Consequently, the "London Garden
-Pump" was stationed to windward of the fire, on a side where it could
-not possibly spread any farther, and thus all stray flames and smoke
-were avoided. A hose was stuck down into the creek, and steam turned
-on. A stream of water about large enough to be clearly visible with
-a microscope suddenly jumped forth into the middle of the street,
-wetting the spectators. Somebody had forgotten to attach the extra
-pieces of hose that were to lead down to the fire, and steam had
-to be turned off. After everything was ready to get to business,
-a tram-car came along, and it wasn't allowable to stop its progress
-by putting a hose across the track, even if there was a fire. And so
-it went from grave to gay, the swell brigade furnishing the humorous
-part of the otherwise rather sad spectacle.
-
-A Philippine fire is like any other, except that with the many nipa
-houses it does its work quickly and well, and in this instance the
-whole affair lasted but a couple of hours. Hundreds of families moved
-out into the wet rice-fields, with all their chattels, and there were
-many curious-looking groups. In saving various articles of furniture
-and other valuables, the fighting-cock, as usual, was considered the
-most important, and it was interesting to watch the natives trudging
-along with scared faces, holding a rooster by the legs in one hand and
-a baby or two in the other. Pigs, chickens, and dogs seemed to come
-next in value, and after them ice-chests and images of the Virgin
-Mary. The sun went down on a strange spectacle, and it was hard
-not to pity all the crowd that were thus rudely thrown out of their
-habitations. Myriads of spectators there were and myriads of carriages,
-of all ages and sizes, some loaded with chattels ready to take flight,
-and others waiting to be. At dusk, however, all danger was over;
-the mobs departed north, east, south, and west; the brigade carefully
-brushed the dust off their boots and shirts, and the poor burned-out
-unfortunates looked with moistened eyes on the ruin of their homes.
-
-The wags go far enough to say that the dealers in thatch are
-responsible for many of the big fires both in the capital and smaller
-villages and that, when times are bad or prices for thatch low, they
-arrange to "bull" the market by means of a conflagration. A lamp is
-tipped over--a thousand houses go up in smoke, and as go the houses
-so rise the prices for nipa thatch.
-
-The second series of pony races occurred during the middle days of
-this month, at the race-track down below our bungalow, and all Manila
-again came rolling up through the dust to see the performances of
-the smart ponies. The events were but a repetition of those which
-took place in March, except that in many respects the running-time
-was better and the races far more close and interesting.
-
-Some of the old stagers are beginning to complain of the heat. We
-take afternoon tea now and then, as is customary in all the business
-houses, with some of our friends, in an office on the other side of
-our building. Yesterday afternoon a thermometer placed outside of
-our window registered 125° F., I suspect this was owing to some of
-the reflected heat coming from the iron roofs. Inside the room the
-mercury stood at 97° F., but we drank our hot tea and enjoyed the
-coolness which resulted from consequent perspiration.
-
-I have now been settled in Manila long enough to find out what it
-costs to live, and the general cheapness of existence is more appalling
-than I first thought. Our house is a good one, with all the comforts
-of home, and is surrounded by an acre or two of land. We have stables
-for our horses and outbuildings for the families of our servants. At
-the end of the month all expenditures for house-rent, food, wages,
-light, and sundries are posted together and divided by three, and
-with everything included my monthly share comes to twenty-nine gold
-dollars--less than one of our American cart-wheels--per diem.
-
-Where in the States could you rent a suburban house and lot, keep
-half a dozen servants, pay your meat bill, your drink bill, and your
-rent all for less than a single dollar a day! You can scarcely drive a
-dozen blocks in a hansom or buy a pound of Maillard's for that money at
-home and yet, in Manila, that one coin shelters you from the weather,
-ministers to the inner man, and keeps the parlor in order.
-
-Our cook, for instance, gets forty cents each morning to supply our
-table with dinner enough for four people, and for five cents extra
-he will decorate the cloth with orchids and put peas in the soup. To
-think of being able to get up a six-course dinner, including usually
-a whole chicken, besides a roast, with vegetables, salad, dessert,
-fruit, and coffee, for such a sum seems ridiculous in the extreme.
-
-The methods of marketing are almost as noteworthy as the low prices for
-"raw materials." All meat must be eaten on the same day it is killed,
-since here in the tropics even ice fails to preserve fish, flesh,
-or fowl. As a result, while the beef and mutton are killed in the
-early morning--a few hours before the market opens--the smaller fry,
-such as chickens and game, are sold alive. From six to ten on any
-morning the native and Chinese cooks from many families may be seen
-bargaining for the day's supply among the nest of stalls in the big
-market. After filling their baskets numbers of them mount the little
-tram-car for the return trips to their kitchens and proceed to pluck
-the feathers off the live chickens or birds as they jog along on the
-front or rear platform. By the time they have arrived home the poor
-creatures are stripped of foliage, and, keenly suffering, are pegged
-down to the floor of the kitchen to await their fate. Then, when
-the creaking of the front gate announces the return of the master,
-it is time enough to wring the necks of the unfortunates and shove
-them into the boiling-pot or roasting-pan that seems but to accentuate
-a certain toughness which fresh-killed meat possesses.
-
-The washing-bill, again, is far from commensurate with the fulness of
-one's clothes-hamper, and for two gold dollars per month I can turn
-over to my laundry-man--who comes in from the country once a week--as
-much or as little as I please. Two full suits of white sheeting clothes
-a day for thirty days make one item of no mean dimensions, and yet the
-lavandero turns up each week with his basketful, perfectly satisfied
-with his remuneration. Then, too, he washes well, and although, when
-I see him standing knee-deep in the river whanging my trousers from
-over his head down onto a flat stone, I fear for seams and buttons,
-nothing appears to suffer. And although he builds a small bonfire in
-a brass flat-iron that looks like a warming-pan and runs it over my
-white coats all blazing as it is, the result is excellent, and one's
-linen seems better laundered than in the mills that grind away at home.
-
-As servants, these boys of ours could teach much to some of their
-more civilized brethren from Ireland or Nova Scotia now holding sway
-in American families. They take bossing well, and actually expect
-to have their heads punched if things go wrong. They don't put their
-arms akimbo and march out of the house if we mildly suggest that the
-quality of ants in the cake or the water-pitcher is not up to standard,
-and actually make one feel at liberty to require anything of them.
-
-And speaking of ants, these little creatures are everywhere ready to
-eat your house or your dinner right from under you. The legs of the
-dining-table, the ice-chest, and the sideboard must be islanded in
-cups of kerosene, and even the feet to one's bed must undergo the same
-treatment, in order that the occupant may awake in the morning to find
-something of himself left. Cockroaches are almost equally fierce and,
-endowed with wings, these creatures, sometimes four inches long,
-go sailing out the window as you close your eyes and try to step
-on them. They prowl around at night, with a sort of clicking sound,
-seeking something to devour, and are apparently just as satisfied to
-eat the glue out of a book-cover as they are to feed on the rims to
-one's cuffs or shirt-collars, moist with perspiration.
-
-What the ants don't swarm over the cockroaches examine, and what
-they reject seems to be taken in charge by the heavy green mould
-that beards one's shoes, valise, and tweed suits at the slightest
-suggestion of wet weather.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-    Visit of the Sagamore--Another Mountain Excursion--The Caves of
-    Montalvan--A Hundred-mile View--A Village School--A "Fiesta"
-    at Obando--The Manila Fire-tree--A Move to the Seashore--A
-    Waterspout--Captain Tayler's Dilemma--A Trip Southward--The Lake
-    of Taal and its Volcano--Seven Hours of Poling--A Night's Sleep
-    in a Hen-coop.
-
-
-                                                            May 9, 1894.
-
-The other day the yacht Sagamore dropped anchor in the bay, her owner
-and his guests, all Harvard men, having got thus far on their tour
-around the world. I was sitting on the Luneta, Sunday evening, when I
-saw those familiar Harvard hat-ribbons coming, and in behalf of our
-little American colony welcomed the wearers of them to Manila. In
-return for a dinner or two at the club and a visit to the huge
-cigar-factories, where three or four thousand operators pound away
-all day at the fragrant weed, I spent a noon and afternoon aboard the
-yacht, glad to enjoy a change of fare. The Sagamore is a worthy boat
-and seems to be loaded up with gimcracks and curios of all classes
-and descriptions. A collector would positively be squint-eyed with
-pleasure to see the old vases, carved wood-work, plaques, knives,
-sabres, pots and kettles that her passengers have picked up all along
-the way; and it is indeed the only method by which to scour curios
-from the Orient. The boys thought the Luneta was the best place in
-its way they had yet seen, and it was as much as I could do to get
-them away from listening to the artillery-band and looking at the
-crowds of people in carriages. Three men in a boat of the Sagamore's
-size make a pretty small passenger-list for a pretty long voyage.
-
-We've kept up our record as tripsters by having gone again up into
-the mountains, seen pounds of scenery, breathed fine air, and received
-great hospitality from the natives. Monday was a bank-holiday, so late
-on Saturday afternoon four of us started in two-horse carromatas for a
-mountain village called Montalvan, about twenty miles from Manila. Two
-boys had been sent along a day ahead, with provisions and bedding,
-to find a native hut and provide for our arrival. We had a delightful
-drive out of Manila, passed through numerous native villages, forded
-three rivers, saw a fine sunset, and at about eight o'clock, after
-a three hours' journey, pulled up at a little native house situated
-in a village at the foot of a lofty mountain-range. The occupants
-seemed willing and glad to turn out of their little shanty and put
-it at our disposal, and we were very comfortable. The house was not
-large, but it had a very neat little parlor--curious name for a room
-out here--and in the corner, covered with a light bed-quilt, stood
-a wax figure of the Virgin Mary, with the usual glass tears running
-down her cheeks. The family of about fourteen slept somewhere out
-in the rear regions of the building, leaving us to spread out around
-the floor of the little sala, like unmounted club sandwiches.
-
-One of the party, more sensitive than the rest, woke about one in the
-morning and disturbed us by finding some four-inch spiders stringing
-cobwebs from the end of his nose to his ear and down to one finger. He
-was for the moment embarrassed enough to shout for joy and throw his
-slippers somewhere. But except for this, and a few rats that now and
-then tickled our toes, we slept well, and next morning before breakfast
-we went down to the shallow river for a swim. After a jolly good bath,
-a hearty breakfast, and a few preparations, our party of four, with
-the two boys and two guides, started up a steep valley that wound in
-among lofty mountains to the so-called Caves of Montalvan.
-
-One of our guides was the principal of a village school, who held
-sway over a group of little Indian girls under a big mango-tree,
-and he shut up shop to join our expedition.
-
-In about two hours and a half our caravan reached the narrower defile
-that pierced two mountains which came down hobnobbing together like
-a great gate, grand and picturesque. From a large, quiet pool just
-beneath the gates, we climbed almost straight up the mouth of the
-stalactite caves that run no one knows how far into the mountains,
-starting at a point about two hundred feet above the river. The guides
-made flare-torches of bamboos, and we entered the damp darkness,
-bounded by white limestone walls from which hung beautiful stalactites
-that glistened as the light struck them. In we went for a long way,
-now crawling on hands and knees and now stumbling into large vaulted
-chambers. Blind bats flew about and water trickled. It was ghostly,
-uncanny, but interesting. It seemed as if we were going into the very
-heart of the mountain, or were reading "King Solomon's Mines," and this
-impression was further carried out when we came to a small subterranean
-river that coursed down through a dark outlet and disappeared with
-weird gurglings. Unpleasant but perhaps imaginary rumblings suggested
-that a sudden earthquake might easily block our exit, and, retracing
-our steps, we breathed more freely on coming to the first glimmer of
-light. Once more in the air, we descended, took a good swim in the
-pool, lunched, and lay around for an hour. After another bath later
-on, we donned our sun-hats and trudged homeward over the long, rough
-path. A good walk, a good supper, a little dancing and music by the
-natives who occupied our house, and we went to sleep upon the floor.
-
-Next morning, after another early bath in the river, our party started
-to climb the mountain back of the town for a little experience in the
-bush. The work was hard and warm, but at the top came the reward of a
-superb view for a hundred miles around. Manila and the great plain,
-the bay and mountains beyond, were glorious before us, and behind
-the great mountain wilds that reached to the Pacific stretched off
-and up in great overlapping slabs of heavy greenness.
-
-The plain was cut up into the regulation checker-board farms of
-the richest looking description, and the scene was very much like
-an English one. Far away at the edge of the Bay could be seen
-the glistening white houses and steeples of Manila. Away to the
-northwest and southwest were the great fertile stretches of country
-that produce tons and tons of rice and sugar, reaching to the sky
-or distant mountains. We had luncheon in a leafy grotto; the guides
-found water, and brought it in lengths of bamboo which they cut down;
-deer ran past now and then down below us, and a short siesta on a bed
-of leaves finished off our morning's work. The return was so steep
-that it seemed as if we should go heels over head. However, we hung
-on to the long grass, and painted our once white suits with dust in
-the effort to reach level ground again. After a long descent, we came
-to the big mango-tree where the rural school was in session, and the
-little Filipinos were immediately given a recess. They rushed about,
-got benches and water for us, and the old schoolmaster, who had left
-his wife to do the teaching while he went with us, set two or three
-of the shavers at work mopping off his ebony skin. Our visit at the
-school was in the order of an ovation. The children opened their almond
-eyes almost to the extent of turning them into circles, and when the
-camera was pointed at them for the first time in their young lives,
-their mouths so far followed suit that recitations had to be suspended.
-
-After thoroughly disorganizing discipline in the establishment,
-we accompanied the half naked president of the seminary--who had
-been our guide--to the river, and there washed off such of the day's
-impressions as went easily into solution.
-
-And finally, after returning to our hut for tea, we packed up our
-baskets, whistled for the carromatas and jolted back to Manila through
-a flood of dust and sunset.
-
-Although the hot season is trying to do its best to scorch us, it has
-but dismally succeeded, and we have had scarcely any severe weather
-at all. The thunder-showers, harbingers of the southwest monsoon and
-the wet season, began two weeks ago, and it rains now nearly every
-afternoon. The nights are all delightfully cool, and a coverlet is
-always comfortable. The sun is going well to the north to make hot
-June and July days for people in the States, and our season of light
-is growing shorter. When he gets back overhead again, heavy clouds
-will protect us from his attentions.
-
-Owing to the outbreak of black plague or something else among the
-Chinese in Hong Kong, the quarantine regulations here in Manila
-will cause the steamer by which I was going to send the mail to miss
-connections. It was at first reported there were three thousand deaths
-in Hong Kong in six days, but I believe they have now taken off one
-or two ciphers from that amount. At all events Manila seems to be
-below the zone of this peculiar epidemic and is much better off at
-this time of the year than Hong Kong, which swelters away in that
-great unventilated scoop in the mountains.
-
-The men of the big artillery-band that plays at the Luneta twice a
-week have all been vaccinated lately, and are too broken up to blow
-their trumpets. The people are objecting, because the infantry band
-doesn't make nearly as good music, and only plays twice a week at
-most. The third regimental band is still fighting the savage Moros
-with trombones down at the south, although it is rumored they will soon
-return, and so at present about all the music and fireworks we have are
-derived from the thunder-storms that play around the sheet-iron roofs
-as if they meant business. But in spite of the terrific cannonade of
-sound and the blinding flashes of lightning nothing seems to get hit,
-and the iron roofs may act as dispersers of the electric fluid even
-though attracting it.
-
-
-
-                                                               June 6th.
-
-Several days ago, a number of us went up the railroad line to see
-a "fiesta" at a little village called Obando. It was a religious
-observance lasting three days, and pilgrims from many villages thought
-it their duty to go there on foot. A great dingy old church with
-buttressed walls yards thick, a large plaza shaded by big trees,
-and beyond, on all sides, the native houses. Such a crowd I have
-rarely seen. Everybody seemed to think it his duty to dance; and
-men, women, old men and children, mothers with babies and papas
-with kids, shouted, jumped around, danced, joggled each other,
-and rumpussed about until they were blue in the face, dripping with
-heat, and covered with dust. Then they would stop and another crowd
-take up the play. As the circus proceeded the crowds increased;
-the old church was packed with worshippers who brought candles, and,
-receiving a blessing, spent an hour or so on the stone pavements in
-positions of contrite humility. Around the walls of the church were
-placed realistic paintings of the chromo order, representing hell
-and the river Styx, and as the natives looked at portraits of devils
-driving nails into the heads of the tormented, of sulphurous flames
-that licked the cheeks of the wicked in this world, or serpents that
-twined themselves into square knots around the chests of a dozen
-unfortunates, and of countless horned demons who plucked out the
-heartstrings of the condemned, they counted their beads with renewed
-vigor and mumbled long prayers.
-
-Countless little booths stood like mushrooms round about outside,
-and cheap jewellery, made in Germany, found ready sale. The dancing
-and shouting increased as the sun sank in the west, until the ground
-fairly shook and the dust arose in vast clouds. Around the edge of
-the church, under the porticoes, slept sections of the multitude
-who were preparing themselves to take part in the proceedings when
-others were tired out. It was a motley crowd, a motley scene, and an
-unforgettable collection of perfumes.
-
-We left after a few hours' stay, and got back to Manila to find water
-a foot deep in some of the streets, as a result of one of the tropical
-thunder-storms which have now begun in real earnest. And speaking of
-rain, everything is looking fresh and green, now that the dusty days
-of the hot season are a thing of the past. All the bamboo-trees have
-leafed out anew, flowering shrubs have taken life, and all nature
-seems to have had a bath.
-
-One of the most showy trees in Manila is the arbol de fuego (fire-tree)
-and this product of nature resembles a large oak in general and
-a full-blown Japanese cherry blossom in particular. Many of the
-streets in the city are bordered with groups of these fire-trees,
-of large and stately dimensions, and at present they are simply
-one mass of huge flaming red blossoms growing thickly together and
-showing a wonderful fire-like carnation color. Scarcely any leaves
-make their appearance on these trees during the season of blossom,
-and although now and then bits of green look out from the mass of red,
-yet the general effect is a vast blaze of burning color.
-
-We have left our country house on the hills of Santa Mesa, and have
-moved down to a little villa on the seacoast. The third man of our
-party, like many of his brother Englishmen who are burdened with
-small salaries but large debit balances, has at last decided to save
-money and room at his office. The house had too many regular boarders
-in the form of rats and snakes, was too large and too far off for
-the two of us left, and we decided to make a move to the seashore
-district. Our army of servants successfully solved the transportation
-problems involved, and we are now settled in new quarters. Although we
-miss the view of the mountains, and even the paddy-fields, we now get
-the salt air first hand, look out over the waters of the Bay, and are
-lulled to sleep by the rhythmic beating of the waves on the beach. Our
-view seaward leads the eye across a beautiful garden belonging to one
-of the rich house-owners living directly on the shore front, and the
-green of the trees, with the scent of somebody else's flowers, temper
-both the excess of glare and the brackish qualities of the sea-breeze.
-
-In Malate, where we now are, things are much civilized. We find we
-miss the snakes in the roof, but we have running water in the house
-and a shower-bath in the bath-room; two rooms on the first floor; a
-parlor, two bed-rooms, dining-room, large hallway, kitchen, bath and
-"boys'" rooms on the second floor; a small garden at the front and a
-stable at the back, and all included in a rent of $15 a month. The
-stable accommodates two ponies, and it is a jolly drive downtown
-in the morning or home in the evening. The road leads all the way
-along by the sea, Luneta, and Malecon Promenade, that runs under the
-yawning mouths of the old muzzle-loaders in front of the grim walls
-of the old city, between them and the beach. The salt-water bath in
-the early morning is often very pleasant, though the temperature of
-the liquid is somewhat too high to be exhilarating. Now and then some
-of the Britons living in the neighborhood will issue a summons for
-a sunrise swimming-party, and one of them will perhaps punctuate the
-ceremonies by supplying a typical breakfast of fresh fish and boiled
-rice, on the veranda of a house that perhaps overlooks the Bay. These
-seaside houses are particularly cool and fresh now that the winds of
-the southwest monsoon come blowing into the front windows directly
-off the water, but later on, when typhoons become epidemic, it looks
-as if we should have the wind in more than wholesale doses.
-
-
-
-                                                              June 12th.
-
-Although the San Francisco steamer does not sail for Hong Kong until
-the 21st, it is necessary, on account of this quarantine business,
-to post our letters in the Manila office to-day.
-
-Two of our latest vessels have come in together and begun to take
-in their cargoes of hemp for Boston. The captains are ruddy-faced
-veterans who seem to have taken part in the Civil War. One of them,
-who wears false teeth when he is ashore, and hails from New Hampshire,
-is particularly fond of cooling off under our big punka. The other
-may be of French descent, though he comes from Ireland, and looks
-something like one of our distinguished Boston statesmen. They both
-climb up the stairs to our counting-room daily, call our big clock a
-"time destroyer" and so vie with each other in their efforts to handle
-the truth carelessly that it is often a question who comes off victor
-in these verbal contests. However, the skipper with the false ivories
-generally fails to get the last word, for he often loses his suction
-power by fast talking, and has to leave off to prevent his teeth
-from slipping down his oesophagus. Once again the air in the office
-assumes a nautical aroma, and we shall be well employed and well
-talked to death. A whole parcel of American ships are now about due,
-and the Bay will liven up again with the Stars and Stripes as it did
-some two months ago.
-
-It rains every afternoon now, at about a quarter past three, and just
-after tiffin is over we begin to look for the thunder-clouds that
-predict the coming shower. The other day a huge waterspout formed out
-in the Bay, swirled along, gyrated about, scooted squarely through the
-shipping, and broke on the beach between our house and the Luneta. The
-cloud effects were extremely curious, and the whole display was a
-number not generally down on the day's programme.
-
-The company who are putting in the new electric lights seem to be
-doing good work, and it is expected that everything will be running
-by the end of the year. So far, Manila has been favored only with the
-dull light given by petroleum, previously brought out from New York,
-or over from China, and, curiously enough, the empty tins in which the
-oil has come seem to be almost as valuable as their contents. They are
-used here for about everything under the sun, the natives cover their
-roofs with tin from these sources, and some of those more musically
-inclined even make a petroleum can up into a trombone or cornet.
-
-Our house by the sea continues to prove very pleasant, and, peculiarly
-enough, the surf seems to beat on the beach with the same sound that it
-has on the New England coast. The southwest breeze blows strong from
-the Bay each afternoon, and the cumulus clouds are becoming heavier
-and more numerous day by day. The artillery-band still favors us with
-music at the Luneta, but before long it looks as if the rains would
-interrupt the afternoon promenade.
-
-The black plague at Hong Kong does not seem to diminish, as was
-expected, and it is said that many people are leaving the city. All
-steamers coming from that port to this suffer a fortnight's quarantine
-down the Bay, and, if the difficulty continues much longer, Manila
-markets will be destitute of two of their chief staples--mutton and
-potatoes--both of which have to come across from China, or down from
-Japan. And speaking of sheep, Captain Tayler, of the Esmeralda,
-has had another of his usual interesting experiences with the
-custom-house. Just as his vessel, fresh from quarantine and Hong Kong,
-had been visited by the doctor, on her way to her berth some distance
-up the river, one of the sheep died. Rule number something-or-other
-in the Code of the Sanidad says that anything or anybody dying during
-the day must be buried before sundown, under penalty, for neglect,
-of $50. Rule number something-else in the Customs Code, however,
-says that the captain of any vessel turning out cargo short or in
-excess of the amount called for by the manifest shall be fined $100
-for each piece too many or too little. If my good friend, the Captain,
-buried the sheep, he would be fined $100 at the custom-house for short
-out-turn. If he didn't bury it, the Board of Health would come down on
-him for $50, for neglecting regulations. The Captain, being a wise man,
-decided that it was more politic to be in the right with the doctor
-than with the officials at the custom-house, and at some considerable
-expense sent the sheep on shore and had it buried with due honors. He
-could not have thrown it into the river, for this would have been
-to incur an additional fine. Next morning, he presented the ship's
-manifest and a sheep's tail at the custom-house and the discharge of
-the live stock was begun. But, tail or no tail, the officials found
-the ship one sheep short and the Esmeralda was fined $100. Not quite
-so barefaced as the swindling of the poor skipper who came over from
-China with a load of paving-stones for Manila's Street Department. His
-vessel turned out seven paving-stones too many, and the fine was $700.
-
-In the language of Daniel Webster, I "refrain from saying" that a few
-dollars or a good dinner, bestowed upon the right person, in Manila,
-often go a long way toward throwing some official off the scent in
-his hungry search for irregularity, but am willing to admit that, in
-dealing with customs men who frequently "examine" cases of champagne
-by drinking up the contents of a bottle from each one in order to
-see that the liquid is not chloroform or cologne, one must keep his
-purse full, his talk cool, and his temper on ice.
-
-
-
-                                                          June 25, 1894.
-
-Last Monday was the monthly bank-holiday again, and three of us had
-previously decided to take a journey southward for the purpose of
-seeing one of Luzon's active volcanoes and getting a little change
-of air and "chow."
-
-So, late on Saturday afternoon, we went aboard a dirty little steamer,
-which was to take us ninety miles down the coast. She wasn't as big
-as a good-sized tug and was laden with multicolored natives, who were
-on their way back to the provinces after a brief shopping expedition
-to the capital. We were soon sailing out past the fleet of larger
-vessels in the Bay, with our dull prow pointed to the mouth of the
-great inclosed body of water. At nightfall we reached the Corregidor
-light-house, at the Bay's entrance, and thence our course lay to
-the south. At half-past two that night our craft reached a place
-called Taal. During our trip down we had become acquainted with a
-very pleasant Indian sugar-planter, who is as well off in dollars
-as rich in hospitality. At Taal he took us to one of the three big
-houses he owns, and, although only three o'clock in the morning,
-gave us a delicious breakfast. We talked and chatted away comfortably,
-and as the first streaks of dawn appeared I played several appropriate
-selections on one of the two very good-toned pianos belonging to his
-establishment. This brought out his family, and before we set out
-for the river from which our start to the volcano was to be made,
-quite a social gathering was in progress.
-
-The natives all through the islands seemed indeed most courteous
-and hospitable to foreigners, and although a Spaniard hesitates to
-show his face outside of any of the garrison towns, yet any of the
-other European bipeds is known in a minute and well treated. Our
-good friend at Taal went so far as to harness up a pair of ponies
-and drive us down to the river at four o'clock in the morning, and
-we found a large banca, previously ordered, waiting to take us up to
-the Lake of Taal and across to the volcano.
-
-Our banca was of good size, was rowed by seven men and steered by one,
-and had a little thatched hen-coop arrangement over the stern, to keep
-the sun off our heads. We had brought one "boy" with us from Manila,
-with enough "chow" to last for two days, and soon all was stowed
-away in our floating tree-trunk. The river was shallow, and for most
-of the six miles of its length poles were the motive-power. It was
-slow work, and both wind and current were hostile. In due course,
-however, the lake came into view, and in its centre rose the volcano,
-smoking away like a true Filipino. The wind was now blowing strong
-and unfavorable, and we saw that it was not going to be an easy row
-across the six or seven miles of open water to the centre island. But
-the men worked with a will, and although the choppy waves slopped over
-into our roost once or twice so jocosely that it almost seemed as if
-we should have to turn back, we kept on. Benefitting by a lull or two,
-our progress was gradual, and at half after twelve, seven hours from
-Taal, we landed on the volcanic island and prepared for an ascent.
-
-The lake of Taal is from fifteen to twenty miles across, is surrounded
-by high hills and mountains, for the most part, and has for its
-centre the volcanic island upon whose edges rise the sloping sides
-of an active cone a thousand feet high. The lake is certainly good
-to look at, reminding one forcibly of Loch Lomond, and the waters,
-shores, and mountains around all seem to bend their admiring gaze on
-the little volcano in its centre.
-
-Filling our water-jug, we set off up the barren lava-slopes of this
-nature's safety-valve, sweltering under the stiff climb in the hot
-sun. Happily, the view bettered each moment, the smell of the sulphur
-became stronger, and we forgot present discomfort in anticipations of
-the revelation to come. After banging our shins on the particularly
-rough lava-beds of the ascent, near the top, we saw a great steaming
-crater yawning below us and sending up clouds of sulphurous steam. In
-the centre of this vast, dreary Circus Maximus rose a flat cone
-of red-hot squashy material, and out of it ascended the steam and
-smoke. All colors of the rainbow played with each other in the sun,
-and farther to the right was a boiling lake of fiery material that
-was variegated enough to suit an Italian organ-grinder.
-
-It was all very weird, and if we had not been so lazy we should
-probably have descended farther into this laboratory of fire than
-we did. But it was too hot to make matches of ourselves and the air
-smelt like the river Styx at low tide. So we were contented with a
-good view of the wonders of the volcano from a distance, enjoyed the
-panorama from the narrow encircling apex-ridge, and cooled off in the
-smart breeze. Once more at the lake, and it was not long before we were
-in it, tickling our feet on the rough cinders of the bottom. The bath
-was most rejuvenating after a hot midday climb, and just to sit in the
-warmish water up to one's neck gave one a sort of mellow feeling like
-that presumably possessed by a ripe apple ready to fall on the grass.
-
-The wind was now fresher than ever and more unfavorable to our
-course. The captain of the tree-trunk, in a tone quite as authoritative
-as that manipulated by the commander of an ocean liner, said we could
-not proceed for some time, so the boy arranged the provisions and
-we had a meal in our little hen-coop. After a provoking wait until
-four o'clock the old banca was pushed off again and the struggle
-renewed. The seven men, who had now been poling and rowing since early
-morning, seemed pretty well beat, but there was no shelter on the
-volcanic islands and we had to push on. The other shore looked far
-away and we slopped forward sluggishly. The sun set, the moon rose,
-and still we were buffeting with the choppy waves. It reminded me a
-good deal of the sea of Galilee; and it did seem as if the dickens
-himself was blowing at us and trying to keep us from ever getting to
-that farther shore.
-
-At last we reached the lee of a lofty perpendicular island part way
-across the lake, and, although its upright sides offered no chance
-to land, yet they kept off that southeast wind. The men shut their
-teeth hard, and in due course moved our bark around the point and
-out into more moonlight and breeze. The lights and shadows on the
-great lump of rock standing a thousand feet out of the water behind
-us were worth looking at, and in many places huge basaltic columns
-seemed to be holding up the mass above. Not to put as much labor into
-these lines as our men put into the oars, at half after ten we came
-to land, seven hours from the shore of the volcano, a distance which
-in fair wind ought to be covered in a little over one.
-
-On shore there seemed to be about four huts, two pig-sties, and nothing
-more. Stared at by a crowd of natives whom our arrival suddenly
-incubated from somewhere, and who swarmed down to see who we were,
-we talked with our boatman, but only succeeded in finding out that
-we had come to a place not down on the map or on the highroad to the
-next village whither we were bound. It was simply a collection of
-huts, children, and pigs, situated at the lake's edge and connected
-with the outer world by a foot-path that led up over the hills eight
-miles to the nearest pueblo. To walk those eight miles at eleven
-o'clock was out of the question, and to sleep in one of those little
-dirty huts ashore was just as bad. The crowd of natives had grown,
-and so, to avoid being overrun with the eminently curious, we pushed
-off from shore and anchored out in the lake, to eat a little "chow"
-and decide what to do. Weariness tempered our decision, which was to
-sleep where we were, in the banca, under the hen-coop, and, having
-made it known to our trusty but hard-looking crew, they fell down
-like shots and, in less than a minute, were asleep in all sorts of
-jackstraw positions. One slept on the oars, another on the poles,
-a third on our collection of volcanic rocks, a fourth in the bottom
-of the boat, a fifth sitting up, and a sixth--I don't know where.
-
-We three lay down side by side in the little cooped-over roost,
-and found there was just room to reside like sardines in a box. Our
-feet were out under the stars at one side, our heads at the other, and
-there we were, and there we slept, in an unknown wilderness. Though no
-one could change his position we all rested fairly well, and nothing
-happened to mar the beauty of the night. As the sun reddened the east,
-feeling more like awakened chickens than anything else, we packed up,
-paid out some of the heavy dollars, that made each of us feel like
-sinkers on a fish-line, and loaded what little luggage we had upon a
-bony pony ashore. Adieus were said to the lake and to our crew, and our
-little caravan started up a broad foot-path for the village of Tanauan,
-about eight miles away. It was a long walk, on no refreshment save a
-night's sleep in a hen-coop, but after passing over hills and dales,
-by nipa huts of all sizes and descriptions, and after being stared
-at by curious natives, we arrived at our destination, a good-sized
-village, in two and a half hours. We responded to an invitation
-of the captain of the pueblo, to take possession of his house, and
-got up a very decent breakfast out of our fast depleting stock. The
-old captain treated us most cordially, and after a three-hours' stay
-helped us to load ourselves and our chattels aboard two stout-wheeled
-carromatas each hitched to two ponies.
-
-Off again, once more, our course was shaped overland toward the
-other great lake up back of Manila, by which the return was to
-be made. The road was fearful, the ruts two feet deep in places,
-and the bad sections far more numerous than the good pieces. We got
-stuck in the mud, had to pry our conveyances and the ponies out, and
-I fear did not enjoy the beauties of the rather tame scenery on the
-way. At last the crest of a hill brought the Laguna de Bay in sight,
-and in less than an hour we reached the village of Calamba, on its
-shores. A shabby little native house was put at our disposal after
-we boldly walked up and took possession of it; a swarm of children
-were shoved out of the one decent room, and in a short time our boy
-was giving us canned turtle-soup and herrings. In the afternoon we
-merely lounged about the town and took a swim in the lake, while in
-the evening, early after the very good little dinner gotten up by
-our servant there was nothing to do but to turn in, even though the
-house was surrounded by the curious, who had looked in at the windows
-to watch people dining with knives, forks, plates, and napkins.
-
-The floor of our room was of bamboo slats, just below whose many
-openings were four fighting-cocks and when bed-time came we were tired
-enough to tumble down on the canes just as we stood. The cock who sang
-out of tune woke us at about sunrise Tuesday morning, and after one
-more swim in the lake we packed up our traps and prepared ourselves
-to take the little Manila steamer that left at eight o'clock on its
-thirty-mile return trip. The sail down the lake and into the Pasig
-River was cool, delightful, and without incident, and at noon Tuesday
-we pulled up at the wharf at Manila, having completed an almost perfect
-circle of travel one hundred and fifty miles in circumference, to be
-heartily congratulated on having successfully made a trip which few
-perform but many covet. My own cane sleeping machine seemed good again
-after hen-coops and bamboo floors, and smooth roads and civilization
-far better than ruts and rickety carromatas.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-    First Storm of the Rainy Season--Fourth of July--Chinese "Chow"
-    Dogs--Crullers and Pie and a Chinese Cook--A Red-Letter Day--The
-    China-Japan War--Manila Newspapers--General Blanco and the
-    Archbishop--An American Fire-Engine and its Lively Trial--The
-    Coming of the Typhoon--Violence of the Wind--The Floods
-    Next--Manila Monotony.
-
-
-                                                               July 4th.
-
-The mails have been badly snarled up lately, and although nobody
-has received any letters for nearly two weeks, none are expected
-for about ten days. The other morning began the first real storm
-of the rainy season, and we came very near having a bad typhoon,
-but someone turned the switch, and it swirled up the back coast on
-the Pacific side and crossed through a notch in the mountains, some
-distance to the north of Manila, giving the city only four days of
-monstrous winds and floods of rain. The streets were two feet deep
-with water in the business section, and down at our house by the
-sea the wind blew so hard that it carried the tin from our roof off
-to visit the next suburb. Then it was that those sturdy windows of
-small sea-shells set into hardwood lattice seemed far more secure
-than glass, and I doubt if anything less well constructed would have
-stood the blast that surged in from the broad bay.
-
-Going downtown in the morning, my carriage was slid clean across the
-road by the force of the wind, and once it seemed as if I might be
-lifted up into the low clouds that scudded close to the tops of the
-bamboo-trees. Huge seas came tumbling ashore on the beach, and the
-vessels in the great exposed Bay had all they could do to hang to their
-anchors, as the surf sometimes dashed as high as their lower foreyards.
-
-The natives never carry umbrellas in the rain, but march along and
-do not seem to mind getting wet to the skin. They do indeed look
-bedraggled in their thin clothes, that cling like sticking-plaster,
-and it seems as if they would get the fever. During the present blow,
-the single pony hitched to a tram-car often found his load moving
-him astern, and it was only by leaving the whole car wide open, so
-that the air could have free passage through from end to end and side
-to side, that he now and then made headway against the blast. This
-was not pleasant for the passengers, but made less demand on the
-motive-power. The bands at the Luneta have played when they got a
-chance, but the wind howls in from the Bay, as a rule, louder than
-the tunes bowl out of their brass instruments.
-
-To-day seems to be the Glorious Fourth, and my colleague and I have
-just come back from the shipping, where the Captain of the Helen
-Brewer asked us to eat a celebrative dinner. All the ships in the
-Bay were dressed with flags, and the Brewer, which possessed more
-than her share, had a long line stretched from the bowsprit over the
-three masts down to the stern. Everybody was interested in the feast,
-and the Captain with the false teeth, who comes from New Hampshire,
-sent over a goose and some mince-pies. Eight of us sat down in the cozy
-saloon and partook of a meal altogether too hearty for the climate. The
-day was cool and overcast, and we spent a lazy afternoon on deck,
-listening to yarns told by two old salts who seemed to have had more
-than their share of wrecks, typhoons, and other adventures.
-
-When we came ashore, at about sunset, there was gathered up from the
-remains of the feast the "seven basketsful," and we each went back
-in the launch, decorated with a bag of doughnuts under one arm and
-a bag of mince-pies under the other.
-
-One of our small family of dogs was run over by the tram-car the
-other morning, in front of the house, and now rests in peace in a
-little grave down on the beach, hard by the rhythmic cadence of the
-waves. His little brother, who was suffering at the time from the
-distemper, was so grieved at the loss that he too speedily faded away,
-and now lies close beside the other victim of circumstances. On the
-tombstone is a touching epitaph:
-
-
-           "Pompey and Nettie, here they lie;
-            Born to live, they had to die.
-            The wheels of fate ran over one,
-            The other was by grief undone."
-
-
-Most of the large army of dogs that make a Manila night hideous
-are of that mongrel order, which is always looking for something to
-eat, but now and then one sees a good many of the so-called Chinese
-"chow"-dogs about the streets, and with their black tongues, long
-hair, and peculiar bushy tails that curl sharply up over their backs,
-they are quite as interesting, as unaffectionate. Over in China they
-make very good eating up to the age of three months, and from this
-fact derive the "chow" part of their name. Although they are very
-susceptible to changes of locality and climate, we are now making
-negotiations to have one brought over to take the place of the dear
-departed eulogized above. And later, I may even try the experiment
-of having one for Sunday dinner--if he doesn't make a good pet.
-
-The doughnuts which I brought home from the Brewer have proved very
-interesting to my cook, and I have been obliged to count them each
-day for purposes of security. He now watches me closely as I make away
-with one or two for breakfast, to see just what effect these marvellous
-looking "fried holes" have on my intellect. I notice he looks to see
-if there are any crumbs left, from which he might gather an inkling as
-to the composition of these curios; but so far there haven't been any
-crumbs. As he is cooking for us now, instead of the Chinese gentleman
-that we originally had, this curiosity is but natural, and some day he
-will probably try to furnish us with the native-made article. In fact
-he has already tried the experiment of concocting a mince-pie after the
-general appearance of one of the earlier donations made by a captain
-in the Bay, and the result was worthy of description. As I arranged
-to measure the original pie after each meal, before locking it up in
-our safe, in order to protect it from disappearing, my faithful cook
-could only guess as to its composition by sundry glances from afar. But
-being of an inventive mind he conceived the idea of chopping up some
-well-done roast beef, mixing with it some sugar and raisins, roofing
-it over with a thatch of pastry, and serving it for dessert. And then
-as we came to the course in question he stood in the doorway waiting
-for our verdict. His effort was worthy of all praise, but his pie
-was damnable, and pieces of it went sailing out the windows.
-
-
-
-                                                              July 28th.
-
-On the 20th instant a steamer arrived from Hong Kong, and had the
-honor of being the first vessel to come in from that port in thirty
-days. She was supposed to have three American mails aboard, but it
-turned out that they were down to arrive by the vessel coming in six
-days later. I came to the office the other morning, and looking toward
-my desk, found it almost invisible. It looked as if somebody in the
-neighborhood were the editor of a paper, and as if all the spring
-poets in the universe had sent their manuscripts for inspection. The
-desk groaned beneath the bulky chaos of three mails from the United
-States, delayed in transmission by the black plague, and fumigated
-together down the bay. But no sooner had we gotten through the first
-course of an epistolary feast than the captain of a large four-masted
-ship shuffled into the room and deposited a huge pot of steaming baked
-beans, just fresh from his steward's galley-stove, on the table. What
-with beans, letters, magazines, and comic papers, it might be said
-our day was a red-letter one.
-
-The other day my colleague and I took dinner off aboard the Nagato
-Maru, a smart steamer just in from Japan, and captained by an American
-who knows what it is to set a good table. It seems that the China-Japan
-war has actually broken out in all its glory, and as there is a vague
-rumor that a Chinese war-ship is waiting outside to capture this very
-same steamer, she is going to stay here for awhile.
-
-The Japanese have sunk several Chinese transport ships already,
-and one of the unfortunate craft used to come here to Manila. In
-other directions the Chinese are said to have beaten the Japs badly
-on land, but over in this slow old moth-eaten place the daily papers
-will publish cablegrams from Spain by the page, that give out nothing
-but official stuff and Government appointments; and when it comes to
-something of real interest, like a war, they will either be without any
-news whatever, or tell the whole story wrong side out in a single line,
-that may or may not be true. And so you are probably getting better
-news of this whole affair, twelve thousand miles away, than we are,
-who are almost on the field of action.
-
-Our Manila papers consist of four pages, the first two of which are
-especially reserved for advertisements. Half of one of the inside
-leaves is likewise reserved, and the remaining half is covered with
-blocks full of gloomy sentiments which relate to the decease of this
-or that person. There is a little black frame of type around each
-square, and at the top is a cross, with a "R.I.P." or "D.O.M." under
-it. Below comes the name of the defunct, with hour, minute, day,
-and year of his birth and death, and below his virtues are extolled
-and his friends invited to pray for the repose of his soul. Every
-year, each person that has died the year before has his anniversary,
-both in church and in the newspapers; and when you recollect that
-out of a population of 350,000 a good many depart each twelvemonth,
-it is hard to see why the whole paper shouldn't consist of these
-notices. The other inside page contains the news, and we learn that
-a bad odor has been discovered up some side-street; that a dog fell
-into the river and was drowned; that a perfumery store has received a
-new kind of liquefied scent; that it will probably rain in some part
-of the island during the day; and that the band on the Luneta ought
-not to be frightened off merely by a few drops that fall from some
-passing cloud. And so it goes until the French or English mail comes
-in, and then the progressive dailies copy all the news they can find,
-out of the foreign papers, and serve it up cold, æt. one month.
-
-I met General Blanco, Governor of the islands, the other evening,
-and he seemed to enjoy the good music and good supper which one of
-our popular bank-managers and his wife provided for some of us in
-the colony on the occasion of a birthday. He is an elderly man, and
-kindly, and appears milder in disposition than would seem advisable
-for one occupying so important a position. I should think he might
-let some of those sharp eyed little ministers of his run him, and he
-appears almost too modest, too kind-hearted, to be the ruler that
-he is. Suffice to say the General is modest in dress and modest in
-manner. He often walks up and down the Malecon promenade by the Bay
-in the afternoon, saluting everyone that passes, and when the vesper
-bells ring out the hour of prayer from one of the old churches inside
-the city walls he stops, removes his tall gray stove-pipe and, as
-do a host of other pedestrians, bows his head. To tell the truth he
-has little of the Spanish aspect about him and is just the kind of
-a man one would go up and speak to on the Teutonic or Campania. In
-sharp contrast is he to the Archbishop, who drives about behind
-his fine white horses and looks as keen as well-nourished. But who
-knows! Appearances are deceitful, and foolish he who trusts to them.
-
-
-
-                                                            August 11th.
-
-Two steamers have just come in from Hong Kong and are tied up in
-quarantine down at Marivelis, at the mouth of the Bay. The mail ought
-to be here in forty-eight hours, but two days is a very short time to
-give Manila postal authorities, for they really are slow enough to
-desire four--one in which to make up their minds to send a launch,
-two in which to go, three in which to come back, and four in which
-to distribute the results of their camphorated fumigation.
-
-The most noteworthy thing that has happened in the way of excitement
-since the last mail was the operating of the new American fire-engine,
-which we imported from the States for the wealthy proprietor of our
-hemp-press, who is part Spaniard, part native, and part Chinese. It
-seems he was up in our office one day, and on the centre-table
-saw a catalogue containing pictures of a collection of our modern
-fire-fighters. He asked what those things were, and, on being told
-that they were used to put out fires, said he wanted one at once,
-the biggest we could get him, in order that he might reduce the
-insurance he was paying on his large store-houses and still go on
-collecting the premiums from those whose goods were in his charge.
-
-Although ours is an exporting business, and we do not know much about
-fire-engines, yet the occasion seemed auspicious, the prospect of
-payment sure, and the outlook interesting. The result was that we
-forwarded the order to New York by the first mail, and the other
-day, after four months of waiting, the pieces of the big engine came
-over on the Esmeralda, in big cases. They were very heavy, and the
-natives began the exhibition by nearly dropping the boiler into the
-river as they attempted to hoist it into a lighter. To skip over the
-difficulties which were encountered in hoisting the cases onto the
-quay in front of the offices of our well-to-do purchaser, we come to
-the mental hardships that were encountered in putting the machine
-together; for no one in Manila had ever seen a Yankee fire engine
-before, and although we had a full description of the complicated
-mechanism, with drawings of the parts, and numbers where each piece
-was to fit onto some other piece, there was no one in town who could
-help us much in getting it into working order.
-
-Fortunately, the hemp business was dull and my colleague and I were
-thus enabled to give more attention to this Chinese puzzle than if
-the fibre market had been booming. The red wheels with gold stripes
-were the first thing to be adjusted, and the eyes of the onlookers
-who happened to be strolling up and down the quay opened to large
-dimensions as the covering was stripped from the nickel-plated boiler
-and the process of establishment went on. At last the big machine
-was on its feet, with valves and gear adjusted, and with the slight
-assistance which we got from a Spanish engineer who knew something
-about marine machinery, we found out that the whistle ought not to
-be screwed onto the safety-valve.
-
-Several Englishmen who happened to come by in the early stages of
-our efforts made sarcastic comments on the appearance of our new toy,
-and could not see how an affair with so much gold paint on the wheels
-and so much nickel on the boiler was going to work successfully. But
-we did not say much, since we were well occupied in trying to find out
-the proper way to fill the boiler. Someone suggested pouring the water
-down the whistle, and so, mounted on a step-ladder, one to us began
-the interesting experiment. The water seemed to run in all right,
-as it gurgled down through the pipes, and did not leak out of the
-bottom. As there did not seem to be any other loophole to the boiler,
-we concluded this must be the right method, and took turns for an hour
-in emptying the contents of an old kerosene tin into the whistle-valve.
-
-Next, with great trepidation, we started a fire in the grate, and were
-rejoiced to see that the new engine was soon fuming away like an old
-veteran. It quite spruced us up to hear the fire crackle under the
-boiler; but our heads became even more swelled when steam enough was
-generated to tickle the feed-pump into taking care of all the vacant
-lots in the boiler-tubes.
-
-When our friend Don Capitan found that the engine was going to work
-and knew its business, he said we must have a big trial and let all
-Manila see the show. To this end he sent around printed programmes
-of what was going to take place, to all the prominent people in the
-city--for he was an Alderman, by the way--inviting them to inspect
-the working of the engine and partake of a collation afterward in
-the spacious buildings of the hemp-press.
-
-Wednesday, the fatal day, arrived, and the great American fire-engine
-stood out on the quay glistening in the sun, the centre of an admiring
-crowd of open-mouthed natives. The Englishmen in the background rather
-put their heads together and shook them the wrong way, as they often
-do at anything American, but the natives allowed their lower lips to
-drop from overwhelming admiration. Everybody was curious, and all were
-expectant, from the small kids dressed in nothing but the regulation
-Philippine undershirt, who played shinney with the coal for the boiler
-and looked down the hose-nozzle, to Don Capitan himself, who went
-around shaking by the hands all the high and mighty officials who had
-come to see his latest freak. My associate and I felt fairly important
-as we gruffly ordered the police to clear the ground for action and
-blew the whistle to scare the audience. The huge suction-hose was run
-into the river, and our host made his pet servant jump in after it to
-hold the strainer out of the mud. Ten natives were stationed at the
-nozzle of the four-inch hose, which was pointed up the small plaza
-running back from the quay, and while I poked up the fire to give us
-a little impressive smoke, Rand rang the bell and turned on steam.
-
-The affair worked admirably, and the big stream of yellow water went
-so far as to gently soak down a lot of baled tobacco that was lying
-on a street-corner at the next block, supposedly beyond reach. The
-owner of the tobacco, thinking that a thunder-storm had struck
-the town, came to the door of his office, just behind, to see what
-was up, and, as the engine suddenly began to work a little better,
-the stream of water somehow knocked him over and played around the
-entrance to his store-house. At the rate things were going it looked
-as if the exhibition would prove expensive and, to avoid diplomatic
-complications, we shut off steam long enough to shift the hose over
-for a more unobstructed spurt along the river.
-
-In a few moments after the change had been made an open throttle made
-a truly huge torrent belch from the long nozzle with such force as
-to make the ten hose-men feel decidedly nervous, but it did not stop
-them from turning the stream toward a lighter which was being polled
-down the Pasig by two Malays. The foremost was washed backward into
-the lighter, and the hindmost swept off into the river as if he had
-been a cockroach. A Chinaman who was paddling a load of vegetables to
-the Esmeralda in a hollow tree-trunk suffered the same fate. He and
-his greens were swished out of the banca, in an instant, and he found
-himself sitting on his inverted craft floating helplessly down-stream.
-
-Then suddenly, as we opened the throttle to the last notch, the hose
-men, in their excitement to wet some coolies loading hemp, far up
-the quay, tried to turn the torrent back onto the pavement, but,
-with its force of fifteen hundred gallons to the minute, it was too
-quick for them, and with one mighty "kerchug" broke away to send the
-nozzle flying around like a mill-wheel. Before they knew what struck
-them the ten men holding the nozzle were knocked prostrate, and two
-small boys in undershirts, who were playing around in the mud-puddles
-near by, were whisked off into the river like so much dust. A dozen
-lightning wriggles of the hose, and the frenzied cataract shot a
-third boy through the wire door into the office of our friend, Don
-Capitan. Inside the door, on a wooden settee, were sitting some of the
-family servants holding their infants, and the same stream on which
-the boy travelled through the door washed the whole party, settee
-and all, across the hallway into a heap at the foot of the stairs.
-
-Outside, the audience stampeded, and the man in the river, holding
-on to the suction hose, had hard work to prevent being drawn up
-through the strainer and pumped out the other end in fragments. All
-this took place in a quarter of the time it takes to tell of it, and
-events followed each other in such quick succession that the hose had
-started to turn over on its back and charge on the engine before one
-of us rushed in to shut off steam. The two boys washed into the river
-were fished out more dead than alive, but more frightened than hurt,
-and the native Philippine policeman on duty at the front arrested
-them promptly for daring to be drowned. The boy blown through the
-screen-door had his ear badly torn, and was likewise arrested for
-not entering the house in a more civilized manner. The natives nursed
-their bare feet stepped on in the rush; the Englishmen, who had been
-sarcastic several days before, said nothing; but the Spaniards asked
-where the collation was, and, waterlogged though they were, began to
-eat like good ones. The policeman marched the three boys in undershirts
-to the station-house, and next morning the daily newspapers devoted
-more space than was usual in describing the wonderful machinery that
-came from America, for the benefit of their readers, who, like that
-English dude of old, "didn't weahlly dweam that so much wattah could
-come out of such a wehwey diminootive-looking affaiah."
-
-Otherwise, in Manila we are now enjoying the so-called veranillo,
-or little summer, which every year comes along about the middle of
-August, and which consists of two or three weeks of cool, pleasant
-weather, that comes between the rains of July and the typhoon season of
-September. And fine weather it is, with a jolly breeze blowing in from
-the China Sea all day, with delightful afternoons, moonlight nights,
-and fresh mornings.
-
-
-
-                                                         September 20th.
-
-There has been no opportunity to start letters off for the other side
-of the globe since the early days of the present month, on account
-of a typhoon which has visited our fair capital, and which has so
-delayed steamers that all connections seem to have been scattered to
-the four winds. I have long been waiting to become acquainted with
-one of these aërial disturbances, and at last the meteorological
-monotony has been broken.
-
-Early in this eventful week, warnings came from our most excellent
-observatory, run by the Jesuit priests, that trouble was brewing down
-in the Pacific to the south and east, and by Friday signal No. 1 of the
-danger system was displayed on the flagstaff of the look-out tower. The
-news about the storm was indefinite, but the villain was supposed to be
-slowly moving northwest, headed directly for Manila. Saturday up went
-signal No. 2, and in the afternoon No. 3, and by evening No. 4. Still
-everything was calm and peaceful, and Sunday morning dawned pleasant
-but for the exception of a dull haze. Early in the afternoon up
-went signal No. 5, which means that things are getting pretty bad,
-and which is not far from No. 8, the worst that can be hoisted.
-
-Everybody now began to get ready for the invisible monster. All
-the steamers and ships in the river put out extra cables, and the
-vessels in the Bay extra anchors. No small craft of any kind were
-permitted to pass out by the breakwater, and later navigation in the
-river itself was prohibited. Still everything was calm and quiet,
-but the haze thickened and low scud-clouds began to sail in from the
-China Sea. Shortly after tiffin at our residence by the seaside, our
-gaze was attracted by a native coming down the street, dressed in a
-black coat with shirt-tails hanging out beneath, and wearing white
-trousers and a tall hat. He carried a decorated cane, wore no shoes,
-and marched down the centre of the street, giving utterance to solemn
-sentences in a deep musical voice. In short, he was the official crier
-to herald the coming of the typhoon, and as he marched along the bells
-up in the old church beyond our house rang out what poets would call
-"a wild, warning plea."
-
-The natives opposite began hastily to sling ropes over the thatch of
-their light shanties, and one of the Englishmen who lived not far back
-of us had already stretched good solid cables over the steep-sloping
-roof of his domicile. A sort of hush prevailed, and then sudden
-gusts began to blow in off the bay. The scud-clouds increased and
-appeared to be in a fearful hurry. The roar of the surf loudened, and
-one after the other of our sliding sea-shell windows had to be shut
-and bolstered up for precaution. The typhoon seemed to be advancing
-slowly, as they often do, but its course was sure. Our eight o'clock
-dinner-hour passed and the wind began to howl. Before turning in for
-the night, we moved out of our little parlor such valuable articles as
-might be most missed if they decided to journey off through the air
-in company with the roof, and later tried to sleep amidst a terrific
-din of rattlings. But slumber was impossible. Our house trembled like
-a blushing bride before the altar, and for the triumphal music of the
-"Wedding March" the tin was suddenly stripped off our rain-shed roof
-like so much paper. And then the racket! Great pieces of tin were
-slapping around against the house like all possessed; the trees in the
-front garden were sawing against the cornices, as if they wanted to
-get in, and the rush of air outside seemed to generate a vacuum within.
-
-At 3 A.M. things got so bad that it seemed as if something were
-going to burst, and my chum and I decided to take a last look into
-the parlor before seeking the safety of the cellar. No glass would
-have withstood the gusts that came pouncing in from the Bay, but
-our sea-shell windows did not seem to yield. The rain was sizzling
-in through the cracks like hot grease when a fresh doughnut is
-dropped into the spider, and the noise outside was deafening. As
-our house seemed to be holding together, however, we gave up going
-to the regions below, and turned in again, thankful that we were not
-off on the ships in the Bay. Now and then the wind lulled somewhat,
-and blew from another quarter, but by early morning came some of the
-most terrific blowings I have ever felt, resulting from the change
-of direction. Down came all the wires in the main street; over went
-half a dozen nipa houses to one side of us, and "kerplunk" broke off
-some venerable trees that for many years had withstood the blast. The
-street was a mass of wreckage, as far down as the eye could see, and
-few signs of life were visible. During the rest of the day the wind
-blew most fiercely, but from the change of direction it was easy to
-see that the centre of the typhoon was passing off to the northwest.
-
-I sallied out later in the afternoon, dressed in not much more than a
-squash-hat, a rubber coat, and a pair of boots, whose soles were holy
-enough to let the water out as fast as it came in. It was as much as
-one could do to stand against the blast, but I managed to keep along
-behind the houses, cross the streets, and reach the Luneta, where
-all the lamps bent their heads with broken glass, and where the huge
-waves were flying far up into the air in their efforts to dispose
-of the stone sea-wall. The clumps of fishing and bath houses which
-stood perched on posts out in the surf were being fast battered to
-pieces, and those which were not minus roof and sides were washed up
-into the road as driftwood. The natives were rushing gingerly hither
-and thither, grabbing such logs as they could find, while some of the
-fishermen's families were crouching behind a stone wall watching their
-wrecked barns, and sitting on their saucepans, furniture, and babies,
-to keep them from sailing skyward. The surf was tremendous, the vessels
-in the bay were shrouded in spray, and several of them seemed almost
-to be ashore in the breakers. A steamer appeared to have broken adrift
-and was locked in the embrace of a Nova Scotia bark. But everything
-comes to an end and as night drew on the winds and rain subsided and
-comparative quiet succeeded a season of exaggerated movement and din.
-
-The typhoon was wide in diameter, perhaps two hundred miles, and so
-was not destructive, like the one that laid Manila low way back in the
-'80's. It seems that the larger the diameter of one of these circular
-storms, the less its intensity, and although the wind at any given
-time is moving with tremendous velocity within the circle, the whole
-disturbance is not advancing at a pace much over a dozen miles an hour.
-
-After the typhoon came the floods, and the old Pasig covered the
-adjacent country. The water concealed the road to the uptown club
-at Nagtajan under a depth of several feet, and one could without
-difficulty row into the billiard-room or play water-polo in the
-bowling-alley. Two of my friends were nearly drowned by trying to
-drive when they should have swum or gone by boat. The pony walked
-off with their carriage into a rice-field, in the darkness, and was
-drowned in more than eight feet of water. The boys only crawled
-out with difficulty, and just managed to reach "dry land" (that
-with three feet of water over it) in the nick of time. As it was,
-one of them practically saved the other's life, and has since been
-presented with a gold watch, which does not run.
-
-One of the bank-managers was to give a dinner-dance at his house
-next evening, to which everyone was invited, when word came that
-his bungalow could only be reached by boats, and that the festivities
-would have to be put off until the parlor floor appeared. To the north,
-where the actual centre of the typhoon passed, the railway was swept
-away, the telegraph line that connects with the cable to Hong Kong
-torn down, and the country in general laid under water. But the show
-is now concluded, and business, which had been paralyzed for a week,
-once more starts up with the coming of the cablegrams.
-
-Manila life goes on as ever, and it is curious to note how fast the
-days and weeks slip backward. Everyone agrees that the most rapid
-thing in town, except the winds of the typhoons, is the speed with
-which the Philippine to-day becomes yesterday. The secret seems to
-lie in the fact that there are no landmarks by which to remember
-the weeks that are gone. The trees are green all the year round,
-and there are no snow-storms to mark the contrast between winter and
-summer. There are no class-days, no ball-games, and no coming out
-in spring fashions to break the orderly procession of the sun, moon,
-and stars. We wear our white starched suits every day in the year, and
-one's wardrobe is not replete with various checks, plaids, and stripes
-that mark an epoch in one's appearance. We cannot, like Teufelsdröch,
-in "Sartor Resartus," speculate much on the "clothes philosophy,"
-though we may do so on the centres of indifference; for our garments
-are not complex enough to invite transcendental theorizing. Manila
-food is alike from Christmas morn to the following Christmas eve, and
-so, take it all in all, the past is practically without milestones,
-and seems far shorter than one in which many events make the measured
-steps more clearly differentiated.
-
-At present everybody dates his ideas from the typhoon, and that
-will remain a landmark for some time, if the fire which took place
-the other evening on the banks of the river does not usurp its
-position. Ten thousand bales of hemp, and a lot of copra, sugar,
-and cocoanut-oil were sent aloft in less earthly form. Æsthetically
-the sight was beautiful, and the eye was charmed by the mingling of
-vast tongues of blue, green, red, and yellow flames, some of which
-burst forth from the very waters of the river itself on which the
-inflammable materials had excursioned. Our new fire-engine was on
-hand for the first time, in actual service, and, together with the
-small English engine brought out from London, did its duty. America,
-as usual, was in the lead, and everybody stood aghast to see the big
-five-inch stream mow down the brick walls of the burning houses like
-grain before the reaper. One native in particular, whose frail hut was
-washed to splinters by that big cataract played upon it to save it from
-the flames, said he'd rather lose his property by fire than to stand
-by and see the blooming bomba (fire-engine) blow it all to bits. The
-local department, as usual, lost their heads, and while some began to
-chop the tiles off the roofs of neighboring houses, others directed the
-streams from the hand-pumps onto the choppers. Even our gallant friend
-the American broker, who helps swell the number of Yankee business
-men in Manila to four, almost got roasted alive by being shut into an
-iron vault as he tried to rescue some valuable papers belonging to a
-customer and had to be soused with water, after his miraculous escape,
-to lower his temperature. But at length Providence and water prevailed,
-and the damage did not come to more than half a million dollars.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-    A Series of Typhoons--A Chinese Feast-day--A Bank-holiday
-    Excursion--Lost in the Mist--Los Baños--The "Enchanted Lake"--Six
-    Dollars for a Human Life--A Religious Procession--Celebration of
-    the Expulsion of the Chinese--Bicycle Races and Fireworks.
-
-
-                                                            October 5th.
-
-Phew! We have hardly had time to breathe since the last mail, for
-we have been in the midst of typhoon after typhoon, shipwrecks,
-house-wrecks, and telegraph-wrecks, both simplex and duplex. Manila
-had scarcely gotten over talking of the war of the elements, above
-spoken of, before another cyclone was announced to the south, and
-soon we were going through an experience similar to that related
-the other day. When that was over, everybody began to draw breath
-again, but before the lungs of the populace were fully expanded,
-the wind suddenly went into that dangerous quarter, the northwest,
-and up went signal No. 5 again. The blow came on more suddenly than
-the former one, and all hands left the business offices to go home
-and sit on their roofs. The tin was again stripped like paper from
-our portico, and great masses of metal banged around outside with
-the clash of cymbals. It was a terrific night. The ships in the Bay
-dragged their anchors nearly to the breakwater, and in the morning
-four Spanish brigs were a total wreck. One in particular went ashore
-on the bar at the river's mouth, and at daylight was being swept fore
-and aft by the great seas. Eight men were hanging on for dear life,
-and it looked as if they would be swallowed up in the great drink, but
-two big lifeboats were got out, and as the sea moderated somewhat, the
-sailors were at length rescued, just as their ship went all to smash. A
-thousand houses were blown down, many of the streets in Manila were
-flooded, telegraph lines prostrated, and tram-car service interrupted.
-
-But things have now quieted down, and Sunday was a big feast-day
-in the Chinese quarter. All the wealthy Chinamen were celebrating
-something or other, and they invited all the foreign merchants, as
-well as their local friends, to the celebration. They served tea and
-refreshments in their various little junk shops, and some of the more
-influential members of the colony of fifty thousand gave elaborate
-spreads, followed by dances and concerts. The streets were filled
-with peculiar processions of men carrying banners and graven images,
-and the sidewalks were lined with spectators.
-
-I went to one of the most pretentious of the indoor functions, found
-myself in a gorgeously furnished suite of apartments, decorated
-in true Chinese fashion, and was royally entertained by a shrewd
-Celestial who was supposed to be worth several million dollars. He
-began conversation with me by saying that, in his belief, bathing was
-injurious, and that he had not taken a bath in thirty years. From all
-I could judge, others of his brethren seemed to hold the same views
-as he, and the long rooms, halls, and corridors in due season got to
-be so warm and fragrant that it was a relief to escape.
-
-Now and then the bells in the big church rang lustily, and many
-lanterns lighted it up from cornice to keystone. Hundreds of carriages
-drove through the streets, apparently bound nowhere in particular,
-and the bands played in all quarters.
-
-It almost seems as if each week in the calendar brought in a religious
-display of some sort in some one part of the town, and every Sunday
-evening finds a big church somewhere blazing with light or a street
-blinking with candles.
-
-
-
-                                                          November 13th.
-
-The Monday after the departure of the monthly direct mail from Manila
-to the Peninsula is always devoted to our old friend "bank-holiday,"
-and all the foreign merchants close their doors. This event occurred
-the first of this week, and on Saturday afternoon last some of the
-more energetic of us, deciding to take another little outing into the
-hills, started up the river on a small launch, bound for the big lake
-at the foot of the mountains. A drizzling rain was falling and the
-weather did not look propitious, but we pushed on, left the mouth of
-the river where the lake empties into it, and sallied out on the broad
-waters of the Laguna de Bay. Numerous serving-boys, boxes of china,
-food, ice, and bedding ballasted the stern of our little steamer,
-and as it grew dark a feast was prepared for us on deck. In going up
-the lake, the pilot, who was accustomed only to navigating the launch
-along the quays of Manila itself, got quite at sea and lost his way in
-the evening mist. Some of us, however, more nautical than the rest,
-procured a chart, consulted a compass which the native mariner in
-his stupidity chose utterly to disregard, and by dint of perseverance
-brought the frail bark back into her proper course, without further
-mishap than running through a series of fish-weirs.
-
-We anchored near a little settlement, Los Baños, shortly before
-midnight. The deck planking did not make a soft bed, but nevertheless
-the snoring soon became hard likewise, and Sunday morning found us
-refreshed by the bracing air of the provinces. The rain had cleared
-away, and after an early breakfast the pilot ran the launch slowly
-ashore on a smooth beach, beneath a high bank fringed with bamboo. The
-gang-plank was run out, and several of our little party started off
-with guns to get some duck, snipe, and pigeons, which were plentiful
-in the jungle beyond.
-
-Those of us who were left, with a couple of native guides, climbed
-up the steep slopes of an extinct volcano to explore a so-called
-"Enchanted Lake" that occupied the low crater. The way led past several
-ponds filled to overflowing with pink pond-lilies, and, as we wound
-up along the rising knolls, the air was as fragrant as that of a
-greenhouse. Then came a short climb which brought us to the crater's
-edge. The Enchanted Lake lay like a mirror below, and the rich foliage
-all about was almost perfectly reflected in the still, green water.
-
-The locality being romantic, it is quite regular that there should
-be connected with it an interesting story which seems to bear on its
-face the evidences of truth. It seems there used to live a fisherman
-and his wife hard by the sloping banks that surround the Enchanted
-Lake. One day, so the story goes, the fisherman's spouse had reason
-to suspect the fidelity of her husband, and aflame with pious rage,
-she concocted a scheme to rid herself of her worser half. Calling
-upon two rival fishermen whose hut was not far distant, she promised
-them the large amount of twelve dollars if they would put her husband
-out of the way. This being a pot of money to them, they agreed to her
-proposition, and during one of the next excursions out to the distant
-fish-weirs in the parent lake below, contrived to tip him overboard
-and hold him under. Coming back in the afternoon, they went to the
-hut of the freshly made widow and demanded the twelve dollars.
-
-"I can give you but six," said she, "for I'm hard up."
-
-"But you promised us twelve if we would do the business," said they.
-
-"But I tell you I can give you but six," responded the widow. "Take
-that or nothing."
-
-Angry at having been thus deceived, the two murderers excitedly
-paddled over to the neighboring village of Los Baños, went to the
-cuartel, presided over by a Spanish official, and addressed him with
-these words:
-
-"A lady over there by the Enchanted Lake promised us twelve dollars
-if we would kill her husband. We have done the job and asked her for
-our money, but she will only give us six. We want you to arrest her."
-
-The official, thinking the whole thing a joke, laughingly said he
-would attend to the matter. The two simple-minded criminals went off,
-apparently satisfied, and disappeared.
-
-Later, our friend the official thought there might be some truth behind
-the apparent absurdity of the yarn, and on investigation found that a
-murder had actually been committed. But someone more credulous than
-the Spaniard gave a friendly warning to the committers of the deed,
-and they were not brought to justice until some months afterward. Such
-is the comparative esteem in which the native holds human life and
-Mexican dollars.
-
-Later we descended again to the bold coast-line of the Laguna de
-Bay and, to the accompaniment of banging guns, which showed that
-some of the rest of our party were really on the war-path, returned
-launch-ward. The hunting-expedition came in soon after with large bags
-of snipe and pigeon, and all hands then joined in a series of dives
-off the stern of our boat, or soused around in the tepid water. The
-group of savages living in the huts near by were much startled at our
-taking plunges headlong. They themselves never dive otherwise than
-feet first, for it is a common superstition among the Filipinos that
-the evil water-spirits would catch them by the head and hold them
-under if this article came along before the feet put in an appearance.
-
-At noontime our native cooks did themselves proud in getting up a game
-breakfast, and in the afternoon the launch backed off and steamed
-across the narrow bay to Los Baños itself, a little town clustering
-around some boiling springs whose vapor floats over a good hotel
-and some elaborate bathing-establishments. This seems to be a rather
-favorite resort for the Spanish population of Manila at certain times
-of the year, and once or twice a week the old side-wheeler Laguna de
-Bay stops here on her way up from the capital to Santa Cruz.
-
-Behind the town the land slopes steeply up to the mountain heights
-of still another extinct volcano, whose ghost exists merely to give
-life to the hot waters of the springs below. In front it runs off
-to the lake shore, and, all in all, the scenery is as picturesque
-as the air is healthy. From Los Baños we crossed the lake, cruised
-down along the abrupt mountainous shores between the two fine old
-promontories of Halla Halla, that jut out like the prongs to a W,
-and stopped every now and then at some particularly attractive little
-native village coming down to the water's edge. At about sundown on
-Monday afternoon, the prow was turned Manilaward, and after a cool
-sunset sail of twenty miles we drew in at the portico of the uptown
-club, all the better for our two day's trip, which cost us each but
-a little over five gold dollars.
-
-Last night there occurred another one of those religious torch-light
-processions which are so common in the streets of Old Manila. It
-started after sunset, inside the city walls, from a big church brightly
-illuminated from top to bottom with small candle-cups that gave it
-the appearance of a great sugar palace. The procession consisted of
-many richly decorated floats, containing life-size figures of saints
-and apostles dressed in garments of gold and purple and borne along
-by sweating coolies, who staggered underneath a draping that shielded
-from view all save their lower limbs and naked feet. The larger floats
-were covered with dozens of candelabra and guarded by soldiers with
-fixed bayonets. Other rolling floats of smaller magnitude were pulled
-along by little children in white gowns, while troops of old maids,
-young maids, and Spanish women marched before and behind, dressed in
-black and carrying candles. The black mantillas which fell gracefully
-from the heads of many of the torch-bearers gave their faces a look of
-saint-like grace, except at such times as the evening breeze made the
-candle-grease refractory, and one might easily have imagined himself
-a spectator at a celebration in Seville.
-
-Many bands all playing different tunes in different times and keys,
-rows of hard-faced, fat-stomached priests trying to look religious
-but failing completely to do so, and five hundred small boys, who,
-like ours at home, formed a sort of rear guard to the solemnities,
-all went to make up the peculiar performance. The whole long affair
-started from the church, wound through the narrow streets, and finally
-brought up at the church again, where it was saluted by fireworks
-and ringing of bells.
-
-In the balconies of the houses that almost overhung the route were
-smiling crowds of lookers-on, and Roman candles and Bengola lights
-added impressiveness to the scene, or dropped their sparks on the
-garments of those promenading below. As the various images of the
-Virgin Mary and the Descent from the Cross passed by, everyone took off
-his hat and appeared deeply impressed with religious feeling. After the
-carriers of the floats had put down for good their expensive burdens
-in the vestry of the church, a few liquid refreshments easily started
-them quarrelling as to the merits of their respective displays. One set
-claimed that their Descent from the Cross was more life-like than that
-carried by their rivals, and they almost came to blows over which of
-the Virgin Marys wore the finest clothes.
-
-Yesterday was the celebration of the expulsion of the Chinese invaders
-from the Philippines, about a hundred years ago, and the whole city
-was aglow with flags and decorations. In the afternoon everybody
-went to the Luneta to see the bicycle races and to hear the music. A
-huge crowd surged around the central plaza, and the best places in
-the band-stand were reserved for the Spanish ladies and Government
-dignitaries. The races were slow, but the crowd cheered and seemed
-perfectly satisfied as one after another of the contestants tipped over
-going around the sharp corners. After the races a beautiful Spanish
-maiden, whose eyes were so crossed that she must have easily mixed
-up the winning bicycle with the tail-ender, distributed the prizes,
-and the police had hard work to keep the crowd from overwhelming the
-centre of attraction. Then everybody listened to the music, walked or
-drove around in carriages, and waited for the fireworks, which were
-set off not long after sunset. The costly display was accompanied
-by murmurings of "Oh!" from hundreds of throats. There was an Eiffel
-Tower of flame, several mixed-up crosses that twisted in and out of
-each other, numerous scroll-wheels, fountains, and a burst of bombs
-and rockets. Some of the parachute stars gracefully floated out over
-the Bay and descended into the water, causing startled exclamations
-from the natives, who are not accustomed to look on fireworks with
-equanimity. But as of old, everything finally ended in smoke, and the
-multitude melted away, thoroughly satisfied with the celebration of
-the anniversary of the victory over the Chinese.
-
-As it seems about time to take a longer rest than usual from the labor
-attendant on waiting for a boom in the hemp market, I hope next week
-to start off on one of the well-equipped provincial steamers, that
-makes a run of two thousand miles south, among the sugar-islands and
-the hemp-ports, and in the next chapter there ought to be a rather
-long account of what is said to be a very interesting voyage.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-    A Trip to the South--Contents of the "Puchero"--Romblon--Cebu,
-    the Southern Hemp-Centre--Places Touched At--A Rich Indian
-    at Camiguin--Tall Trees--Primitive Hemp-Cleaners--A New
-    Volcano--Mindanao Island--Moro Trophies--Iligan--Iloilo--Back
-    Again at Manila.
-
-
-                                                      December 23, 1894.
-
-I have just returned from the south, and feel able enough to begin
-the narrative. On Saturday, December 1, thick clouds obscured the
-sky, and gusty showers of rain continued to fall until evening,
-when they formed themselves into a respectable downpour. It was
-objectionable weather for the dry season just commencing, but the
-northwest monsoon was said to be heavy outside, and the rain on
-our east coast evidently slid over the mountains back of Manila,
-instead of staying where it belonged. Such was the day of starting,
-while, to cap the climax, just before the advertised leaving-time of
-the Uranus, word came from the Jesuit observatory that a typhoon was
-apparently getting ready to sail directly across the course we were
-to take, and up went signal No. 3 on the flag-staff at the mouth of
-the river. Philosophers, however, must not be bothered by trifles,
-and although my friends predicted a miserable voyage, and told
-me to take all my water-proofs and sou'westers, I went aboard the
-steamer with a smiling countenance only, followed by three "boys"
-who deposited my traps in a state-room of lean proportions.
-
-At half after seven in the evening the whistle blew, the visitors
-departed, and the Uranus slowly began to back down the narrow river
-into the black night. She is one of the largest and newest "province
-steamers" in the Philippines, and it took a great deal of manipulation
-to turn her around and get her headed toward the Bay. As large,
-perhaps, as one of our coasting boats that runs to the West Indies,
-she has a flush deck from stem to stern, and is ruled over by a very
-jolly, stubby, little Spanish captain who looks eminently well fed
-if not so well groomed.
-
-We got out of the river at eight o'clock, saw the three warning,
-red, typhoon lanterns glaring at us, and started full speed ahead for
-Romblon, our first calling-port, eighteen hours away. Dinner was served
-on deck from a large table formed by closing down the huge skylights
-to the regular dining-saloon below, and the eaters took far more
-enjoyment in their Spanish bill of fare under the awnings than they
-would have done had the same victuals been dished up downstairs. I
-say "victuals," for the word seems to be the only invention for just
-such combinations as were set before us, and "dished up" suggests
-the scooped-out-of-a-kettle process far better than "served." Spanish
-food is rather too mixy, too garlicky, too unfathomable for me, but
-as one can get used to anything I accommodated myself to the puchero
-(a mixture of meat, beans, sausages, cabbage, and pork), and was soon
-eating fish as a fifth course instead of a second. The feast began
-with soup and sundries, and was continued by the puchero which was
-merely an introduction to the fish course, the roast, and all the
-cheese and things that followed. Every dinner was practically the
-same, differing slightly in details, and the deck each time played its
-part as dining-room. Early breakfast came at six, late breakfast came
-at ten, and dinner poked along at five--a combination of meal hours
-which was enough to give one indigestion before touching a mouthful.
-
-During the night we all waited in vain to hear the sizzling of the
-typhoon that came not, and got up next morning to find the scare
-had been for nothing. The clouds and rain were clearing away, and
-the prow of the Uranus was headed directly for a region of blue
-sky. By breakfast-time there was hardly a cloud in the heavens,
-the rooster up for'ard began to crow, the mooly-cow which we were
-soon to eat began to moo, the islands in front drew nearer, and the
-scene became fairer each moment. At noon we steamed below a great
-mountainous island, crossed a sound between it and another group,
-entered a narrow channel, and at one o'clock dropped anchor in
-the small land-locked harbor of Romblon. Everywhere the hills fell
-abruptly into the water, and houses looked as if they had slid down
-off the steep slopes to hobnob with each other in a mass below. There
-was a public bath down beside a brook, where everybody came to wash,
-an old church, the market-place, and a prodigious long flight of steps
-leading up to the upper districts, where the view down back over the
-low nipa houses toward the bay was most extensive.
-
-We stayed in this little Garden of Eden until after three o'clock,
-then pulled out to the steamer, and left again for the south, over
-a calm sea and beneath a glorious sky. Some of us slept on deck in
-the moonlight, but, finding it if anything too cool and breezy, were
-up betimes to see the island of Cebu looming on our right hand. Our
-early six-o'clock breakfast finished, we sat up on the bridge in
-easy-chairs, beneath the double awning, as the Uranus poked down along
-the mountainous coast toward the city of Cebu. At ten o'clock we passed
-through the narrow channel that leads between a small island and its
-big brother Cebu, and soon saw the white houses of the town lapping
-the harbor's edge. Two American ships were apparently taking in their
-cargoes of hemp, and beside them a small fleet of native craft and
-steamers smudged the little bay. Anchor was dropped again and those of
-us who cared to go ashore met some of our former friends from Manila on
-'change and took a look over this great hemp-centre of the South.
-
-The local excitement was limited, and, except that a Chinaman had
-been beheaded by some enemy the night before as he was walking home
-through the street, news was scarce. Numerous people, however, were
-gathered together outside the police-station, looking at the remains,
-and several sailors from the American ships, who had swum ashore
-during the night to get drunk, were being returned to their vessels
-in charge of the civil guard.
-
-The Uranus was not to stop long, and most of the through
-passengers returned early to the steamer to enjoy a view tempered
-by rather more breeze and less smell than that which the narrow
-streets afforded. Cebu, from the deck, was worthy of a sonnet; the
-white houses and church spires were set off against the dark-green
-background of mountains, and as the sun got lower the place did not
-have the broiled-alive aspect that it bore during the middle of the
-day. At four the stubby little Captain came aboard, and soon we turned
-northeast for our next stopping-place, Ormoc. Another colored sunset,
-another dinner in the golden light, another moonrise, another sail up
-among the islands, and at eleven on the evening of Monday we entered
-the harbor of Ormoc. Here two or three ponies were hoisted overboard to
-be taken landward, a can of kerosene was loaded into the purser's boat
-as he went ashore with the papers, and a little chorus of shoutings
-concluded our midnight visit to the second stop of the day.
-
-Tuesday morning the sun rose over the lofty mountains on the island
-of Leyte, and the Uranus shaped her course for Catbalogan, another
-of the larger hemp-ports. The steam up the bay blotched with islands
-was perfection, and by ten o'clock the anchor hunted round for a
-soft bed in the ooze, some eight hundred yards off a sandy beach,
-above which lay the town. Those of us who had energy enough to bolt
-our hearty breakfast were taken by the jolly-boat onto the mud flats,
-and were carried through the shallow water on oars to dry land. On
-the slopes of the higher mountains, behind the town, the hemp-plants
-(looking exactly like banana-trees), grew luxuriously, and in front
-of many of the houses in Catbalogan the white fibre was out drying
-on clothes-lines. A short taste of the hot sun easily satisfied our
-curiosity as to Catbalogan, and we were off to the ship again for more
-breakfast, just as several hungry-looking Spanish guests, including
-the Governor's family, came aboard from the town to partake of a meal
-hearty enough to last them till the arrival of the next steamer.
-
-From Catbalogan to its sister town, Tacloban, four hours to the south,
-the course leads among the narrow straits between high, richly wooded
-islands, and the scenery was most picturesque. Here and there little
-white beaches gleamed along the shore, and in front of the nipa
-shanties that now and then looked out from among the trees hung rows
-of hemp drying in the sun. Off and on the big waves, kicked up by the
-forward movement of the Uranus in the land-locked waters, woke up the
-stillness resting on the banks, and nearly upset small banca loads of
-the white fibre which was perhaps being paddled down to some larger
-centre from more remote stamping-grounds. From the bridge our view
-was most comprehensive, and it wasn't long before the steamer actually
-entered the river like strait that separates the islands of Samar and
-Leyte. We twisted around like a snake through the narrow channel,
-on each side of which were high hills and mountains, richly treed
-with cocoanuts and hemp-plants, and, just as the sun was getting low,
-hauled into Tacloban, situated inside an arm of land that protects
-it from the dashing surges of the Apostles' Bay beyond.
-
-At Tacloban there was little to see. A high range of hills rose
-behind the town, and in the evening half-light everything looked more
-or less attractive. We climbed a small knoll that looked off over
-the Bay of St. Peter and St. Paul to the south and down over the
-village. The strait through which we came stretched up back among
-the hills like a river, and in the foreground lay the Uranus. A
-number of hemp store-houses lined the water-front, and as usual the
-ever-present Chinese were the central figures of the commercial part
-of the community. At eight the anchor came up once more, and we left
-Tacloban to steam religiously down the bay of St. Peter and St. Paul
-for Cabalian, eight hours to the south.
-
-Cabalian is another little hemp-town, at the foot of a huge mountain;
-but in the starlight of the very early morning we stopped there only
-long enough to leave the mail and drop a pony overboard. Sunrise caught
-us still steering to the south, but nine o'clock tied our steamer to
-a little wharf in Surigao, directly in front of a large hemp-press
-and store-house belonging to the owners of the ship on which we were
-journeying. Some of the best hemp that comes to the Manila market
-is pressed at Surigao, and all around were stacks of loose fibre
-drying in the sun or being separated into different grades by native
-coolies. Several of us left the ship and walked to the main village,
-but, as before, found little to note except the intense heat of a
-boiling sun.
-
-There was the customary hill behind the town, and at the risk of
-going entirely into solution during the effort, two of us climbed to
-the top for a breath of air and a panoramic view.
-
-Dinner came along as usual at five; but I must say that the more I
-ate of those curiously timed meals the less I could accommodate my
-mental powers to the comprehension of what I was doing. Everybody
-knows what a difficult psychological problem it is to determine the
-exact numerical nature of the feeling in the second and third toes of
-his feet, as compared with that in the fingers of his hands. On your
-hands you can distinctly feel the first finger, the middle finger, and
-the fourth finger; but on your feet your second toe doesn't feel like
-your first finger nor as a second toe should naturally feel. The great
-toe corresponds in sensation to one's first finger, and all the other
-toes save the last seem to be muddled up without that differentiated
-sensation which the fingers have. And so with these meals aboard
-ship. A ten o'clock breakfast was neither breakfast nor luncheon,
-and it bothered me considerably to know what in the dickens I was
-really eating. In fact, it affected my mind to such a degree that
-somehow the food tasted as if it did not belong to any particular
-meal, but came from another order of things; and I spent long,
-serious moments between the courses in trying to locate the repast
-in my library of prehistoric sensations, just as I have often tried
-to locate the digit which my second toe corresponds to in feeling.
-
-We left Surigao an hour before midnight, sailed away over moonlit
-seas toward the island of Camiguin, and when I stuck my head out of
-the port-hole at half after five next morning, the two very lofty
-mountain-peaks which formed this sky-scraper of the Philippines
-were just ridding themselves of the garb of darkness. Three of us
-went ashore at seven, and were introduced to a rich Indian, who,
-although the possessor of four hundred thousand dollars, lived in a
-common little nipa house. He invited us to see the country, fitted
-us out with three horses and a mounted servant, and sent us up into
-the mountains, where his men were working on the hemp-plantations.
-
-We started up the sharp slopes, and were soon getting a wider and
-wider view back over the town and blue bay below. First the path was
-bounded with rice-fields, but, as we rose, the hemp plants which, as
-before said, look just like their relatives, the banana-trees, began to
-hem us in. Now and again we came to a little hut where long strings of
-fibre were out drying in the sun, but our boy kept going upward until
-we were rising at an angle of almost forty-five degrees. Everywhere the
-tall twenty-five-foot hemp-trees extended toward the mountain summit as
-far as the eye could carry, and we were much interested in seeing so
-much future rope in its primogenital state. Up we went across brooks,
-over rocks, beneath tall, tropical hardwood trees, nearly two hundred
-feet high, that here and there lifted themselves up toward heaven and
-at last came to the place where the natives were actually separating
-the hemp from strippings by pulling them under a knife pressed down
-on a block of wood. The whole little machine was so absurdly simple,
-with its rough carving-knife and rude levers, that it hardly seemed
-to correspond with the elaborate transformation that took place from
-the tall trees to the slender white fibre separated by the rusty
-blade. One man could clean only twenty-five pounds of hemp a day,
-and when it is remembered the whole harvest consists of about 800,000
-bales, or 200,000,000 pounds per year, it seems the more remarkable
-that so rude an instrument should have so star a part to play. We
-each tried pulling the long, tough strippings under the knife that
-seemed glued to the block, but there was a certain knack which we did
-not seem to possess, and the thing stuck fast. All in all this visit
-to the hemp-cleaners will supply us with strong answers to letters
-from manufacturers who have written us to make efforts in introducing
-heavy machines for separating hemp from the parent tree, but who have
-failed to understand that a couple of levers and a carving knife are
-far easier to carry up a steep mountain-slope than a steam engine,
-and an arrangement as big as a modern reaper. We lingered about all
-the morning on these up-in-the-air plantations, and at noon picked
-our way slowly back again over the stony path to the village, glad
-that we didn't have to earn fifty cents a day by so laborious a method.
-
-Leaving our host with a promise to come ashore again and use his
-horses in the afternoon, we went down to the long pier and rowed
-off to the Uranus in one of the big ship's boats that was feeding
-her empty forehold with instalments of hemp. In the early afternoon
-we again went ashore, took other ponies and started off up the coast
-toward a remarkable volcano, which, though not existing in 1871, has
-since been business-like enough to grow up out of the sandy beach,
-until it is now a thousand feet high. A whole town was destroyed
-during the growing process, but to-day the signs of activity are not
-so evident. The path up the mountain-side was terrifically stony and
-somewhat obscure. Long creepers frequently caught us by the neck,
-or wound themselves about our feet, in attempts to rid the ponies of
-their burden. It was a laborious undertaking, and it didn't look as
-if we should reach the crater before dark, but we kept on ascending,
-thinking each knoll would give us that longed-for look into the
-business office of the volcano. But in vain. It was now getting so
-near sunset that we feared to lose the way, and, instead of pushing on
-farther, we reluctantly turned about and went full speed astern. The
-descent was unspeakable; the horses' knees were tired; they stumbled
-badly; the vines and creepers snarled us up, and everyone muttered
-yards of cuss-words. On the way down we saw several wonderful views
-over the hemp-trees to the coast below, met numerous natives cleaning
-up their last few stalks of fibre for the day, and at last came out
-once more on the rough pasture-road leading to Mambajao, off which
-the Uranus was anchored. It was now moonlight, we all broke into a
-gallop for the three-quarter-hour ride to the village, and everybody,
-including the jaded ponies, thanked Heaven when we reached the first
-lights of the town.
-
-Late the same evening the Uranus left, sailed around the island's
-western edge in the moonlight, and turned southward for Cagayan, on
-Mindanao Island, the last of the Philippines to resist subjection
-by the Spanish and now the scene of wars and conflicts with the
-bloodthirsty savages who are indigenous to the soil.
-
-Morning introduced us to a shaky wharf and to a group of gig-drivers,
-who said the town was fully three miles away. We were in the enemy's
-country, but nevertheless two of us started off to walk to the village,
-following quite a party who had already taken the road. It was an
-hour's plod along beneath tall cocoanut-palms before we came to the
-main part of the settlement, surrounding the jail, court-house, and
-residence of the Spanish Governor. Hard by ran a river spanned by a
-curious suspension-bridge. It carried the high road to the village
-and country on the other bank, and in our party from the steamer was
-an engineer who had come down to inspect this structure, which but
-a short time ago had utterly collapsed under the strain of its own
-opening exercises, killing a Spaniard, and cutting open the head of
-the Governor's wife. Of late, however, the bridge had been repaired,
-and the question seemed to be, was it safe? For my benefit, as I walked
-over the long eight-hundred-foot span, the old bridge wobbled around
-like a bowl of jelly, and considering that there were alligators in
-the reflective waters below, I did not feel I was doing the right
-thing by my camera and friends to stay longer where I was. Some of
-the secondary cables were flimsy affairs, and inspection revealing
-the fact that the structure was just one-twentieth as strong as it
-ought to be, placards were put up to the effect that the bridge was
-closed except for the passing of one person at a time.
-
-At the bridge we fell into talk with a pleasant Spaniard, who was the
-interventor or official go-between in affairs concerning Governor and
-natives. We asked him as to the prospects of finding some Moro arms,
-knives, and shields in the settlement for being in a district upon
-which a recent descent had been made it seemed as if the town should
-be rich in bloody curios. He gave us some encouragement, and off we
-trotted across the central plaza with its old church, on an expedition
-of search. It seems that all the houses around this plaza were armed
-to the teeth, and in time of need the whole place could be transformed
-into a fort. Every house in the pueblo had one of the newest type
-of Mauser rifles standing up in the corner, and in fifteen minutes
-fifteen hundred men could be mustered ready armed to fight the savage
-Moros. We really felt as if we were in one of the Indian outposts of
-early American days, and were quite interested in the conversation
-of our guide, who seemed to take a great liking to two foreigners. We
-went into several little huts where knives and spears were hung upon
-the doors, and succeeded in exchanging many of our dollars for rude,
-weird weapons with waving edges or poisoned points. We passed several
-"tamed" Moros in the street and took off some bead necklaces, turbans,
-and bracelets which they had on. Further search revealed shields and
-hats, and before the morning turned to afternoon we had visited nearly
-half the houses in the village. Sometimes a tune on the ever-present
-piano, coaxed out by yours truly, would bring a shield from off the
-wall, and at others the more telling music coming from the jingling
-dollars was more effectual.
-
-For dinner we went to the house of the interventor to lunch on some
-grass mixed with macaroni, canned fish, bread and water, and if I
-hadn't been so much occupied with our Spanish conversation I might have
-felt hungry. After the meal our host wanted me to take a photograph
-of him and his wife dressed up in a discarded theatrical costume,
-and it was quite as ludicrous as anything on the trip. An upholstered
-throne--part of the stage-setting in their play of the week before--was
-rigged up in the back yard, and the señor and señora, robed as king and
-queen of Aragon, put on all the airs of a royal family as they stood
-before the camera. These good people pulled the house to pieces to
-show us wigs, crowns, and wooden swords, and it seemed as if we should
-never get away. Later, however, our good friend borrowed a horse in
-one place, a carriage in another, helped us to go around and collect
-our various purchases, presented me with a shield which he took down
-off his own wall, and drove us back to the steamer. Here we unloaded
-all the stuff, and, surrounded by a curious throng of questioners,
-went aboard to stow our possessions away. The day had been a prolific
-one, and, although we had not expected to go into the curio business
-on the excursion, our respective staterooms were now loaded up with
-gimcracks that would interest the most rabid ethnographer.
-
-Toward midnight the Uranus steamed out of the Bay of Cagayan and
-headed for Misamis, still farther south. Another calm night, and
-Saturday morning saw us approaching a little collection of nipa huts
-presided over by an old stone fort and backed up by the usual high
-range of mountains. Two Spanish gunboats, the Elcano and Ulloa, all
-flags flying, in honor of Sunday or something were at anchor in the
-Bay, and at eight o'clock we pulled ashore to fritter away an hour
-or so in looking about an uninteresting village. There was a saying
-here that no photographer ever lived to get fairly into the town,
-for the only two who had ever come before this way were drowned in
-getting ashore from their vessels. As I walked about the streets,
-several Indian women stuck their heads out of the windows of their
-huts seeming quite amazed to see a live picture-maker, and asked
-in poor Spanish how much I would charge for a dozen copies of their
-inimitable physiognomies.
-
-Misamis business detained the Uranus but for a short hour, and she then
-turned her head across the Bay eastward for Iligan, the seat of all the
-war operations in Mindanao. During the two hours and a half that our
-course led close along the hostile shore, we had breakfast and arrived
-at Iligan, the most dismal place in the world, about two o'clock in the
-afternoon. Everything looked down-in-the-mouth except the thermometer,
-and that was up in the roaring hundreds. The town was like all other
-Philippine villages, except that around the outskirts were the ruins of
-an old stockade with observation-towers, and in the streets soldiers,
-both native and Spanish, held the corners at every turn.
-
-While I paddled across a creek to get a photograph of some friendly
-savages on the other bank, one of my steamer friends went up to the
-Government house to make a formal visit. It seems he found no one at
-home except the wife of one of the high department officials, and
-she was reading the latest letters just fresh from the mail-bag of
-the Uranus. As I got back from across the river I heard a tremendous
-pandemonium going on in the upper story of the building in question,
-and soon my fellow-passenger came bolting down the stairs and out into
-the street below. The poor woman, on reading in her freshly opened
-letter that her husband, who had but recently gone up to Manila for
-a week's stay, was an absconder to the extent of some three hundred
-thousand dollars, suddenly lost her mind. He had tried to get across to
-China, so it seemed, but was taken on the sailing-day of the steamer,
-and the wife now first heard the news. So, as chairs and flower-pots
-came sailing out the windows or down the stairs, we wisely decided to
-get out of harm's way, and together walked back to the steamer-landing,
-musing on Spanish methods of pocket-lining.
-
-The Moros themselves are sturdy beggars, though most picturesque
-ones, and the tame specimens that came into Iligan were curious in
-the extreme. Dressed in native-made cloths of all colors, their heads
-were ornamented with turbans of red and white and blue, while gaudy
-sashes gave them an air of aristocratic distinction which few of their
-northern brothers possessed. Some of them black all their teeth, others
-only put war-paint on their two front pairs of ivories, and while some
-looked as if they had no chewing machinery at all, others appeared as
-if they might only have played centre rush on a modern foot-ball team.
-
-For years now Spain has sent men and gun-boats down to Mindanao to wipe
-out the savages and bring the island under complete subjection, but
-without avail. Young boys from the north have been drafted into native
-regiments to go south on this fatal errand. The prisons of Manila
-have been emptied and the convicts, armed with bolos or meat-choppers,
-have followed their more righteous brethren to the front. Well-trained
-native troops have gone there; Spanish troops have gone; officers have
-tried it, but to no end. If, in the storming of some Moro stronghold,
-a dozen miles back inland from the beach, the convicts in the front
-rank were cut to pieces by the enemy, it was of no importance. If the
-drafted youths were slaughtered, there were more at home. If the native
-troops failed to carry the charge, things began to look serious. But if
-the Spanish companies were touched, it was time to flee. Such have been
-the tactics in this great grave-yard, and where the Moros lost the day,
-fever stepped in and won. The towns along the coast are Spain's, but
-the interior still swarms with savages, who are there to dispute her
-advance and are daily tramping over the graves of many of her soldiers.
-
-We left Moro land at eight o'clock in the evening, after dining
-various officials who came aboard to see what they could get to eat,
-and by Sunday morning at sunrise had crossed northward to the island
-of Bohol, dropping anchor in Maribojoc, a small uninteresting place
-with an old church, a Spanish padre who had not been out of town
-in thirty years long enough ever to see a railroad or a telephone,
-and the usual collection of thick-lipped natives. We stayed here to
-unload a lot of bulky school-desks and chairs destined to be used by
-the semi-naked youth of the vicinity, and a few of our company went
-ashore merely to walk lazily about the village.
-
-Next, a second stop at Cebu for the mails bound Manilaward, a good-by
-for the second time to our friends, and the Uranus now kept back down
-the coast toward Dumaguete, a prosperous town on the rich sugar-island
-of Negros. At ten o'clock that night we were off again, and Tuesday
-noon ushered us in to Iloilo, the second city of the Philippines. A lot
-of "go-downs" (store-houses) and dwellings on the swampy peninsula made
-a fearfully stupid-looking place, and the glare off the sheet-iron
-roofs was blinding. Scarcely a foot above tide-water, Iloilo was
-far less prepossessing than Manila, but everyone seemed cordial,
-and friends were so glad to see us that we appeared to confer a
-favor in stopping off to see them. The surroundings of Iloilo are
-far more picturesque than those of Manila, and just across the bay a
-wooded island, whose high altitude stands out in bold contrast to the
-marshes over which the city steeps, gave an outlook from the town that
-compensated for the inlook over dusty streets and dirty quays. The
-English club occupied its usually central position in the commercial
-section of the city, and formed an oasis of refreshment in the midst
-of the thirsty desert of iron roofs surrounding it. And if any single
-stanza of verse could have been quoted to describe the feelings of a
-newly arrived guest, sitting in a long chair on the club piazza and
-looking off at the bubbling volumes of hot air rising from those roofs,
-it would have been that in which the poet says:
-
-
-       "Where the latitude's mean and the longitude's low,
-        Where the hot winds of summer perennially blow,
-        Where the mercury chokes the thermometer's throat,
-        And the dust is as thick as the hair on a goat,
-        Where one's throat is as dry as a mummy accursed,
-        Here lieth the land of perpetual thirst."
-
-
-The afternoon-tea hour is perhaps more carefully observed among
-the English business houses here than in the capital to the north,
-and we left the very good little club, with its billiard-tables and
-stale newspapers, to join one of the regular gatherings in the large
-office of a friend. But tea, toast, jam, and oranges had no sooner
-been set before us than the deep whistle of the Uranus sounded, and
-those of us who were going north had to make a hurried adjournment
-to the neighboring wharf. Then, as everybody on deck began to say
-"adios," and everybody on shore "hasta la vista," the stubby little
-captain roared out "avante" and our steamer started for Manila,
-two hundred and fifty miles away.
-
-Next morning we got our first taste of the monsoon, and it came up
-pretty rough as we crossed some of the broad, open spaces between the
-islands. There were three dozen passengers aboard ship, and everybody,
-including four dogs, was desperately sea-sick. But sheltering islands
-soon brought relief to the prevailing misery, the dogs recovered their
-equilibrium enough to renew the curl in their tails, and the heaving
-vessel grew quite still. We touched again at Romblon, on our way up,
-long enough to get the mail and bring off an unshaven padre or two,
-bound up to the capital for spiritual refreshment, and for the last
-time headed for Manila. The monsoon apparently went down with the sun;
-we were not troubled further with heaving waters, and early on Thursday
-morning passed through the narrow mouth of Manila Bay, just as the sun
-was rising in the east, and the full moon setting over Mariveles in
-the west. The Uranus made a short run across the twenty-seven miles
-of water to the anchorage among the shipping, and everybody bundled
-ashore in a noisy launch, almost before the town had had its breakfast.
-
-In the afternoon, when the steamer came into the river, I brought all
-of my arms, armor, and shells ashore to the office, and the American
-skippers who were waiting for free breezes from the punkah began
-outbidding each other with offers of baked beans and doughnuts for
-the whole collection. At home, the house had not been blown away,
-but was firm as ever; the dogs rejoiced to see me back; the cat,
-with a crook in her tail, purred extra loudly; the ponies, that had
-grown fat on lazy living, pawed the stone floor in the stable; the
-boy put flowers on the table for dinner and peas in the soup, and the
-moon looked in on us in full dress. Thus ended a fortnight's trip of
-some two thousand miles down through the arteries of the archipelago.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-    Club-house Chaff--Christmas Customs and Ceremonies--New Year's
-    Calls--A Dance at the English Club--The Royal Exposition of the
-    Philippines--Fireworks on the King's Fête Day--Electric Lights and
-    the Natives--The Manila Observatory--A Hospitable Governor--The
-    Convent at Antipolo.
-
-
-                                                          December 26th.
-
-"'A young Bostonian, in business in the Philippines,' that is you,
-isn't it?"
-
-"'Trembling like a blushing bride before the altar.'" "Well, blushing
-bride, how are you?"
-
-"'The bells in the old church rang out a wild, warning plea.' They did,
-did they? And did, 'The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea?'"
-
-"'The fishermen's wives were sitting on their saucepans, furniture,
-and babies, to keep them from sailing off skyward.' Poor things! Quite
-witty, weren't they?"
-
-These were some of the expressions that greeted me as I entered the
-Club the other evening, about two hours after the last mail arrived.
-
-My attention was called to the bulletin-board where the official
-notices were posted, and there, tacked up in all its glory was
-a printed copy of my letter on the typhoon, while on all sides
-were various members of the English colony, laughing boisterously,
-and poking me in the ribs with canes and billiard-cues. Some of the
-brokers had apparently learned the contents of that fatal letter by
-heart, and stood on chairs reciting those touching lines in dialogue
-with unharnessed levity.
-
-To say that I was mildly flummuxed at hearing my familiar verbiage
-proceeding from the mouths of others would be mild, but it was
-impossible not to join in the general laugh, and digest, in an offhand
-way, the jibes and jokes which were epidemic. It seems my cautions have
-been of no avail, and the letter which you so kindly gave the Boston
-editor to read and print was sent out here to my facetious friend the
-American broker, whose whole life seems to be spent in trying to find
-the laugh on the other man. Somebody else also sent him a spare copy
-to give to his friends, and down town at the tiffin club next noon,
-my late entrance to the breakfast-room was a signal for the whole
-colony to suspend mastication and with clattering knives and clapping
-hands to vent their mirth in breezy epithets. But jokes are few and
-far between in this far Eastern land, and somebody or other might as
-well be the butt of them.
-
-Just as surely as the 24th of December comes around, all the
-office-boys of your friends, who have perhaps brought letters from
-their counting-room to yours, all the chief cooks and bottle-washers
-of your establishment, all of the policemen on the various beats
-between your house and the club, and all the bill collectors who
-come in every month to wheedle you out of sundry dollars, have the
-cheek to ask for pourboires. Imagine a man coming around to collect a
-bill, and asking you to fee him for being good enough to bring that
-document to hand. But that is just what the Manila bill-collector
-does at Christmas-tide. Then all of the native fruit-girls, who each
-day climb the stairs with baskets of oranges on their heads, come in
-with little printed blessings and hold out their hands for fifty cents.
-
-Once out of the office, you go home to find the ice-man, the ashman,
-the coachman, and the cook all looking for tips, and you are compelled
-to feel most religiously holy, as you remember that it is more blessed
-to give than to receive.
-
-Christmas-eve, somehow, did not seem natural, though the town was
-very lively. Some of the shops had brought over evergreen branches
-from Shanghai to carry out the spirit of the occasion. The streets
-were crowded with shoppers, everybody was carrying parcels, and if
-it had been cold, we might have looked for Santa Claus.
-
-There are but half a dozen English ladies in our little Anglo-Saxon
-colony, and each of them takes a turn in giving dinners, asking as
-her guests, besides a few outsiders, the other five. On Christmas-eve
-took place one of these rather stereotyped feasts, and afterward
-the guests went down in carriages to the big cathedral, that cost a
-million dollars, inside the old walled town, to hear the midnight
-mass. Accompanied by a large orchestra and a good organ, the mass
-was more jolly than impressive. The music consisted of polkas, jigs,
-and minuets, and everybody walked around the great building, talking
-and smiling most gracefully. A few of the really devout sat in a small
-enclosed space in the centre of the church, but they found it hard to
-keep awake, and their eyes were red with weeping, not for the sins of
-an evil world, but from opening and shutting their jaws in a series
-of yawns.
-
-Just before the hour of midnight, comparative quiet ensued with the
-reading of a solemn prayer or two, but just as the most reverend father
-who was conducting the ceremonies finished bowing behind the high gold
-and velvet collar to his glittering gown, thirteen bells wagged their
-tongues that broke up the stillness of the midnight, and everybody
-wished everybody else "Felices Pascuas!" (Merry Christmas!) The organ
-tuned up, the boy-choir sang itself red, white, and blue, the priestly
-assistants swung the censors until the church was heavy with fragrance,
-and all those who had nothing else to do yawned and wished they were
-in bed.
-
-After staying a little longer, our party left, and went over to the
-Jesuit Church near by, where a very good orchestra seemed to be playing
-a Virginia reel. Here were similar ceremonies modified somewhat to
-suit the rather different requirements of the Order, and after staying
-long enough not to appear as intruding spectators, we made our exit.
-
-And now that Christmas is all over, everybody seems to be wearing a
-new hat, the most appropriate present that can be given in this land
-of sun-strokes and fevered brows.
-
-
-
-                                                            January 5th.
-
-The new year has come and gone, though out this way no one believes
-in turning over a new leaf.
-
-It seems to be a custom to start the year by calling on all the
-married ladies of the colony, who make their guests loquacious with
-sundry little cocktails that stand ready prepared on the front
-verandas. Everybody makes calls, till he forgets where anything
-but his head is situated, and then brings up at the club out by the
-river-bank more or less the worse for wear. In honor of the day, the
-menu was most attractive, but many of the party were in no condition
-to partake, and spent the first day of the new calendar in suffering
-from the effects of their morning visits.
-
-With the new year came the dance, which we bachelor members of the
-club gave to the English ladies in particular and to Manila society
-in general, as a small return for hospitality received, and it was
-declared a huge success. The club-house was decorated from top to
-toe. Two or three hundred invitations were sent out, and the crême de
-la crême of the European population were on hand, including General
-Blanco, the governor of the islands.
-
-The English club rarely gives a dance more than once in five years,
-and when the engraved invitations first appeared there was much talk
-and hobnobbing among the Spaniards to see who had and who had not
-been invited. All the greedy Dons who had ever met any of the clubmen
-expected to be asked, and considered it an insult not to receive an
-invitation. One high official, who had himself been invited, wrote to
-the committee seeking an invitation for some friends. As, of course,
-only a limited number could be accommodated at the club-house, the
-invitations were strictly limited, and a reply was sent to the Spanish
-gentleman in question, stating that there were no more invitations
-to be had.
-
-"Do you mean to insult me and my friends?" he wrote, "by saying that
-there are no more invitations left for them? Do you mean to say that
-my friends are not gentlemen, and so you won't ask them? I must insist
-on an explanation, or satisfaction."
-
-For several days before the party one might have heard young women and
-girls who walked up and down the Luneta talking nothing but dance,
-and the Spanish society seemed to be divided up into two distinct
-cliques, the chosen and the uninvited.
-
-The chosen proceeded at once to starve themselves and use what
-superfluous dollars they could collect in buying new gowns at the
-large Parisian shops on the Escolta. Most of the Spanish women in
-Manila can well afford to be abstemious and devote the surplus thus
-obtained to the ornamentation of their persons, since they are so
-fairly stout that the fires of their appetite can be kept going some
-time after actual daily food-supplies have been cut off. The men,
-however, seem to be as slender as the women are robust, and they, poor
-creatures, cannot endure a long fast. Nevertheless, the cash-drawers
-of the Paris shops got fat as the husbands of the wives who bought new
-gowns there grew more slender; and just before the ball came off these
-merchant princes of the Philippines actually offered to contribute five
-hundred dollars if another dance should be given within a short time,
-so great had been the rush of patrons to their attractive counters.
-
-To make a long story short, after a lot of squabbles and wranglings
-among those who were invited and those who were not, the night of the
-party came, and only those who held the coveted cards were permitted
-by the giants at the door to enter Paradise.
-
-Japanese lanterns lighted the road which led from the main highway to
-the club, and the old rambling structure was aglow with a thousand
-colored cup-lights that made it look like fairyland. Within and
-without were dozens of palms and all sorts of tropical shrubs,
-and the entrance-way was one huge bower-like fernery. Around the
-lower entrance-room colored flags grouped themselves artistically,
-and below a huge mass of bunting at the farther end rose the grand
-staircase that led above. Upstairs, the ladies' dressing-room was most
-gorgeous, and the walls were hung with costly, golden-wove tapestries
-from Japan. The main parlor formed one of the dancing-rooms and opened
-into two huge adjoining bed-chambers which were thrown together in
-one suite. All around the walls and ceilings were garlands and long
-festoons and wreaths, and everywhere were bowers of plants, borrowed
-mirrors, and lights.
-
-Out on the veranda, overhanging the river, were clusters of small
-tables, glowing under fairy lamps, and the railings were a mass
-of verdure.
-
-The orchestra consisted of twenty-five natives, dressed in white shirts
-whose tails were not tucked in, hidden behind a forest of plants,
-and as the clock struck ten they began to coax from their instruments
-a dreamy waltz. The guests began to pour in--Spanish dons with their
-corpulent wives, and strapping Englishmen with their leaner better
-halves. The Spaniards, sniffing the air, all looked longingly toward
-the supper-rooms, while the ladies who came with them ambled toward
-the powder and paint boxes in the boudoir. I suppose about two hundred
-people in all were on hand, and the sight was indeed gay. After every
-one had become duly hot from dancing or duly hungry from waiting,
-supper was served, and there was almost a panic as the Spanish element
-with one accord made for the large room at the extreme other end of
-the building, where dozens of small tables glistened below candelabra
-with red shades, and improvised benches groaned under the weight of
-a great variety of refreshments.
-
-Soon the slender caballeros got to look fatter in the face, and the
-double chins of their ladies grew doubler every moment. Knives, forks,
-and spoons were all going at once, and talk was suspended. But the
-room presented a pretty sight, with its fourscore couples sitting
-around beneath the swaying punkahs, and the soft warm light made
-beauties out of many ordinary-looking persons.
-
-After everybody was satisfied, dancing was resumed in the big front
-rooms on the river, and the gayety went on; but the heavy supper made
-many of the foreign guests grow dull, and the cool hours of early
-morning saw everyone depart, carrying with them or in them food enough
-for many days.
-
-Thus ended the great ball given to balance the debt of hospitality
-owed by the bachelors to their married friends, and now will come
-the committee's collectors for money to pay the piper.
-
-
-
-                                                           January 31st.
-
-Manila has been quite outdoing herself lately, and the gayeties have
-been numerous. The opening of the Royal Exposition of the Philippines
-took place last week, and was quite as elaborate as the name itself.
-
-The Exposition buildings were grouped along the raised ground filled in
-on the paddy-fields, by the side of the broad avenue that divides our
-suburb of Malate from that of Ermita, and runs straight back inland
-from the sea. The architecture is good, the buildings numerous, and
-with grounds tastefully decorated with plants and fountains, it is,
-in a way, like a pocket edition of the Chicago Exposition.
-
-Everybody in town was invited to attend the opening ceremonies by a
-gorgeously gotten-up invitation, and interesting catalogues of the
-purpose of the exhibition and its exhibits were issued in both Spanish
-and English. To be sure, the language in the catalogue translated
-from the Spanish was often ridiculous, and announcements were made of
-such exhibits as "Collections of living animals of laboring class,"
-and "tabulated prices of transport terrestrial and submarine." But
-all of the élite of Manila were on hand at the ceremonies, from
-the Archbishop and Governor-General down to my coachman's wife,
-and bands played, flags waved in the fresh breeze, tongues wagged,
-guns fired, and whistles blew. General Blanco opened the fair with a
-well-worded speech on the importance of the Philippines, of the debt
-that the inhabitants owed to the protection of the mother-country,
-and of the great future predestined for the Archipelago. And just as
-the speaker had finished and the closing hours of the day arrived,
-the new electric lights were turned on for the first time. Then all
-Manila, hitherto illuminated by the dull and dangerous petroleum
-lamps, shone forth under the radiance of several hundred arc-lights
-and a couple of thousand incandescent ones.
-
-The improvement is tremendous, and the streets, which have always
-been dim from an excess of real tropical, visible, feelable, darkness,
-are now respectably illuminated.
-
-The exposition was opened on the name-day of the little King of Spain,
-and every house in town was requested, if not ordered, to hang out
-some sort of a flag or decoration. It was said that a fine of $5 would
-be charged to those who did not garb their shanties in colors of
-some sort, and all the natives were particular to obey the law. It
-was indeed instructive, if not pathetic, to see shawls, colored
-handkerchiefs, red table-cloths, carpets, and even sofa-cushions,
-hanging out of windows, or on poles from poverty-stricken little nipa
-huts, and any article with red or yellow in it seemed good enough to
-answer the purpose. We, in turn, were also officially requested to
-show our colors, and I hung out two bath-wraps from our front window,
-articles which I had picked up on the recent excursion to Mindanao,
-and which the wild savages there wear down to the river when they
-go to wash clothes or themselves. But they likewise had enough red
-and yellow in their composition to fill the bill, and, together with
-five pieces of red flannel from my photographic dark-room, our windows
-showed a most prepossessing appearance.
-
-On the Sunday after the King's name-day, a costly display of fireworks
-took place off the water, in front of the Luneta, further to celebrate
-the occasion. The bombs and rockets were ignited from large floats
-anchored near the shore, while complicated set-pieces were erected on
-tall bamboos standing up in the water and bolstered from behind with
-supports and guy-lines. The exhibition began shortly after dinner,
-and never had I seen a crowd of such large dimensions before in
-Manila. There must have been twenty-five thousand people jammed into
-the near vicinity of the promenade, and a great sea of faces islanded
-hundreds of traps of all species and genders.
-
-The display was excellent, and both of the large military bands
-backed it up with good music. One of the set pieces was a royal
-representation of a full-rigged man-of-war carrying the Spanish flag,
-and she was shown in the act of utterly annihilating an iron-clad
-belonging to some indefinite enemy. The reflections in the water
-doubled the beauty of the scene, and with rockets, bombs, mines,
-parachutes, going up at the same time, there was little intermission
-to the excitement. Several rockets came down into the crowd, and one
-alighted on the back of a pony, causing him to start off on somewhat
-of a tangent. Otherwise there were no disasters, and it was nearly
-midnight before the great audience scattered in all directions.
-
-The electric lights, of course, are of tremendous interest to the
-more ignorant natives, and every evening finds groups of the latter
-gathered around the posts supporting the arc-lamps, looking upward
-at the sputtering carbon, or examining the bugs which lose their life
-in attempting to make closer analyses of the artificial suns.
-
-A fresh edition of the opera company has come out again from Italy, and
-performances are given Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Everybody,
-as usual, is allowed behind the scenes during the intermissions,
-and the other evening, in the middle of a most pathetic scene in
-"Faust," a Yankee skipper, somewhat the jollier from a shore dinner,
-walked directly across the back of the stage and took his hat off to
-the audience. Episodes like this are hardly common, but in Manila
-there are not the barriers to the stage-door that exist in the
-U.S.A. The artillery-band on the Luneta has several times played the
-"Washington Post March" which you sent me, and which I gave to the fat,
-pleasant-faced conductor. The championship games at the tennis-court
-have begun, and all of the English colony generally assemble there
-to see the play just before sunset. Small dinners and dances are also
-numerous, and the cool weather seems to be incubating gayety.
-
-
-
-                                                           February 22d.
-
-Manila is said to have the most complete astronomical, meteorological,
-and seismological observatory anywhere east of the Mediterranean. Not
-to miss anything of such reputation, several of us decided to make
-a call on Padre Faure, who presides over the institution, and who
-is well known scientifically all over the world. At the observatory
-we were cordially received by an assistant, who spoke English well
-enough to turn us off from using Spanish, and were conducted over the
-establishment. Here were machines which would write down the motions
-of the earth in seismological disturbances, and which conveyed to
-the ear various subterranean noises going on below the surface. Still
-other instruments were so delicate that they rang electric bells when
-mutterings took place far underground, and thus warned the observers
-of approaching trouble. Another, into which you could look, showed a
-moving black cross on a white ground, that danced at all the slight
-tremblings continually going on; and the rumbling of a heavy cart over
-the neighboring highroad would make it tremble with excitement. A solid
-tower of rock twenty feet square extended up through the building from
-bottom to top, and was entirely disconnected with the surrounding
-structure. On this column all of the earthquake-instruments were
-arranged; and any sort of an oscillation that took place would be
-recorded in ink on charts arranged for the purpose. Various wires
-and electric connections were everywhere visible, and an approaching
-disturbance would be sure to set enough bells and tickers a-going to
-arouse one of the attendants.
-
-The great school-building in which the observatory was placed was
-fully six hundred feet square, with a large court-yard in the centre
-containing fountains and tropical plants in profusion. After leaving
-the lower portions of the building, we ascended through long hallways,
-to visit the meteorological department above. Barometers, thermometers,
-wind-gauges, rain-measurers, and all sorts of recording instruments
-filled a most interesting room; and Padre Faure gave us a long
-discourse on typhoons, earthquakes, and various other phenomena. From
-the roof of the observatory a splendid view of the city, Bay, and
-adjacent country may be had, and Manila lay before us steaming in the
-sun. Before leaving, we saw the twenty-inch telescope, constructed
-in Washington under the direction of the Padre who was our guide,
-which is soon to be installed in a special building constructed for
-the purpose. He seemed much impressed by the United States, and at our
-departure presented us with one of the monthly observatory reports,
-which give the whole story of the movements of the earth, winds,
-heavens, tides, stars, and clouds, at every hour of the day and night,
-for every day during the month, and for every month during the year.
-
-Last Monday was again the usual bank-holiday; and on the Saturday
-before, the customary three of us who seem to be more energetic at
-seeing the country than our friends, decided to take another excursion
-up the river into the hill-country.
-
-In the forenoon we gave orders to the boys to get ready the provisions,
-and meet us at the club-house in the early afternoon. Our plan was to
-take one of the light randans from the boat-house, row up the river
-for twelve or fifteen miles, take carromatas up into the hills to a
-place called Antipolo, and finally to horseback it over the mountains
-to Bossa Bossa, a lonely hill village, ten miles farther on.
-
-The time came. All of our goods and chattels were piled into the
-boat. We took off white coats, put on our big broad-brimmed straw hats,
-turned up our trouserloons, and prepared for a long row up against
-the current. But, thanks to Providence, we were able to hitch onto
-one of the stone-lighters that regularly bring rock down from the
-lake district, for use on the new breakwater and port-works at Manila,
-and which was being towed up for more supplies. The sun got lower and
-lower, and finally set, just as the moon rose over the mountains. The
-sail in the soft light of evening was very picturesque, and the banks
-were lined with the usual collection of native huts, in front of which
-groups of natives were either washing clothes or themselves. Large
-freight cascos or small bancas were either being poled up-stream by
-heated boatmen, or were drifting lazily down with the current, and
-everywhere a sort of indolent attractiveness prevailed. We continued
-on behind the lighter until almost at the lake itself; then cast
-adrift and branched off into a small side-stream that ran up toward
-the hills in a northerly direction.
-
-On we wound, now between a deep fringe of bamboo-trees, now between
-open meadows, now between groups of thatched huts, and again through
-clumps of fish-weirs, coming at last to a town called Cainta, nearly
-an hour's row from the main stream. We stopped beneath an old stone
-bridge that carried the main turnpike to Manila from the mountains,
-and were greeted by all the towns-people, who were out basking in the
-moonlight. They had evidently never seen a boat of the randan type
-before, and expressed much curiosity at the whole equipment. Before
-many moments the governor of the village appeared in the background and
-asked us to put up at his residence. Ten willing natives seized upon
-our goods and chattels, others pulled the boat up on the sloping bank,
-and we adjourned to the small thatched house where lived our host. The
-Filipinos gathered around outside, the privileged ones came in,
-and everybody stared. The governor did everything for our amusement;
-called in singing-girls, with an old chap who played on the guitar,
-and otherwise arranged for our entertainment. At eleven he said "Shoo"
-and everybody left. His wife gave us pieces of straw matting to sleep
-on, and we stretched out upon one of those familiar floors of bamboo
-slats which make one feel like a pair of rails on a set of cross-ties.
-
-Later the family all turned in on the floor in the same manner,
-and soon the cool night-wind was whistling up through the apertures.
-
-Next morning, Sunday, a hot dusty ride of an hour and a half, over a
-fearful road, continually ascending, brought us to Antipolo, a stupid
-village commanding a grand view over the plains toward Manila and the
-Bay beyond. To find out where we could get ponies to take us over
-the rough foot-path to Bossa Bossa, we called at the big convento
-where live the priests who officiate at the great white church,
-whose tower is visible from the capital. Mass was just over, but
-the stone corridors reverberated with loud jestings and the click of
-billiard-balls above. On going upstairs, we broke in upon a group of
-padres playing billiards, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and cracking
-jokes ad libitum. They received us cordially, did not seem inclined to
-talk much on religious subjects, but advised us where we might find the
-necessary horseflesh. Not so much impressed with their spirituality
-as with their courtesy, we left, got three ponies and two carriers,
-and started out for the ride over the mountains.
-
-The path was narrow and steep, the sun was hot, but the scenery
-was good. On and up we went, until the view back and down over the
-lower country became most extensive. Across brooks, over stones,
-through gullies, and over trees carried us to the last rise, and
-after passing through a grove of mangoes we came to the edge of the
-ridge. Down below, in a fair little valley that looked like a big
-wash-basin, lay Bossa Bossa, a small collection of houses shutting
-in a big church without any steeple. Squarely up behind, on the
-other side of the valley, rose the lofty peaks of the Cordilleras,
-and the scene was good enough for the most critical.
-
-On descending to the isolated little pueblo, we got accommodation
-in the best house of the place, belonging to the native Governor,
-and adjourned for rest and refreshments. All we had left to eat
-in our baskets were two cold chickens, three biscuits, and four
-bottles of soda. We sent out for more food, and in half an hour a
-boy came back with the only articles that the market afforded--two
-cocoanuts. The house in which we were seemed to be the only one
-in town that possessed a chair, and, as it was, we found it more
-comfortable to sit on the floor. This was the centre of the great
-hunting-district, and all around in the hills and mountains deer and
-wild boar were abundant. During the following night it got so cold
-that it was possible to see one's breath, and without coverings as we
-were, the whole party dreamed of arctic circles and polar bears. At
-daylight next morning, numb with the cold, we sat down to a breakfast
-consisting of carabao milk and hard bread made of pounded-rice flour,
-and felt pretty fairly well removed from tropics and civilization. The
-old church, which we could see out of the window, stood in a small
-plaza, and the steeple, which consisted of four tall posts covered
-by a small roof of thatch that protected a group of bells from the
-morning dew, was off by itself in a corner of the churchyard. A long
-clothes-line seemed to lead from the bells to a native house across
-the street, and we learned that the sexton was accustomed to lie
-in bed and ring the early morning chimes by wagging his right foot,
-to which the string was attached.
-
-On the return trip we met a large party of hunters coming up from
-Manila for a week's deer-shooting, and by noon got back to Antipolo,
-where we rested in the police-station to wait for our carromatas that
-were to arrive at one o'clock.
-
-The return to Cainta was as hot and dusty as the advance, but we were
-pleasantly received by our friend the governor, who had instructed the
-"boys" to have the refreshments ready for us. Later in the afternoon,
-we prepared to return to the metropolis, and the whole village came
-down to see us off. The governor refused to accept money for the use
-of his house, we were all invited to come again, and amid a chorus
-of cheers we shoved off for Manila.
-
-The row down took only three hours, but on getting to the club,
-at moonrise, it seemed as if we had been away three weeks.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-    Exacting Harbor Regulations--The Eleanor takes French Leave--Loss
-    of the Gravina--Something about the Native Ladies--Ways of
-    Native Servants--A Sculptor who was a Dentist--Across the Bay to
-    Orani--Children in Plenty--A Public Execution by the Garrote.
-
-
-                                                             April 19th.
-
-If a ship in the Bay desires to load or discharge cargo on Sundays
-or religious holidays, permission can only be obtained through the
-Archbishop, not the Governor-General. The Easter season has come and
-gone, and as the Captain of the Esmeralda could not successfully play
-on the feelings of that highest dignitary of the church, his steamer
-had to lie idle for the holidays, and so miss connecting with the
-Peking, which ought to have taken the United States mail.
-
-The American yacht Eleanor dropped anchor in the Bay the other
-afternoon, and it seemed good again to see the countenances of some
-of our countrymen. It appears the Spanish officials did not consent
-to treat her with the courtesy which a yacht or war-ship merits, and
-went so far as to station carabineros on her decks, as is customary
-on merchant-vessels to prevent smuggling. The Eleanor presented a
-fine appearance as she lay among the fleet of more prosaic craft,
-and her rails were decorated with Gatling guns put there for the
-voyage up through the southern archipelagoes where pirates reign. On
-the Wednesday before Holy Thursday, the owner of the Eleanor decided
-to start for Hong Kong, that his guests might enjoy Easter Sunday in
-those more civilized districts that surround the English cathedral. The
-yacht, like any merchantman, was obliged to get her clearance papers
-from the custom-house before she sailed, and to that end the Captain
-went ashore shortly after midday. But the chief of the harbor office
-had gone home for a siesta, remarking that he would not return until
-Monday, and that any business coming up would have to wait till then
-for attention.
-
-"But I must have my papers," said the Captain, "for we leave to-night
-for China."
-
-"Them you cannot have till Monday," replied the hireling in charge.
-
-"Then I shall have to sail without them," answered the Captain,
-and he stormed out of the office to find our consul, whom he hoped
-would straighten matters out. But the efforts of the consul were of no
-avail. The king-pin of the harbor office refused to be interviewed, and
-the Captain of the yacht returned aboard with fire in his eye. After
-a council of war had been held, it was decided to sail, papers or
-no papers, and the two soldiers who were pacing up and down the deck
-were told the vessel was going to sea.
-
-"But we won't let you go without your papers," said they.
-
-"Papers or no papers, we are going to sea to-night," roared the
-Captain. "And if you fellows don't git aboard into that boat mighty
-quick, we'll be feeding you to the sharks."
-
-The Gatling guns and show of rifles in the companion-way looked
-eloquent, and the two carabineros, murmuring that they would surely be
-killed for neglect of duty when they got ashore, were pushed down the
-gangway into a row-boat as the Eleanor got her anchor up, and steamed
-out of the Bay in the face of Providence and the southwest wind, almost
-across the bows of the Spanish flagship Reina Cristina. A tremendous
-diplomatic hullabaloo resulted. The consul was summoned, the guards
-were blown up by the discharge of verbal powder, and it almost looked
-as if our representative would have to send for war-ships. But the
-matter has finally been straightened out, and the passengers on the
-Eleanor have probably had their Easter Sunday at Hong Kong.
-
-Curiously enough, for April, another typhoon has recently sailed
-through the gap in the mountains to the north of our capital, and gone
-swirling over to China, leaving in its wake a sunken steamer, which
-foundered with her living freight of close to three hundred souls. Out
-in front of the big steamship office across the way hundreds of natives
-are inquiring for their brothers or husbands or children. It seems the
-Gravina, a ship of the best part of a thousand tons, was coming down
-from the north, heavily loaded with rice, tobacco, and native boys,
-who, for not paying their tax bills, had been drafted into service for
-the purpose of being sent against the savages in Mindanao. She had
-only fifty more miles to go before reaching the entrance to Manila
-Bay, when the barometer fell, the wind hauled to the northwest, and
-the typhoon struck her. Her after-hatchway was washed overboard,
-and, deep in the water as she was, the seas washed over into the
-opening. As fast as fresh coverings were substituted they were ripped
-off and carried away. The engines became disabled, the water rushed
-into the boiler-room, putting out the fires, and the passengers, who
-were locked into the cabins, were panic-stricken. The steamer began
-to settle, and under the onslaught of a big sea, accompanied with
-terrific wind, suddenly heeled over and foundered with all on board,
-save three, the Captain standing on the bridge as she went down, crying
-"Viva España." Two natives and a Spanish woman got clear of the ship
-before she sucked them under, and floated about on an awning-pole
-and a deck-table. Scarcely had the survivors got clear of one danger
-before a shark swooped down on the Spanish woman, and, attracted by
-her lighter color, bit off a limb. He paid no attention to the two
-natives kicking out their feet near by, and, though neither of them
-could swim a stroke, they managed to paddle ashore on their supports,
-after being in the water two nights and a day.
-
-These two men, the only survivors of the large passenger-list of
-the Gravina, came into our office yesterday, and, after giving a
-graphic description of the catastrophe, easily got us to loosen our
-purse-strings. The accident is the worst that has occurred for many
-a day, and there is a gloom over the whole city. The newspapers came
-out with black borders, and many families are bereaved.
-
-
-
-                                                               May 20th.
-
-The more I see of these native servants, the more I appreciate that
-they are great fabricators and excuse-makers. Your boy, for example,
-every now and then wants an advance of five or ten dollars on his
-salary. His father has just died, he tells you, and he needs the money
-to pay for the saying of a mass for the repose of his soul. Then comes
-another boy, who says that by his sister's marrying somebody or other
-his aunt has become his grandmother, and he wants cinco pesos, to buy
-her a present of a fighting-cock or something else. This matter of
-relationship here in the Philippines is a most delicate one to keep
-control of, and in the matter of deaths, births, and marriages among
-your servants' relations it is very essential that you keep an accurate
-list of the family tree, so that you may check up any tendency on their
-part to kill off their fathers and mothers more than twice or three
-times during the year for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. As an
-example of this, my own boy actually had the cheek to ask me for the
-loan of a dozen dollars to arrange for the repose of the soul of one
-of his relatives I had once before assisted him to bury.
-
-I seem to have gone a long way in my chronicles without speaking much
-of the native "ladies" in Manila, and I owe them an apology. But one
-of them the other day so swished her long pink calico train in front
-of a pony that was cantering up to the club with a carromata in which
-two of us were seated, that we were dumped out into a muddy rice-field
-by the wayside. So the apology should be mutual. The costumes worn by
-the women are far from simple and are made up of that brilliant skirt
-with long train that is swished around and tucked into the belt in
-front, the short white waist that, at times divorced from the skirt
-below, has huge flaring sleeves of piña fibre which show the arms,
-and the costly piña handkerchief which, folded on the diagonal,
-encircles the neck. They wear no hats, often go without stockings,
-and invariably walk as if they were carrying a pail of water on their
-heads. They generally chew betelnuts, which color the mouth an ugly
-red, smoke cigars, and put so much cocoanut-oil on their straight,
-black hair that it is not pleasant to get to leeward of them in
-an open tram-car. Otherwise they are generally the mothers of many
-children and often play well on the harp.
-
-I made a call on the local dentist yesterday, and found him sitting
-on a wooden figure of St. Peter, carving some expression into the
-face. I thought I had got into a carpenter's shop instead of a dental
-establishment, and apologized for the intrusion. But the gentleman said
-he was the dentist, and dropped his mallet and chisel to usher me into
-his other operating-room. It is quite a jump from carving out features
-of apostles to filling teeth, but on being assured that he had received
-due instruction from an American dentist, I allowed him to proceed to
-business. The whole operation lasted about seven and one-half minutes,
-and by the time I had got out my dollar to pay him for the filling
-I swallowed soon after, he was again at work on Biblical subjects.
-
-All in all it doesn't pay to neglect one's health in the Philippines,
-for the only English doctor that Manila boasts of has been here so
-long that the climate has shrivelled up his memory. After he has
-attended your serious case of fever or influenza for several days,
-he will suddenly stroll in some morning and give you a sinking feeling
-with the words:
-
-"Oh, by the way, what is the matter with you?"
-
-This is hardly comforting to one who considers himself a gone coon,
-but in justice to our friend the medico, I must say he never displays
-these symptoms to patients whose case is really getting desperate.
-
-Tons and tons of water have been drunk up by the clouds of late,
-and have just now begun to be unceremoniously dumped down upon flat
-Manila, so that she has seemed likely to be washed into the sea. But
-rain has been badly needed. A long heat has made many the worse for
-wear, and the doctors have all said that unless the rain came soon,
-an epidemic would probably break out.
-
-Before the showers began, we improved the spare time of another Sunday
-and bank-holiday by an aquatic excursion to some of the provincial
-towns away across to the north side of Manila Bay. Don Capitan, the
-purchaser of our fire-engine and the millionaire ship-owner who runs
-several lines of steamers and store-houses, was our host, and invited
-us to spend the days as his guests aboard the trim paddle-wheel
-steamer that makes regular trips to the bay ports. Early on Sunday
-morning we started from the quay in front of the big hemp-press,
-and while the lower decks of the steamer were crowded with native
-market-women, fishermen, and Chinese, the more sightly portions of
-the upper promenade were reserved for us and provided with Vienna
-chairs. Breakfast was served in a large chart-room connected with
-the wheel-house, and was a fitting accompaniment to the fresh sail
-out of the river through the shipping.
-
-After discharging groups of passengers and freight into large
-tree-trunk boats at several little villages, we came at noon to Orani,
-the end of the outward run. The sister-in-law of the jet-black captain
-owned the largest house in the village, and put it at our disposal. Our
-advent had been heralded the day before, and a groaning table supported
-a sumptuous repast.
-
-There were four of us besides the half-caste family of the captain's
-sister-in-law, and an old withered-up Spaniard who used to be governor
-of the village. Various cats roamed around under the table, and on
-top were toothpicks built up into cones, Spanish sausages, olives,
-flowers, and fruit with an unpronounceable name, that looked like
-freshly dug potatoes well covered with soil.
-
-Beside each chair was a red clay jar, into which each participator
-in the repast could from time to time transfer such articles as were
-apparently unswallowable, and all around stood thick-lipped serving
-boys, who looked as if they were only waiting to pour soup in one's
-lap, or garlic gravy down one's neck. The feast began with soup,
-and though the family could not well eat that with their knives,
-they could the remaining courses. After soup came the puchero,
-that mixture of beans, potatoes, cabbage, tough meat, pork, grass,
-garlic, and grease, and I steeled myself for the fray. Next came
-cooked hen with a limpid gravy accompaniment, and as the chicken had
-been alive up to within a few moments of going into the kettle, the
-question of attack was difficult. Then followed in succession cow's
-tongue and roast goat, fish, salad with sliced tomatoes, and dessert
-consisting of those fluffy affairs made of sugar and eggs which taste
-like captivated sea-foam. As is always customary, cheese and fruit
-were served together, but while a servant had to carry the fruit,
-the cheese seemed inclined to walk around by itself.
-
-In due season all the débris was removed. A boy went in pursuit of
-the cheese and the table was cleared for strong coffee that looked
-dangerous. The mortality, however, among the party was not great, and
-all those who were able to get up from the table went to take a siesta.
-
-At about four, we were awakened by the familiar noise coming from
-the grinding of an ice-cream freezer, and afternoon tea, consisting
-of chocolate, sandwiches, cakes and frozen pudding, was served half
-an hour later. At five we were to take a drive along the shore in
-the only two landaus that the place possessed, and since the padre
-who lived close by in the big church had been good enough to lend us
-one, we called on him in state, taking with us, for his refreshment,
-a small caldron of ice-cream. His greeting was right cordial, and
-after amusing us with stories of his many adventures, told in fluent
-English, he dismissed us with his blessing.
-
-Two of our party got into his carriage, while other two went in that
-belonging to the governor of the town, and behind smart-stepping
-ponies we bowled off up the road that led west along the Bay.
-
-Old Malthus would have been interested to see the number of children
-that exist in these provincial villages, and it really seemed as if at
-least one hundred and two per cent. of the population were kids. About
-eighteen infants could be seen leaning out of every window, in every
-native hut, and in the streets, by-ways, and hedges they were thick
-as locusts. Most of these children trailed little else than clouds
-of glory, since clothes were scarce and expensive. An undershirt was
-all that any of them seemed to wear, and only the dudes of the one
-hundred and two per cent. wore that.
-
-Much to our amusement, the loiterers by the wayside everywhere saluted
-us with a "Buenos tardes, Padre," and it appeared that since the holy
-father is the only one who drives regularly in a landau, the whole
-population thought of course we must be he, or some of his saintly
-brethren. And so we went until the gathering darkness compelled
-a return to the starting-point. An elaborate supper, consisting
-of hard-shelled crabs and other indigestibles, was followed by an
-impromptu dance and musicale, and the evening ended in a burst of song.
-
-Next morning the little steamer took us and a load of fish and
-vegetables back to the capital.
-
-
-
-                                                               July 6th.
-
-Our modern journals, I know, rejoice to go into all the gruesome
-details of crime and its punishment, and many of their readers take
-as much morbid pleasure in poring over accounts of hangings, pictures
-of the culprit, diagrams of his cell, and last conversations with the
-jailer, as do the reporters in getting the information with which
-to make up long, padded articles paid for by the column. I am not
-morbidly curious myself, and trust you will not think I went to see
-the capital punishment of two murderers for any other than purely
-scientific reasons.
-
-The two men who were executed on July 4th, just passed, were convicted
-of chopping a Spaniard to pieces to get the few dollars which he kept
-in his house, and to avenge themselves for harsh treatment. They were
-nothing more than native boys, one twenty and the other twenty-two,
-employed as servants in the family of the unfortunate victim. In
-short, they were sentenced to death by the garrote, and to the
-end of carrying out the decree a platform was erected in the open
-parade-ground behind the Luneta. But the people in the neighborhood
-objected. The women said they could not sleep from thinking over it,
-and could not bear to have their children see the scaffold. General
-Blanco was petitioned, and the place of execution was changed to a
-broad avenue that leads down through the back part of Manila, by the
-public slaughter-house. Surely the selection was appropriate.
-
-On the fatal day, my colleague and I drove to the scene shortly after
-sunrise, and crowds of people had already begun to come together
-from the adjoining districts. Carriages of all classes rolled in from
-all directions. Chinamen with cues, natives with their wives, women
-with their infants, young girls and children, old men and maidens,
-were all there, dressed in their best clothes.
-
-I knew it would be useless to stand in the crowd, so I pushed over
-toward a nipa hut, whose windows, which were filled with natives,
-looked fairly out on the scaffold itself. In the name of my camera
-I asked admittance, which was cordially accorded, since we were
-"Ingleses," and on going to the upper floor we had a free view over
-the crowd below toward the fatal platform, with its two posts to which
-were attached two narrow seats. The crowd increased; they climbed
-into bamboo-trees, which bent to the ground; they tried to surge up
-on the lower framework of the house in which we were standing, and
-only desisted as the proprietress slashed the encroachers right and
-left with a bamboo-cane. The roofs of neighboring houses were black
-with people, the windows swarmed, and the street below heaved. Our
-hostess was pleasant, though fiery, and all she wanted in return for
-our admission was a photograph of herself. The favor was granted,
-and she gave us two chairs to sit in. The crowd increased, and the
-guards had hard work keeping back the struggling mass. Every available
-square inch of space was filled, and a sea of heads pulsated before us.
-
-At last, cries of "aquí vienen" (here they come) arose, and the solemn
-procession came into view after its long journey from the central jail,
-over a mile away. First came the cavalry, then a group of priests,
-among whom marched a man wearing an apron, carrying the sacred banner
-of the Church, embroidered in black and gold. Next marched the prison
-officials, and behind them came two small, open tip-carts, drawn by
-ponies, in which travelled the condemned men, each supported by a
-couple of priests who held crucifixes before their eyes, exhorting
-them to confess and believe.
-
-Following the carts, which were surrounded by a square of soldiers,
-walked the executioner himself, a condemned criminal, but spared
-from being executed by his choosing to accept the office of public
-executioner. Last of all came a small company of soldiers, with
-bayonetted guns, and the whole procession advanced to the foot of
-the steps leading to the platform.
-
-The garroting instrument seems to consist of a collar of brass,
-whose front-piece opens on a hinge, and part of whose rear portion
-is susceptible to being suddenly pushed forward by the impulse of a
-big fourth-rate screw working through the post, something after the
-system of a letter-press. The criminal sentenced to death is seated
-on a small board attached to the upright, his neck is placed in the
-brass collar, the front-piece is snapped to, and when all is ready, the
-executioner merely gives the handle of the screw a complete turn. The
-small moving back-piece in the collar is by this means suddenly
-pushed forward against the top of the spine of the unfortunate,
-and death comes instantaneously from the snapping of the spinal cord.
-
-The executioners in Manila have always been themselves criminals,
-and in breaking the spinal cords of their fellow-criminals, they
-certainly pay a price for keeping their own vertebræ intact. Like
-most men in their profession, however, they are well paid, and this
-operator got sixteen dollars besides his regular monthly salary of
-twenty, for each man on whom he turned the screw.
-
-The sight of the unfortunate prisoners in the little carts, supported
-by the priests, was pitiable in the extreme, and their faces bore
-marks of unforgetable anguish. The priests ascended the platform,
-and the man with the embroidered banner was careful to stand far away
-at the side, for, according to the religious custom of the epoch,
-a condemned man who merely happens to touch the standard of the
-Church on his way to the scaffold cannot thereafter be executed,
-but suffers only life imprisonment.
-
-The executioner, in a derby hat, black coat, white breeches, and no
-shoes, took his position behind the post at one side of the scaffold,
-and the first victim was carried up out of the cart and seated on the
-narrow bench. He was too weak to help himself or make resistance;
-the black cloak was thrown over his shoulders, a rope tied around
-his waist, the hood drawn down over his face, and the collar sprung
-around his neck. Then, while two priests, with uncovered heads, held
-their crucifixes up before him, and sprinkled holy water over the
-hood and long, black death-robes, the chief prison official waved his
-sword, the executioner gave the big screw-handle a sudden twist till
-his arms crossed, and without a motion of any sort, except a slight
-forward movement of the naked feet, the first of the condemned men
-had solved the great problem.
-
-The second poor wretch all the while cowered in the little cart, but
-when his turn came he ascended the steps with more fortitude. After
-he had put on the long black gown and hood, he seated himself on
-the bench at the second post and the same process was repeated. But
-the screw-thread seemed to be rusty, and one of the native officials
-helped the executioner give the handle an additional turn, for which
-he was promptly fined $20. The doctor tarried a few moments on the
-scaffold, the priests read several prayers and shook holy water over
-the immovable black-robed figures wedded to the posts, and then,
-after one of the acolytes had nearly set fire to the flowing gown of
-the head padre with his long candle, everyone descended.
-
-The remnants of the procession returned to the prison, the troops
-stationed themselves in a large hollow square around the scaffold, and
-two dark, motionless figures locked to two posts were left in the hot
-sun till noon, set out against the blue background of sky and clouds.
-
-The crowds began to disperse, the young girls chatted and joked with
-each other, the curious were satisfied, and the bamboo-trees were
-left to lift their heads at leisure.
-
-Thus began Manila's Fourth of July, and curiously enough, my watch
-stopped and the cord-pull to my instantaneous camera broke just as
-the screw was turned on the first man to be executed.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-    Lottery Chances and Mischances--An American Cigarette-Making
-    Machine and its Fate--Closing up Business--How the
-    Foreigner Feels Toward Life in Manila--Why the English
-    and Germans Return--Restlessness among the Natives--Their
-    Persecution--Departure and Farewell.
-
-
-                                                            August 25th.
-
-I lost $80,000 yesterday. Perhaps I have spoken of lottery tickets,
-but have failed to say what an important institution in Manila the
-"Lotería Nacional" really is. Drawings come each month over in the
-Lottery Building in Old Manila, and everybody is invited to inspect the
-fairness with which the prize-balls drop out of one revolving cylinder
-like a peanut-roaster while the ticket-number balls slide out of the
-other. The Government runs the lottery to provide itself with revenue,
-and starts off by putting twenty-five per cent. of the value of the
-ticket-issue into its own coffers. If all the tickets are not sold,
-the Lotería Nacional keeps the balance for itself and promptly pockets
-whatever prizes those tickets draw. Lottery tickets are everywhere,
-in every window, and urchins of all sizes and genders moon about the
-streets selling little twentieths to such as haven't the ten dollars to
-buy a whole one. Guests at dinner play cards for lottery tickets paid
-for by the losers, Englishmen bet lottery tickets that the Esmeralda
-won't bring the mail from home, and natives dream of lucky numbers,
-to go searching all over town for the pieces that bear the figures
-of their visions.
-
-Four months ago I got reckless enough to plank $10 on the counter of
-the little shop, which, at the corner of the Escolta and the Puente de
-España, is said to dispense the largest number of winning tickets, and
-became the owner of number 1700. It sounded too even, too commonplace,
-to be lucky, but as it was considered unlucky to change a ticket
-once handed you, I trudged off and locked the paper in the safe. The
-drawing came, and 1700 drew $100. Fortune seemed bound my way, so I
-made arrangements (as so many buyers of lucky tickets do) to keep 1700
-every month. My name was put in the paper as holding 1700, and for
-three long months I remembered to send my servant to the Government
-office ten days before the drawing, for the ticket reserved in my
-name. But for three drawings it never tempted fortune. Last week I
-forgot lottery and everything else in our further straggle with a new
-piece of American machinery which was being introduced for the first
-time to Manila, and woke up to-day to find it the occasion of the
-drawing. My ticket--uncalled for--had been sold. At noon I walked by
-the little tienda whose proprietor had first given me the fatal number,
-to see him perched up on a step-ladder, posting up the big prizes,
-as fast as they came to his wife by telephone. The space opposite the
-first prize of $80,000 was empty. His wife handed him a paper. Into
-the grooves he slid a figure 1, then a 7, and then two ciphers. Ye
-gods--my ticket! The capital prize--not mine! $80,000 lost because I
-forgot--and to think that the whole sum would have been paid in hard,
-jingling coin, for which I should have had to send a dray or two! But
-I am not quite so inconsolable as my friends the two Englishmen, who
-kept their ticket for two years, and at last, discouraged, sold it,
-Christmas-eve, to a native clerk, only to wake up next day and find
-it had drawn $100,000. They have never been the same since. Nor have I.
-
-And the machine that caused all the trouble--another whim of our rich
-friend, the owner of the fire-engine, who saw from the catalogues
-on our office table that American cigarette-machines could turn
-out 125,000 pieces a day against some 60,000, the capacity of the
-French mechanisms, which were in use in all the great factories in
-Manila. He wanted one for his friend that ran the little tobacco-mill
-up in a back street, for whom he furnished the capital. If it worked,
-he was in the market for two dozen more, and vowed to knock spots
-out of the big Compañía General and Fábrica Insular.
-
-Out came our machine some weeks ago, and with it two skilled machinists
-to make it work. The big companies pricked up their ears and appeared
-clearly averse to seeing an American article introduced, which should
-outclass the French machines for which they had contracted.
-
-One morning the two machinists came to our office and handed us an
-anonymous note which had been thrust under the door of their room at
-the Hotel Oriente:
-
-"Stop your work--it will be better for you."
-
-It was perhaps not diplomatic, but we told them the story of the
-two Protestant missionaries who some years before came to Manila
-and attempted to preach their doctrines in the face of Catholic
-disapproval. One morning they found a piece of paper beneath their
-door in the same hotel, reading:
-
-"You are warned to desist your preaching."
-
-Paying no attention to the warning, they woke up two sunrises later
-on to find another note beneath the door:
-
-"Stop your work and leave the city, or take the consequences."
-
-Still they heeded not; and a third paper under the door, some days
-later, read:
-
-"For the last time you are warned to leave. Heed this and beware of
-neglect to do so."
-
-But, like Christian soldiers, they were only the more zealous in
-their work.
-
-In two days more they were found dead in their rooms--poisoned.
-
-Our friends, the engineers, were not soothed by a relation of these
-facts, but kept on with their work. In three days they, too, got a
-second warning:
-
-"Leave your work and go away by the first steamer."
-
-Things began to look serious, and the more timid mechanic of the two
-could hardly be restrained from buying a ticket to Hong Kong.
-
-When, however, in two more days, a third piece of yellow paper was
-slipped into their rooms, bearing the pencilled words, "For the last
-time you are told to take the next steamer," the matter assumed such
-proportions that we arranged to have them see the Archbishop, whose
-knowledge is far-reaching and whose power complete. The letters were
-suddenly stopped and the work on the machine carried to a successful
-completion.
-
-Then came the day of trial, and invitations were extended to
-interested persons to view the operation. The machine was started,
-and the cigarettes began to sizzle out at the rate of nearly two
-hundred to the minute. But scarcely had the run begun before there
-was a sudden jar, several of the important parts gave way, and the
-machine was a wreck. It had been tampered with, and it was evident
-that the instigators of the anonymous letters had taken this more
-effective means of stopping competition.
-
-The parts could not be made in Manila; America was far away, and our
-two machinists have just gone home in disgust.
-
-Is it a wonder that I forgot the lottery drawing?
-
-Somehow there are currents of trouble in the air, and some of the
-old residents say they wouldn't be surprised to see the outbreak of
-a revolution among the natives. Peculiar night-fires have been seen
-now for some time, burning high up on the mountain-sides and suddenly
-going out. There seems to be some anti-American sentiment among the
-powers that be, and only last week matters came to a crisis by the
-Government putting an embargo on the business of one of the largest
-houses here, in which an American is a partner. Smuggled silk was
-discovered coming ashore at night, supposedly from the Esmeralda, and
-as that steamer was consigned to the firm in question, the authorities
-demanded payment of a fine of $30,000. Our friends refused, the
-officials closed the doors of their counting-room, our consul cabled
-to Japan for war-ships again, the Governor-General read the telegram,
-hasty summons were given to the parties concerned, heated arguments
-followed, and the matter was finally smoothed over on the surface.
-
-But there seems to be a distinct feeling against us, and we have
-been instructed from home to prepare to leave--making arrangements
-to turn our business into the hands of an English firm, who will act
-as agents after our departure.
-
-
-
-                                                         September 20th.
-
-The cable has come, and we hope by next month to leave this land of
-intrigue and iniquity. It has treated me well, but complications are
-daily appearing in the business world, and if we get away without
-suddenly being dragged into some civil dispute it will be delightful.
-
-I am glad to have been here these two years nearly, but it is time to
-thicken up one's blood again in cooler climes, and I feel these fair
-islands are no place for the permanent residence of an American. We
-seem to be like fish out of water here in the Far East, and as few
-in numbers. The Englishman and the German are everywhere, and why
-shouldn't they be? Their home-roosts are too small for them to perch
-upon, and they are born with the instinct to fly from their nests to
-some foreign land. But, America is so big that we ought not to feel
-called upon to swelter in the tropics amid the fevers and the ferns,
-and I, for one, am content to "keep off the grass" of these distant
-foreign colonies.
-
-The Englishman or German comes out here on a five-years' contract,
-and generally runs up a debit balance the first year that keeps him
-busy economizing the other four. At the end of his first season, he
-wishes he were at home. At the end of the second, he has exhausted
-all the novelties of the new situation. At the close of the third,
-he has settled down to humdrum life. At the end of the fourth, he has
-become completely divorced from home habits and modern ideals. And
-at the close of the fifth, he goes home a true Filipino, though
-thinking all the while he is glad to get away. He says he is never
-coming back, but wiser heads know better. He has heard about America,
-and goes home via the States, to see Niagara and New York. But his
-first laundry-bill in San Francisco so scatters those depreciated
-silver "Mexicans," which have lost half their value in being turned
-into gold, that he takes the fast express to the Atlantic coast, and
-leaves our shores by the first steamer. At home, his friends have all
-got married or had appendicitis, and the bustle of London, the raw
-rain-storms of the cold weather and the conventionality of life all
-bring up memories of the Philippines, which now seem to lie off there
-in the China Sea surrounded by a halo. And so, before a year is out, he
-renews his contract, and at the end of a twelvemonth goes sailing back
-Manilaward to take up the careless life where he left it, and grow old
-in the Escolta or the Luneta. In London he paid his penny and took the
-'bus, he lived in a dingy room, and packed his own bag. But in Manila,
-with no more outlay, he owns his horse and carriage, he lives in a
-spacious bungalow with many rooms, and he lets his servants wait on
-him by inches. How do I know? Oh, because we've talked it all over,
-now that our turn for departure comes next.
-
-The whisperings of a restlessness among the natives continue, and it is
-hard to see why indeed they do not rise up against their persecutors,
-the tax-gatherers and the guardia civil. Ten per cent. of their
-average earnings have to go to pay their poll-taxes, and if they
-cannot produce the receipted bills from their very pockets on any
-avenue or street-corner, to the challenge of the veterana, they
-are hustled off to the cuartel, and you are minus your dinner or
-your coachman. Once in the hands of the law, they are then drafted
-into the native regiments for operations against those old enemies,
-the Moros, in the fever-stricken districts of Mindanao, and their
-wives or families are left to swallow Spanish reglamientos. They
-have not forgotten their brothers, who, dragged down from the north,
-went to the bottom in the typhoon which pushed the Gravina down. They
-have not forgotten the execution in the public square. They remember
-that the Spaniards address them with the servile pronoun "tu," not
-"usted," and some day they may remember not to forget. They are not
-quarrelsome, but they are treacherous; they are not fighters, but
-when they run amuck they kill right and left. They do not seem to have
-many wants save to be left alone, to be able to shake a cocoanut from
-the palm for their morning's meal, or to collect the shakings from a
-thousand trees and ship them to Manila; to collect the few strands
-of fibre to sew the nipa thatch to the frame of their bamboo roof,
-or to gather enough to fill a schooner for the capital; in fact,
-to be able to work or not to work, and to know that the results of
-their labor are to be theirs, not somebody else's.
-
-But what has all this got to do with our hegira? These last days
-have been replete with the labors attendant on breaking camp before
-the long march. Clearings out of furniture, selling one's ponies and
-carriages, closing up of books, shipping of one's cases and curios on
-those hemp-ships that are to start on the long 20,000-mile voyage to
-Boston, and trying to think of the things that have been left undone,
-or ought to be done, have all gone to make the season a busy one.
-
-Now that it has come down to actually leaving Manila, I begin to
-feel the home sickness that comes from tearing one's self away from
-the midst of friends and a congenial life. I shall miss the hearty
-Englishmen with whom I rowed or played tennis or went into the
-country. I shall miss the servants who got so little for making life
-the easier. I shall miss the ponies, the dogs with the black tongues,
-and the cats with the crooks in their tails; the big fire-engine
-which we used to run, and which has now been varnished over to save
-trouble in cleaning; the Luneta, with its soft breezes and good music;
-the walks out on to the long breakwater to see the sunset, and the
-hobnobbing with the old salts from the ships in the bay, who called
-our office the little American oasis in the midst of a great desert of
-foreign houses. But the clock has struck, and the Esmeralda ought early
-next month to start us on the forty-day voyage back to God's country.
-
-
-
-                                                            October 22d.
-
-Is this sleep, or not sleep? Is it reality or fancy? Am I laboring
-under a hallucination, a weird phantasmagoria, or are my powers
-of appreciation, my efferent nerve-centres and their connecting
-links, my sum total of receptive faculties, doing their duty? I feel
-hypnotized. I kick myself to see if this is real, and am only led to
-conclude it is by looking into my sewing-kit, where the needles are
-rusty, the thread gone, and the depleted stock of suspender-buttons
-wrongly shoved into the partition labelled "piping-cord." I never
-did know what piping-cord was. My socks are holy, my handkerchiefs
-have burst in tears, and my lingerie in general looks as if it had
-been used for a Chinese ensign on one of the ships that fought in
-the naval battle of the Yalu. For two years those garments have held
-together under the peculiar processes of Philippine laundering, but
-now that barbarians have once more got hold of them and subjected them
-to modern treatment, they recognize the enemy and go to pieces. And so
-the condition of my clothes leads me to believe I am awake, although
-everything else suggests the dream.
-
-Actually away from Manila, actually eating food that is food once
-more, actually sleeping on springs and mattresses, putting on heavier
-clothes, talking the English language, meeting civilized people, and
-realizing what it means to be homeward bound! It seems unreal after
-those two years of Manila life that was so different, so divorced
-from the busy life of the western world; much more unreal than did
-the new Philippine environment appear two years ago, after jumping
-into it fresh from God's country, as the Captain called it.
-
-Here we are, eight days out from Manila, steaming up through that
-far-famed inland sea of Japan, on the good ship Coptic, bound for San
-Francisco; and for the life of me those twenty-four moons just passed
-all seem to huddle into yesterday. Surely it was only the day before
-that the China was taking me and my trunks the other way. And so it
-takes but eight short days of new experiences, new food, new air,
-to efface completely the effect of seven hundred yesterdays in the
-Philippines. Those whole seven hundred seem now as but one, and when
-I think of all the housekeeping, the bookkeeping, the hemp-pressing,
-and the cheerful putting up with all sorts of things, they all seem
-to be playing leapfrog with each other in the dream of a night,
-and I wake up to find the pines of Japan lending a certain cordial
-to the air that is very grateful. We never knew what we were missing
-in Manila in the slight matter of eating alone until we got over to
-Hong Kong again, and it is perhaps just as well we didn't. To think
-of the "dead hen," as they call it, and rice, the daily couple of
-eggs, the fried potatoes, and the banana-fritters on which we have
-tried to fatten our frames, and then look at the bill of fare on the
-Coptic! We exiles from Manila have gained over five pounds in these
-eight days, and would almost go through another two years in the
-haunts of heathendom for the sake of again living through a sundry
-few days like the past eight, in which the inner man wakes up to
-see his opportunities, and makes up for lost time on soups that are
-not all rice and water, on fish that is not fishy, on chickens that
-are not boiled almost alive, on roasts that taste not of garlic,
-on vegetables that are something more than potatoes, on butter that
-is not axle-grease, and on puddings and pies that are not made of
-chopped blotting paper and flavored with pomatum sauces.
-
-An exuberance of spirit must be forgiven, for so welcome is the change
-from the old cultivated Manila contentment that the present burst of
-native enthusiasm is but natural. Not that I am playing false to the
-Malay capital--for let it be said that when once you have forgotten
-the good things at home the articles which that Pearl of the Orient
-had to furnish went well enough indeed--but that after schooling one's
-taste to things of low degree it is peculiarly melodramatic to return
-to things of high estate.
-
-Our send-off from Manila on the 14th was as gay as the sad occasion
-could warrant, and several launch-loads of the "bosses and the boys"
-worried out to bid us a last adios. The Esmeralda was to have the honor
-of taking us away from the place to which she had brought us, and I
-was thoroughly prepared to go through the interesting process that was
-needed finally to straighten me out after the peculiar twisting which
-the voyage from Manila to Hong Kong had given me two years before.
-
-The sunset over the mountains at the mouth of the bay was eminently
-fitting in its concluding ceremonies, and it seemed to do its best
-for us on this last evening in the Philippines. The many ships in
-the fleet lay quietly swinging at their anchors. The breeze from the
-early northeast monsoon blew gently off the shore, and Manila never
-looked fairer than she did on that evening, with her white churches
-and towers backed up against the tall blue velvet mountains, and her
-whole long low-lying length lifted, as it were, into mid-air by the
-smooth sea-mirror between us and the shore.
-
-Captain Tayler was as jovial and entertaining as ever, and the colony
-had no reason to regret being participators in the farewell. We
-well realized that our departure was an epoch in the life of the
-little Anglo-Saxon colony, and in a city where important events are
-registered as occurring "just after Smith arrived" or "just before
-Jones went away," it was essential to give the occasion weight enough
-to carry it down into the weeks succeeding our departure.
-
-Our native servants came off with the bags and baggage and seemed to
-show as much feeling as they had ever exhibited in the receipt of a
-Christmas present or a box on the ear. And some of our old Chinese
-friends, from whom we bought bales and bales of hemp in the days gone
-by, came too, bringing with them presents of silk and tea. Everybody
-looked sad and thirsty, and made frequent pilgrimages to the saloon
-in quest of the usual good-by stimulant.
-
-The Esmeralda panted to get away, and we had our last words with the
-motley little assemblage. We were seeing Manila and the most of them
-for the last time, and I confess both they and the shore often looked
-gurgled up in the blur that somehow formed in our eyes.
-
-The sun sank below the horizon; the swift darkness that in the tropics
-hurries after it, brought the electric lights' twinkling gleam out
-on the Luneta and the long Malecon road running along in front of
-the old city, from the promenade to the river. The revolving light
-on the breakwater cast a red streak over the river. The white eye
-on Corregidor, far away, blinked as the night began, and, just as
-the warning of "all ashore" was sounded, the faint strains of the
-artillery band playing on the Luneta floated out on the breeze over
-the sleepy waters of the Bay.
-
-Our friends clambered aboard the launch, the customs officers took
-a last taste of the refreshment that Captain Tayler gives them to
-make them genial, the anchor was hoisted, and, with cheers from the
-tug and the screeching of launch-whistles, the Esmeralda put to sea,
-bearing with her, in us two, half the American colony in Manila and
-the only American firm in the Philippines.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONCLUSION
-
-
-If one has thoughts of going out to the Philippines he should learn how
-to speak Spanish, and how to accept, "cum grano salis," descriptions
-of the country, either too glowing or too gloomy. Some have gone
-to Manila and liked it, others have made their retreat homeward
-echo with tales of weary woe about this Malay capital. To each it
-seems to mean something different according as he kept his health
-or lost it, as he fell in with the life or didn't, and as he was
-successful or unsuccessful in that for which he left the upper side
-of the globe. Before buying one's ticket for the Far East one must
-not be moved by the suggestions of "thoughtful" persons, who say you
-are going to the ends of the earth and must therefore take all sorts
-of clothes, pianos, and means of subsistence. Accept their sympathy
-but not always their advice, and if Manila be your destination, be
-assured you are not bound for an altogether isolated village. They
-may do some things out there which are not down on the programme of
-a day's routine in the United States. The fire-engines may be drawn
-by oxen, the natives--contrary to Biblical suggestion--may build the
-roof to their shanties first and make arrangements for underpinning
-afterward; women may smoke cigars, and snakes may be more effective
-rat-catchers than cats or terriers. But there are shops in Manila,
-tailors, drug-stores, parks, tramways, churches, electric lights,
-schools, and theatres which are not altogether unlike those in the
-Western world.
-
-And, in times of peace, the capital is not an altogether bad sort of
-a place to live in, though I can't say as much for some of the lesser
-towns. One may be susceptible to fever, in which case he must avoid
-sleeping near the ground or going about much in the sun. He may suffer
-from prickly heat, in which case he will not want to take oatmeal,
-drink chocolate, eat mangoes, or smoke pipes. Or he may become a
-mark for sprue--that peculiarly oriental disease which seems to
-destroy the lining to one's interior--in which case the quicker he
-takes the steamer for Japan or for 'Frisco the better. He may run
-against small-pox, but ought not to take it. He will have a cold
-or two, but won't hear of cholera or find a native word for yellow
-fever. Should the wind strike in from the northwest during the wet
-season, he must look out for typhoons, and not be surprised if,
-like my friend the Englishman, he some day finds only his upright
-piano on the spot where his light-built house stood--the rest of his
-things having hastened to the next village. If he feels the ground
-getting restless he must look out for the oil lamps on the table,
-or the tiles on the roof. He must not take too cold baths, sleep in
-silk pajamas, or walk when he has the "peseta" to ride. And in all
-things he will be better off by remembering to apply that motto of
-the ancient Greeks, mêden agan--in nothing to excess.
-
-Manila is the new Mecca, and for some time to come she is going to
-be looked at on the map, talked about at the dinner-table and by the
-fireside, and written up from all quarters. At present this Pearl of
-the Orient is but a jewel in the rough, but with good men to make her
-laws, and her gates wide open to the pilgrims of the world, she soon
-should shine as brilliantly as any city in the Far East.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yesterdays in the Philippines, by 
-Joseph Earle Stevens
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