Iloilo, December 31, 1904.
I think you may be amused to hear about a Filipino Fiesta, which took place yesterday, called Rizal Day—the anniversary of the death of the national hero, a Filipino of the name of Doctor Rizal. He was the William Tell of the Philippines, except that his existence was a reality, not a myth, for he died only eight years ago.
This patriot obtained the degree of Doctor (of Philosophy and Medicine) in Spain, where he went to be educated and enlightened. When he returned from that land, Doctor Rizal set to work, endeavouring to free his countrymen from the frightful Spanish friars, who were the real rulers of the Spanish Philippines, and whose cruelty and wickedness were almost incredible. Any friars who were not good enough for Spain, were sent out to the Philippines, where each man became a little god and tyrant in a tiny pueblo (village or district), in which his authority was unbounded and unquestioned. I suppose some of these friar-priests must have been good men, but no one can tell me they ever heard of such a being, for the enervating climate, lazy life, complete irresponsibility, and the irresistible power of the priest over the superstitious, childish Malays were too much for these men of God; and the stories of their cruelties, rapacities, and immoralities are all terrible and often simply sickening. I have heard them from people who lived in the pueblos, and the things that went on were like the Decameron and the Inquisition rolled into one.
Well, this Doctor Rizal started a revolt against the power of these dreadful men, if one could call the friars by such a name, about 1872; and from that time the rest of his life was a series of plots, captures, escapes to Europe, imprisonment by the friars, banishment, return, recapture, till at last, by the simple device of the friars having Rizal cabled for to Spain and getting him back to the Philippines, the avenging Church had him executed, by order of the Spaniards, on the Luneta, the Promenade at Manila, on December 30, 1896. I have met people who were present at the execution of Rizal, and they tell me that the crowds were vast, and relate how Rizal faced a line of soldiers bravely and was shot. Rizal had a nice, clever face of a refined Filipino type, if one can trust the portraits on the Conant bank-notes, and the Filipinos simply adore his memory.
It was in consequence of Rizal’s revolt that Aguinaldo and the Katipunan arose, who lived to revenge their hero’s memory, completing his work by turning the Spaniards and their dreadful priests out of the Islands. To do this, as you know, they had to get America to help them; which the Americans did, and stayed on. The idea is that they are going to teach the Filipinos how to govern themselves, which, it appears, ought only to be done by all peoples and races after the American method. The Filipinos are said to be delighted about this, but the puzzling anomaly is that they fought, and are still fighting the Americans tooth and nail to get their own liberty, their own way, but they are not asked what they think at all, and if they show any signs of wanting to get rid of this American burden and govern themselves in their own fashion, they are called Insurgents and knocked on the head, or dubbed common robbers and strung up to a tree.
On account of this state of affairs, the natives seize on this anniversary to give relief to some of their patriotic emotions. The day is a public holiday, they hang out flags and lanterns, and every Filipino knocks off what little work he ever does, and crawls about the streets and spits, and every one of them who is not carrying some musical instrument, is to be seen taking a cock to or from a cock-fight; while the women slouch along in gangs with myriads of children, or else jolt up and down in hired carriages—and that is the Fiesta.
They abandon these delirious joys during the hot hours of the day, from two to four, but swarm out again in redoubled numbers in the evening, walking about the streets till midnight in long processions, carrying paper lanterns of every shape and colour, and led by a guitar and mandoline band; while nearly every house is lighted up, and the big room full of people dancing.
The Filipinos have a natural gift for music of a very light sort, and I am told by people, who I do not think are very competent judges, that the natives perform classic music pretty well too, when well directed. Everyone plays an instrument of some sort, the men forming themselves into little and large societies, bands, in fact, which, on an occasion like yesterday, go about the streets and play “Hiawatha” on the slightest provocation. The trail of Sousa and “rag-time” is over them all, and their own plaintive, minor melodies, some of them very beautiful, are never heard now. At least I say “their own” melodies, but these tunes have a great flavour of Spain about them, and, of course, after four centuries of Spanish influence, it is difficult to say what is original Malay and what is imported.
The dress of the women is a mixture of the two races—Malay and Spanish—for the tight skirt (which is not worn in Manila, by-the-bye) is the sarong of the Straits; and the muslin blouse or jacket, with its huge starched sleeves and panuelo (a sort of folded fichu collar which sticks up behind) is an interesting survival of the fashions in vogue in Europe, in the days when Spain took these Islands on one side of the globe, and fought the mariners of Elizabeth on the other. Beyond these two garments the outfit is simplicity itself, for it consists of one long cotton chemise. I don’t think you’ve ever seen a sarong, by-the-bye, which, when it is off, is like a bottomless sack; and when it is on, is drawn tightly across the back and tucked in over itself at the top, when it makes an outline exactly like the petticoats in Egyptian monuments, quite close at the back, with a fold like a kilt in front. Then over the upper part comes the muslin bodice, which is made in one piece, with a hole to slip over the head, after the fashion of a jibbah. It looks very cool, but the cut is clumsy, and the fashion is dwarfing to the tiny Filipino figures; while the big sticking-up collar gives a round-shouldered effect, and spoils what is one of their best points, a graceful set and carriage of the head and neck. They walk very straight, with all the motion from the hips, and their feet very much turned out, and generally wear no jewellery of any sort, except perhaps a pair of gold earrings, or a ring or two, or a rosary of European patterns. There is nothing characteristic in the way of native work or beads. The well-to-do Filipino women wear more trinkets, and the Mestizas (Eurasians) cover themselves with cheap and tawdry ornaments.
The favourite material for the camisa (bodice) is a native muslin woven from the fibres of pine-apple leaves, called piña, an exclusive manufacture of the Islands of Panay and Negros, where the pine-apples grow wild in the jungles. This the Filipino women weave with or without silk stripes and checks, and dye all sorts of colours; but the lower classes and peasants hardly ever wear anything beyond the plain, undyed yellowish-white, which, after all, suits them far better than any other colour. They look well though, on great occasions, in crimson, purple, or yellow, and they are wise when they stick to those warm colours, for blues and greens are fatally unbecoming to their yellow-brown skins, making them look heavy and dirty. They seem to have no natural taste for colour though, as they use some appalling aniline dyes, and make mixtures which set one’s teeth on edge. They are only really safe when they stick to the red sarong and undyed camisa.
The piña is woven on hand-looms, which can be seen and heard clicking in almost every hut, and it is sent all over the Islands, and fetches enormous prices, but then it is practically everlasting, and when washed and done up with rice-starch, it looks like new.
They also have a muslin, much cheaper stuff, called Jusi (pronounced Hoosee), which is made from a fibre procured in China; and a third, and still cheaper one woven from hemp fibres and called sinamay—and the result of it all is that to the uninitiated the three materials all look exactly alike! On the piña the women do a very beautiful embroidery of graceful designs worked out in fine white sewing-cotton and marvellously shaded, mixed with drawn threads, and some of the antique pieces are exquisite. This piña embroidery is the only characteristic Filipino work I have been able to see or hear of, except the decoration of some weapons, and the grass mats with patterns.
The dress of the men I think I have already hinted at, and it, too, is the last word in simplicity (short of the loin-cloth, which costume is not allowed in the towns), for all the Filipinos wear in the house is tight drawers and a vest, and when they go out they draw on over those a pair of white or blue cotton trousers and a collarless shirt, rather like a Chinaman’s coat, which I described to you before, I think. This shirt hangs outside the trousers, really looking much better than it sounds, and on galas and occasions of state they turn out in an ordinary European shirt, with a starched front, all pleated and embroidered, such as Frenchmen and Germans sometimes wear, and they look so clean and smart in them. In fact they look quite nice in their native costume, but unfortunately many of them now affect the white man’s buttoned-up linen coat, with stand-up starched collar, and put on shoes and stockings, which subtly vulgarises the wearers at once. Like all coloured races and many white ones, as soon as they attempt modern European fashions the Filipino taste is villainous, and they look inexpressibly common and disheartening.
They are so clean—so scrupulously clean—all their clothes, even those of the very poorest, being spotless and fresh. They are for ever washing their bodies, too, or at least it is certain that the poor people are, for they may be seen at the wells and outside their houses tubbing ingenuously, the men with a single fold of stuff retained for decency, the women struggling inside a wet sarong.
We went yesterday evening for a walk along the beach, on the side of this spit where the view embraces the open sea and the end of the Island of Guimaras, the latter with a promontory of mountainous Negros jutting out behind and beyond it, and all the rest clear horizon. The tide was out, so we walked on the firm wet sand at the edge of the waves, little, flat waves which did not run up very far, as the beach is steep and shelving. Over the mountains, inland, the sky was a deep glowing orange and crimson, but from where we were on the beach we could not see the mountains, only glimpses of the gorgeous colour through the high palms that fringe the shore; while on the other side, out to sea, was a reflection like a delicate wash of pinky gold, set above deep blue sea and purple islands.
We walked a good long way, as far as the ends of the streets that come down on the beach, all dark with points of light, for the air was deliciously soft and the breeze almost fresh, and as the sunset faded, the stars came out and made quite a light upon the water, they looked so big and bright. We enjoyed the walk very much, and though we are too far this side of the town to be able to walk as far as the open country, we are very lucky not to be a long way from the beach, where we can always get a breath of fresh air and admire the lovely evenings.
Iloilo, January 8, 1905.
This is my first letter to you in the New Year, and it does seem so strange to be writing 1905 already.
I wonder how you brought the year in. We were invited to a ball given by the Club Artistica, the Spanish Club, situated in a suite of very large rooms in the upper story of a big house in the Calle Real, the main street of the town, which I told you about when I was describing the amazing shops. The big basements are shops, but the long upper stories form large dwelling houses, very swagger ones, only the dust and noise are very disagreeable, and the rents about the same as flats in the best part of London, if not more. On these two accounts, most of them stand empty, displaying long rows of closed shutters, all the outside painted the prevailing bluey-grey. Some are used as clubs, however, one being this Artistica, and another, further down the street, the Filipino Club, which is called the Santa Cecilia—dedicated very appropriately to the patron saint of music, you see. These two clubs are very hospitable, and do nearly all the entertaining in the place, except for an occasional lecture at the Y.M.C.A., which, I daresay, is a wild revel, only I’ve never summoned up courage to go and see. The Swiss and Germans have a club, I believe, and the English Club has a beautiful house of its own, but neither of these institutions does anything towards the gaiety of nations, beyond playing billiards among their own members exclusively. It is a relief, however, to think that the poor fellows do not have such a very bad time as one might imagine, for they accept everything and go everywhere. The same comforting remark applies to the Americans, who have no club and don’t entertain privately, except tea or Bridge parties amongst each other. So, as I said before, it falls to the Spaniards and Filipinos to keep the place alive, and very well they do it too, if the ball on New Year’s Eve was a specimen of their average entertainments.
The Spaniards, Eurasians, and natives are all passionately fond of dancing, and really fond of it, for they do not make it a question of supper, as people do at home. All you have to do here is to clear the floor and get in some musicians (half the difficulty here is to keep groups of musicians out), and apparently your friends flow in. When we are coming home in the evenings, we often see the salas of quite little houses lighted up and full of people dancing, and I have seen small native huts having a baile of two couples jostling round in a space 10 feet square.
The chief room of the Spanish Club is a large apartment, almost a hall, where, on ordinary evenings, the members can be seen through the big lighted window-spaces, sitting about at little tables, with glasses at their elbows, playing dominoes; but for the baile the club was cleared and hung with electric lights in paper flowers, and decorated with flags and palm branches, while in a large recess at one side was a numerous string band of Filipino performers.
The music was excellent, but so slow that, as far as I was concerned, dancing was no pleasure, though that was not much of a grievance to me, as I was really far more anxious to look on than to dance.
We were invited for ten o’clock, but when we arrived at eleven the entertainment was only just getting into full swing. We had missed the opening Rigodon, a dance without which no Filipino baile could get under weigh at all, but the second half of the programme began with one, and I was very much interested to see it.
Everyone who wanted to dance the Rigodon, and there were only about three people who did not, sat round the room in an immense square, as for a cotillon, and the band struck up a very jolly old Spanish tune, to which the sides facing each other went through a few simple figures at a very slow walk. When they had done, they sat down, and the other two sides took their turn; and that, to different tunes, was the whole dance, which went on for an incredible length of time. The figures were a mixture of lancers and quadrilles, but the dancers never went out of a dignified strut, and though the first tune was followed by the inevitable Sousa marches and “Hiawatha,” however lively the music became, the dancers continued to stroll and bow and shuffle about at the same slow pace. I am told that one becomes very fond of the Rigodon, but it seemed to me intolerably dull and listless as a dance, though as a spectacle it was vastly entertaining, and gave one a chance of really seeing the people, and they were well worth the trouble of turning out after dinner to look at.
The men wore white suits, most of them buttoned-up white coats of the every day sort. There were three Englishmen in evening dress, one or two in white mess jackets, and several advanced young Filipinos in grey tweeds. The American women wore every sort of outfit, from the missionaries and schoolma’ams in blouses and boots to the more exalted personages in evening dress; while the Filipinas, Mestizas, and most of the Spaniards had on the native muslin camisa, some of them exquisitely embroidered and hand-painted, and always worn with European skirts of appalling colours and cut. One little brown woman had on a long train of scarlet plush, with huge white lace butterflies fixed across and down the front, which made one burst into perspiration merely to look at; and another was in emerald green velvet, with straggling bands of gold braid meandering over it in such a queer way that I could not resist walking round her to see if any point of view would make the lines come out as a pattern, but they refused to go by any rule of any art—even the “newest.”
As to the waltzes, which formed the chief part of the programme, they were very amusing too, for the variety of styles was infinite, though the universal pace was so slow. The Spaniards and Mestizos dance very well, and by that, of course, I mean Filipinos in general, for it is very difficult to distinguish between them, and to say where one race begins and the other leaves off. They are slow and graceful. The Americans are equally slow, but not very graceful, for they walk instead of dance, holding each other in such a peculiar way, sideways and very close, the man leaning very far back, with his partner falling towards him, and the hands that are clasped held very high, and swinging up and down.
At twelve o’clock everyone began to cheer and shake hands as the New Year came in; while the band played the American National Anthem, which is a most magnificent air, and then the Spanish Anthem, and then a few bars of “God Save the King,” which did for us and the Germans equally well, and which we all thought a very nice little compliment. Filipino waiters came in, carrying trays covered with tall glasses full of some sort of champagne cup, and everyone drank healths, shook hands, and wished their friends a Happy New Year. We stayed on a little longer, and I danced a two-step with a very nice American, which was the best dance I had the whole evening, for it is one in which they excel, though they perform it quite differently to what we are told at home is “the real American way to dance it,” as they do not plunge down the room in straight lines in the English fashion, but turn round more and make more of a waltz of it.
Suddenly, during an interval between dances in the middle of the programme, without a word of warning, a Mestiza sat down at the piano and played an accompaniment to which a young Eurasian, in a painfully blue satin dress, and with her face a ghastly grey-white with thick powder, sang a truly terrible song. She screamed in an awful manner, and I wondered that policemen did not rush up from the streets to see what was the matter, but she was perfectly self-possessed, and faced the audience with the aplomb and self-confidence of a prima-donna. I never heard such “singing” in my life—it was the sort of thing that is so bad that you feel all hot and ashamed, and sorry, and don’t want to catch the eye of any relation of the performer. This happened not once, but several times, and is, I am told, a custom in Filipino bailes.
When we left at about half-past one, the ball was in full swing, and I afterwards heard that it went on till half-past four or five. Indefatigable people! I don’t know how they can keep it up so, for, of course, the heat was very great—a temperature in which no one would dream of dancing at home, and not a breath of cool air anywhere, but I suppose they become accustomed to it.
One thing I have mentioned may strike you as odd, and that is the mixture of races and Eurasians, but there is socially no marked colour-distinction here as in every other country in the world, and this, I imagine, is because the natives of the civilised parts of the Philippines have been Christians for centuries, and intermarried with a Christian race. The fusion is not, however, really very complete, as one can see from a glance, at any gatherings, where the people of various shades of white and brown keep very much together. Some of the Eurasian women are quite pretty, but they spoil their little round faces with thick layers of powder over their nice brown skins, and use perfumes that nearly knock one down. The white men are friendly with many of the Mestizos, and dance with their pretty daughters, and are even occasionally foolish enough to marry the latter; but white women keep quite apart from the coloured folk, and it would be an unheard-of thing to dance with one; while as to marrying a Filipino, no woman one could speak to would ever dream of such a horrible fate. That is where the real impassable gulf is fixed. The Americans profess not to recognise any distinction, however, for, as I explained before, they announce that they consider the Filipino of any class as their social and every other equal, and have the expression “little brown brother” (invented by Mr. Taft), which is supposed to convey and establish this generous sentiment. The sentiment, apart from any political utility it may possess, is a noble one, but it does more credit to the heart of the Americans than to their wisdom.
The Spaniards did not recognise the Filipinos as equals, but treated them with every courtesy, according to their degree, and I believe that whatever the political situation may have been in those days, society went peaceably enough, for every man knew his place and kept it; a system admirably suited to an Oriental people. Now, however, the régime is quite different, and the sudden glare of ultra-equalising views is what the Filipinos can neither understand nor profit by.
I wish I had been in the U.S.A to see many things for myself, but I have always read and heard much about the hard and fast line drawn in that country against “coloured” people and half-castes, and that the Americans have learned to adopt this custom from years of experience. This makes their professed attitude here very puzzling, and I can find no one who can even attempt to reconcile this extraordinary variation of opinion. Another unfathomable anomaly of American thought is that the “Equality,” Nobility of the Human Race—Rights as a human Being, and so on, are for the Filipinos, but all these grand schemes officially take no account of the fierce, naked savages; the Mahommedan tribes; the negritoes, and all the other wild natives of the Philippines; though how, or where, or when, or by whom the line is to be drawn and the distinction made is another unanswerable problem.
New Year’s Day being a holiday, we thought we would treat ourselves to a drive. So we sent one of the boys out for a carromata, which is a sort of tiny gig, with the driver sitting on a small seat in front of his fare, in fact almost on one’s lap. Rain had been falling pretty well all day, and the carromata, when it arrived, was covered with mud, and looked such a disreputable turn-out that we burst out laughing when we saw it. However, there was no other to be had, and after all it was a very good specimen, so we climbed in over the wheel, and the driver, a boy of about twelve, gave the pony a chuck and a whack, and it turned round in the direction of the Plaza, and we stuck. Then the driver got down, and when he was out of the way and the pony became visible, we saw that we weighed the cart down so much at the back that as the little animal turned round he got his neck wedged under the shaft and was held in a rigid yoke. The youthful cochero shoved him down somehow, evidently both of them quite accustomed to the trouble, and, once righted, the little beast tore along, and we had a delightful drive in the cool of the evening, enjoying the air, which was so fresh after the rain.
We did not go far out of the town, as the sky was rather threatening, but kept more or less to the ever-amusing suburbs of native huts, which literally swarm with human beings, to every one of whom there is apparently an allowance of about six babies of under one year old, and on the roofs are cocks and hens clinging to the steep thatch; while under the hut lives the family carabao (a big grey water-buffalo) in his mudhole, along with stray dogs and wild pigs which eat up the refuse.
The number of children, very young children, is something astounding, but, according to statistics, I learn that 60 per cent. of the children born in the Philippines die under one year old, so that must help to keep the numbers of grown-up people down a bit. They are miserable little languid scraps, thin and solemn, but so supremely fortunate as to wear no clothes whatever, till they are about six, when a short muslin jacket is put on, which is more for adornment than anything else. The tiny ones ride astride the mother’s hip, with little thin legs dangling, and round black head wobbling about, looking so uncomfortable, poor little souls. They are fed on rice, which they eat till their little bodies swell up to a certain tightness, when the food is taken away, and they are not allowed more till they have “gone down” again. This process results in a permanent “rice-tummy,” which makes the babies look like air-balloons set on drumsticks; but, somehow, they lose that as they get older, and if they live, are generally very slender and well made.
There is a great fuss made now about this waste of infant life, much of which is ascribed to the horrible and unhuman practices and superstitions attending the birth of a Filipino child; but I imagine from the appearance of the children themselves, that the whole question is merely an example of the Survival of the Fittest, for of so many children born in such a delicate race there must be numbers who are unable and unfit to live. They are not a hardy people, these Filipinos, and the heat, fevers, and plagues of the country affect them even more than they do the white races, oddly enough. I believe that in the wild parts the natives are stronger, and sometimes live to a great age; but there the life is simpler; the cross-breeding less frequent; in the absence of civilisation of any kind the great Darwinian Law operates even more rigorously; and the young who are sickly stand no chance at all of growing up and transmitting their weakness. The skin of these people is not a healthy skin, not a warm brown, but of a greeny-yellowy brown; their fingers are delicate and weak, and their eyes not clear or bright, but like little bits of dull plum-brown jelly.
Iloilo, January 16, 1905.
The day has come round for me to catch the mail, but I feel that I can hardly write calmly, as I am barely sane upon the subject I wish to tell you about, which is the Customs. I told you about the opening of our cases, and how we took them out of bond, as they were valued at £30? Well, a day or two ago the bill came in, and when we saw it we nearly fainted away, for the amount of duty came to 698 pesos—£70.
Of course we thought some mistake had been made, so C—— went off to the Customs officer and asked him what it meant. All the consolation we got was that they were very sorry for us, but the Appraiser had made a mistake, and classed some of our things under Class B instead of Class A.
So C—— said he could not afford this sum, which was far more than the whole of the contents of the cases were worth if they had been new. Of course it was impossible to send them back to Hong Kong, as we had taken them out of bond; but after a lot of talk, the officer said we could “abandon the goods” if we liked, which means refuse to pay the duty, when the things would be seized by the Customs and sold by auction to pay the Government; but we should be unable, by law, to buy them in ourselves. This seemed to be the only alternative open to us, and C—— came back and asked me what I thought of it, and asked the other Englishmen their opinion. They were full of sympathy and very kind, and at last one of them hit upon an excellent idea, which was to attend the sale and buy our things in for us as cheaply as possible. This, then, was arranged, but—“Oh no!” said the Customs, “you won’t gain anything by that, because if goods, when put up for sale, do not fetch the price at which the Customs House has valued them, they are publicly burned.”
So that is the end of our story. We have paid more than their value for our wedding-presents, which seems to me the meanest and cruellest imposition I ever heard of. But I won’t say any more, for the subject can only be as painful to you as it is to us. We must just grin and bear it, I suppose, but good-bye to a pony and trap for a longer time than ever, and good-bye to any little jaunts in the hot season.
I must try instead to be more pleasant, and the only thing I can think of is a little lizard I have been looking at for the last ten minutes, while my thoughts roamed gloomily over each one of those seventy good golden sovereigns that have gone to help to teach the Filipino that he is my equal. A worthy cause, no doubt, but one that does not appeal to me—at any rate to the extent of 698 pesos.
This little lizard, which lives in the cornice above my writing-desk, has just come down on to the window beside me and nipped up a fly in the smartest manner. This is his hunting-ground, for the windows in the house only have sliding shutters, such as I described to you, like all the houses here. Glass windows are almost unknown, but this house happens to have them along the S.-W. front, where some former occupant has put in doors on to the balcony, with glass in the upper panels, because in the rainy season the Monsoon drives in on this side.
In all the houses here these little grey lizards abound, living in the cornices and corners of the ceilings, and feeding on flies, mosquitoes, and any little toothsome creature they can pick up. They must have plenty of supplies and wide variety, for one seems to come across some new sort of insect every hour of the day—and night. No fleas, however, I don’t mean that, for Filipinos are clean and fleas are rare; but all sorts of queer insects crawl and fly and sit about, all of which I suppose the lizards enjoy; and I imagine they, in their turn, are having a good meal off some other still tinier creature.
The ceilings are made of bulges of canvas or matting painted white, pale blue, or green; or, in some of the old houses, with patterns, as in Italy. In one house in Jaro, a big building with long, wide-open window-spaces, there is a ceiling that is covered with some sort of shiny oilcloth stuff, drawn up by buttons at intervals, so that it looks like the seat of some giant padded leather chair—a most fearful looking contrivance, but, no doubt, a source of much pride to the Filipino who owns it. There is a wide space above these ceilings, for the corrugated iron roofs are very deep, and here live rats, mice, cats, cockroaches, snakes, all sorts of beasts, which come down into the house for plunder. The nicest are these dear, clean, bright-eyed little lizards, which make a funny and very pretty note, a sort of clear, musical chuck-chuck. Sometimes, but very rarely, one of these lizards is found with a forked tail, and this the natives look upon as an emblem of the most extraordinary luck, and they do all they can to catch the lizard and try to take off his forked tail, which they dry and wear for anting-anting. Any kind of luck, or lucky emblem, is anting-anting, and the mystical emblems, observances, and relics of Roman Catholicism, which appeal to the Filipinos with irresistible force, have but added to their original stock of superstitions.
In some of the houses there is a very anting-anting lizard, of a large size, which makes a loud, clear double note like a cuckoo, that can be heard a long way off. I have never seen a “Philippine cuckoo,” as they are called, but have often heard them, and the houses that have this anting-anting are well known. There is one in the old belfry at Jaro, another in a house the other side of the Plaza there, and one in a certain bamboo clump on the road to Molo, and so on, all over the place.
A very general belief prevails that in the roof of each house there lives a big snake, which has a terrific meal of rats every now and then, and sleeps the rest of his time, coming down very rarely for water. I can quite credit this story, for the space between the roofs must be the very place for a snake, and many people tell me they have seen these creatures, but I don’t suppose they are really in all the houses. Curiously enough, I thought there was a snake overhead before I had ever been told about such a thing, for one day, when I was sitting in the sala, I heard a most extraordinary noise in the roof overhead—a sort of heavy, dragging sound, and then a thump, and then the dragging sound again—and, somehow, the thought of a snake instantly came into my mind. When I spoke about it to some friends, half jokingly, they replied quite seriously that it probably was a snake I had heard, and then told me how they live in the roofs.
Talking of noises, one of the most curious sounds here is made by the crickets, the cicadas, which shrill night and day, ceaselessly and for ever. The ear becomes accustomed to the aggregate sound of their high, thin note, though I, for one, never get to like it, and sometimes it gets horribly on my nerves, so that I feel I must go anywhere to get away from it. At first when I heard it I was always having a curious impression of being in a Swiss field in the summer; but now that has worn off, and I think if I ever go into the Swiss fields again I shall think of nothing but Iloilo. When one of these cicadas gets very near the house, it drives you nearly mad, and when, as happened a few evenings ago, one is actually in the house, everything must be searched for the beast before anyone can expect sanity or sleep. This one that got in, stowed itself away in the writing-table, and we had an awful time, standing almost on our heads and streaming from every pore, before we found it in a tiny corner where one of the drawers does not run quite into place. When we fished the cicada out at last, or rather when one of the servants came in and took up the hunt for us and caught it, we found the disturber of our peace to be an ugly little browny-black creature, with a narrow waist, and the silly thing refused to give a single chirrup to show us how it was done.
Talking of insects, one of the things we are most fortunate about in this house is that we have very few of the black or red ants, which are a fearful plague in these Islands, so much so that one has to stand the furniture with its feet in small enamel bowls filled with water or paraffine to prevent the ants crawling up, for they eat everything; and besides that, they look particularly nasty when dead in jam or butter, or floating in tea or coffee. Some of these ants are a good size, but the common sort are very small, and many of the most destructive are simply red specks that run like lightning. They are terrible destroyers, and I can’t think why ant-eaters don’t start living in the roof menageries, for they would get on splendidly if they did not die of over-eating. However, the ants do scavenge to a certain extent, and the way a busy little mob can carry off a huge dead cockroach is a lesson in natural history.
The cockroaches, by-the-bye, are the size of mice. They are the most evil brutes I ever saw, besides being a constant source of terror and worry. You will hardly believe this, for you know that I never mind touching any animal—mice, worms, toads, slugs, earwigs—and how I have so often been laughed at, and even sniffed at, as rather an unpleasant young person, because I have no repugnance to taking them up in my bare hand, for, after all, they are only poor animals, and infinitely nicer to touch than many perfectly respectable human beings. Do you remember those people at Karnak who screamed when I brought them that lovely little toad with a speckled stomach? And the good folk at home who shudder if you pick up a poor slug out of a dusty road? Well, when it comes to these cockroaches, I confess that I have a genuine horror of the great red, evil-smelling brutes, with their horrible bulgy eyes and their long moving red antennæ. I can’t tell you what it is about them—but I am not alone in this, for everyone has a horror of them. They breed in the cesspits, and prefer manure to any other diet, but will gladly supplement their menu with any form of food, as well as leather, paper, books, or clothes. The houses, the shops, and the steamers are full of them, and in the evenings they come out of their holes and run about. Ugh! they make one shudder. And every now and then they take it into their heads to fly about or into the lighted rooms, and I have even seen men who have been here for years turn quite sick when a cockroach lights on them, and as for the average woman, she screams outright, and many white women faint.
These horrible brutes are the curse of housekeeping, necessitating everything being kept in glass jars or tins, and cupboards and drawers being overhauled and searched every week or so. I must say, though, that we have not had so much trouble with them as most people, and so far I have never had one amongst the linen or clothes, and I believe this is because I hang cakes of naphthaline in the rooms, and put balls of it in all boxes, drawers, and cupboards, and they don’t seem to like naphthaline, though they would come a thousand miles to eat ordinary insect powder, which is, apparently, just the very thing on which to bring up a nice little family of forty or fifty young cockroaches.
There are some pleasing spiders too, one of which I saw the other day, with a body nearly the size of the palm of my hand, sitting in a huge, tough web like a hammock, and looking exactly like those in Doré’s picture of the Guest Chamber in the Castle Inn, in Croque Mitaine.
I said there were very few fleas, but the mosquitoes make up for any biting that has to be done. I am beginning to get more accustomed to their venom now, but at first I was quite ill and feverish from it, and many people suffer so that it amounts to an illness, and white men frequently have to be invalided home for nothing but mosquitoes. Nothing I have ever seen in any place round the Mediterranean approaches the Philippine mosquito for venom or ferocity, and here, too, their efforts are not confined to the night-season when lucky mortals are stowed under nets with no rents in them, but they bite relentlessly all day as well.
Well, I tried to leave harrowing subjects and tell you something more cheerful than the Customs woes, but I seem to have drifted into other griefs, and as my spirits are evidently damped beyond hope to-day, I had better leave off writing and end my letter.
Iloilo, January 22, 1905.
We went a night or two ago to a performance at the theatre—a Filipino performance in a Filipino theatre. I daresay it sounds strange to you to hear of a theatre in Iloilo, but you see this is really a very large town, and then all the people are musical, and they have plenty of time to rehearse. They get together little dramatic clubs, the chief one of which is not far from here, “as the crow flies,” though I think he would be a very keen crow for theatricals if he flew there as straight as he could. We heard this performance, an operetta, being rehearsed night and day before the performers considered it ready for the theatre. The rehearsals that went on until the early hours of the morning were those we cared least about; but we were really interested to hear them going on all day as well, for no one in the Dramatic Club apparently had any other occupation in life. At least, this seemed to me strange till I had become better acquainted with the Filipino character.
To get to this show, we set off after dinner, driving in a hired quielez with a disturbing cockroach somewhere about it, and soon came to a squash of all sorts of carriages and carts in one of the broader streets of the town—and a squash of vehicles driven by Filipinos is something no human mind can imagine without experience. We escaped alive, and went in at a big gateway into a courtyard, passing several stalls lighted with flaring naphtha, where native women sat behind flat rush trays containing cakes and sweetmeats, tumblers of coloured drinks, and ordinary ginger-beer and lemonade bottles. This, though I did not know it at the time, was the buffet.
Inside the courtyard another high gate, decorated at the sides with palms and paper roses, and very dimly lighted, led to the door of the theatre, a big, crazy-looking building, and here stood two inconceivably stupid and self-satisfied natives bullying everyone, and making a hopeless and baffling muddle of the tickets. Why they did this I can’t think, as everyone passed into the place alike, whatever their ticket was, and scrambled up a broad wooden staircase, very steep and rickety, or else went about the ground-floor, every man looking for his own seat, and getting turned out of it by the next comer.
The “boxes” were little pens railed off, containing six chairs with no room for your knees, and in and out of these and up and down the precipitous staircase jostled a crowd of Filipinos, Mestizos, Chinamen, and Spaniards, with little dark women in gaudy camisas, wearing flowers in their hair and diamond brooches. Here and there an American was patiently and persistently trying to gather information in his own language, while he took some female relation in a white cotton dress upstairs and then down again, to keep her quiet.
I was so amused by these proceedings that I really felt as if it did not matter whether that was all we saw, but, nevertheless, we toiled up the staircase at the promptings of an obliging Filipino with one eye, very soon found our box, and settled down to wait for the friends who were to join us.
In about two minutes, however, we were engaged in an endless discussion with a little mob of “brown brothers,” who declared quite politely that we had no right there, as the box was theirs. So we moved off and tried the ground-floor again; found another box with our number on it, empty; sat down again, put fans and programmes on the opposite chairs, and began to look about.
But we were shifted again, so this time we tackled a native selling programmes, and asked him where our box was, and why the little pens all seemed to have the same number; and he, in very broken Spanish, at last made us understand that the numbers were repeated six times, once on each side upstairs and down. This was a wonderful effort of lucidity for a Filipino, and really helped us a good deal. So we toiled upstairs again, feeling sure that we knew all about the theatre now, and determined on a shot at the sides. On the way there we were delighted to see that the people who had turned us out of our first box were being ousted in their turn, but by this time we had begun to giggle, and were too helpless with heat and laughter to take much notice of anything. At last we got into a box from which we were never evicted during the rest of the evening, though some people did come along with a programme-seller to back their claim, but we showed fight, and they went away again.
The theatre, a long, wooden building, appeared even more ramshackle from the inside than it had from the outside, and infinitely more dangerous, for the electric light was supplemented by Japanese paper lanterns, which looked the last word in incendiarism; and, when one considered the packed mass of faces all round, it was wiser not to let the imagination dwell on that steep wooden stairway, which was all there was between us and the next world.
The floor of the building was arranged with rows of chairs facing squarely, by way of stalls, surrounded by a row of the boxes I have described, where the chairs went sideways. Above jutted out a broad balcony with a similar row of boxes, and above that again, jammed under the ceiling, was a dense crowd of poor people, standing on what was really only a ledge with an iron rail; and they looked positively more like huge black and white flies clinging to the ceiling than anything else.
Everything looked as if it must fall down or break up, but no one seemed to be worrying about their doom, in fact all the faces were remarkably pleasant and jolly.
The stage was a fairly large one, with a row of electric footlights, which waxed and waned and waxed again at their own sweet will, and quite regardless of the needs of the performance. In front of the stage, on the floor-level, was an orchestra of natives who really played very well indeed, and they and all the men in the audience were in white, which looks very quaint until one’s eye is accustomed to it.
The piece performed was an operetta called “La Indiana,” a rather confused story about some old Mestizo with a white beard, whose son had secretly married an Indian, which is the word the Spaniards use for the Filipinos, and is employed by the Filipinos themselves as well, when talking Spanish. Well, the old father informed his son, an appalling, gawky, young Mestizo in a black morning coat, pepper and salt tweed trousers, and a very bright blue tie, that he must marry a white (Mestiza) girl of his, the father’s choosing. On hearing which, the hero sang a song to the effect that he would abandon the Indiana, and had a long duet with that personage to explain that they would just say nothing at all about being married. Then all the chorus came in again, the old father blessed the hero and the “white” girl, whereupon the Indiana, a frightfully ugly Filipina with a fine voice, sang a long and frenzied solo with her hair down—and then the curtain fell.
I thought there must be another act, and was very much surprised to find that was the conclusion of the story. But evidently, to the native imagination, the plot was complete and the ends of poetic justice satisfied. They did not really act and sing as badly as I had expected, though, when one came to think of “La Indiana” as a public performance in a theatre, it really verged on audacity. No attempt at scenery or dress was made, the whole action taking place in a bare, worn, old “set” of a room, the usual stage room, unlike anything else on earth, and the only attempt at costume was the substitution of very ugly old European blouses for the camisa, which was a fatal mistake.
We left after the first piece, though there were to be two more of the same sort, for it was very dull and depressing. There is nothing in these Filipinos, you see, for they have not the melodious voices of negroes, nor the faultless ear of Spaniards, nor the fine physique of Chinese, nor the taste of Japanese—they are simply dull, blunt, limited intelligences, with the ineffable conceit of such a character all over the world, and when they break out into a display such as “La Indiana,” all these deplorable qualities show up in the glare of the white light that beats even upon an Iloilo stage.
Yesterday we went for a delightful drive out along the Jaro road, off which we turned a little way beyond the town, and went down a rough, sandy track to the banks of a broad, half-dried-up river, not the Iloilo river, but another parallel to it, or a branch.