About six o’clock the Sanidad came and gave us pratique, though I think if he had come before the deck-washing he must have put us all in quarantine for the plague. Apparently, too, there was no objection raised to the number of passengers in proportion to the accommodation, so we got ashore. Long before this the company’s launch had come fussing down the river and out to the Butuan, with C—— standing in the bows; and as soon as the doctor’s tour was over, I was conducted across the Sanidad launch into the other, and we went straight to the wharf, and home in a quilez, leaving my luggage for the shipping agent to tackle.
When I arrived at our house, old Tuyay flung herself down the staircase into the road with screams and yells of joy, wagging not only her tail but her whole body; and when I got into the hall there was the cat from downstairs squeaking, and telling me some long story about all she had noticed while I was away, and following me from room to room.
This cat has established herself with us for the last few weeks, and now thinks it her right, not to say her duty, to smell everything that comes into the house. She was fearfully agitated about the furniture I brought from Manila, and while it was being rigged up, and other things shifted, and so on, the poor pussy went nearly wild with excitement and curiosity, to say nothing of laying herself out to be tumbled over and half killed.
Iloilo, March 20, 1905.
I am sure you will be glad to hear that I feel much better for my Manila trip, and able to go for our evening walks again, which we still enjoy very much, though the season is getting rather hot for moving about with much comfort.
While I was away, there was an outburst of Carnival gaiety, and C—— went to a ball at the Spanish Club, which seems to have been a very good one. It was fancy dress, many of the costumes were beautiful, and there was a big supper laid out at little tables in the open air, with decorations and paper lanterns. They danced till five in the morning, when the more enduring and merry spirits drove round the town in open carriages; so they seem to have had a very gay time, and I was rather sorry I had missed it, as a fancy dress ball in Iloilo must be a rare and precious experience.
So Lent has begun, but apparently it is not going to be made too strict, for last night we were bidden to an amateur theatrical performance at the Santa Cecilia (the Filipino) Club, which was a very festive affair. The big room of the Santa Cecilia, which is upstairs, like the Spanish one, but with a stage at one end, was very gay with festoons of pink and white muslin, and chains made of little hoops covered with tinsel paper. Nearly the whole audience consisted of Filipino women, in skirts of screaming reds, blues, greens, and yellows, set off by bewildering camisas, their black glossy hair adorned with many combs, and everywhere whiffs of penetrating cheap scent.
The hall is so large that the two or three hundred people present did not nearly fill it, though little groups of men hung about the side that opened, with spaces between columns, on to the staircase and outer hall.
We sat for a long time past the normal hour for beginning, staring at the drop-scene, which displayed a large picture of Saint Cecilia playing on a piano, and looking up to heaven; and had plenty of time to take in the paintings all round the room of Magellan, Rizal, Washington, and other heroes, which were stuck high up in frames, or frescoed on each side of the stage, while the band gave us waltzes, Sousa, and “Hiawatha.” This latter tune seems to have become a sort of Filipino National Anthem, for no entertainment of any sort can come off without it, and even a banda de musica, playing in the street in the evening, won’t go away, even after they had received money, before they have gone through “Hiawatha.” I don’t think I ever described to you a launch party we went one evening, on the occasion of a despedida (farewell), to a departing American official? We were a large party, English and Americans mixed, and filled up the bows of a fair-sized launch, while abaft the engines a Filipino string band clung on and played as best they could as the launch rolled about in a choppy little sea off Guimaras. As we left the Muelle (the quay) these musicians struck up “Hiawatha,” and when they had got through it they began again, and again, and again—and I have no doubt they would have played that air contentedly the whole way out and back, and probably fully intended to do so, if they had not been implored to stop. It is not a bad tune, though, and went remarkably well with the clicking of the launch’s machinery and the motion of the waves.
But, to get back to this theatrical performance—though I don’t think there is much to say about it, for it was a very ordinary amateur show, and except that the skins of the performers were naturally darkened and not artificially white, and the language they spoke was Spanish, it was indistinguishable from the same sort of thing at a charity bazaar at home. Not musical, like the performance I told you about at the theatre, but a playlet of a strangely exotic type that must have been rather unintelligible to most of the brown brothers and sisters, for it was a sort of French farce about a man and his wife living in a flat below another couple, with the usual complications that apparently inevitably result from such a dangerous experiment in Paris. One man acted well, and was now and then really funny; but the humour was not the most refined fooling I have ever heard, as you may judge when I tell you that the chief source of jokes was that one of the husbands was represented as insinuating himself into the other household by pretending to be a doctor, and there was no bowdlerising of his interviews with his lady patients. The few things he left unsaid were reserved for another character, who came in as a house-agent with the most extraordinary fund of questions imaginable. But the entertainment hit the popular taste, evidently, for the more broad the remarks, with no attempt at wit, the more the “little brown sisters” laughed, in true Oriental manner.
I got very bored and tired, but did not like to go out till the first playlet was finished, for fear of hurting our hosts’ feelings. We afterwards heard from a friend that when the second piece was over, the floor was cleared for a baile, which was kept up till quite the early hours of the morning. In the middle of this dance, however, “a strange thing happened,” as a certain number of the hosts suddenly appeared with little plates to collect money for the expenses of the production. This manœuvre, as our friend expressed it to us, “knocked many of the guests completely out of time,” for the average person does not take much money to a dance. Some wrote little vales; but our friend was rather sharp, for when a girl held out a plate to him, he bowed very politely and took it from her, saying, “Pray let me help you,” and so became a collector instead of a contributor.
We went a new walk through the town a few evenings ago, on a lovely night, when the grey streets were all black and white in the moonlight, but the shadows quite luminous and the sky a real blue, dark and velvety. We strolled down one or two streets and through a group of native huts by the shore; but that part of the shore is some way from here, as, you see, we were walking across the spit of land formed by the estuary and the open sea.
In our walk we came to a walled-in graveyard, with an open grille in the great doorway, through which one could see a little chapel and green trees, looking very dark green in the moonlight. On the opposite side, across the rough, sandy road, was a high, broken wall of concrete, with a big iron gate, and apparently nothing but the sea beyond it. We wondered what the gate could lead to, and thought there must be some garden on the shore; but when we went up the one or two crumbling steps, we found ourselves at once on the beach, and at our feet a quantity of ruined graves, some half-opened, some newly-covered, all jumbled up in the moonlight, and strewn with rank grass, sand, and pebbles. It seemed so weird and uncanny, the great, strong wall shutting in nothing; and the tall gates leading to nothing; and we afterwards learnt that this was the Chinese graveyard, which is always being destroyed by storms, and the wall had suffered in the bombardment. I don’t suppose the Chinese use it much, as they always get their bodies sent back to China if they can, in huge, gaily-painted coffins, for burial in their native soil.
I forget if I told you about the trouble we have been having with our cook—the voluble person I described to you when he was new and interesting. Now I know that type of Filipino so well! As time went on the cook’s easy flow of talk became less interesting, especially as it took the place of cooking, and I got tired of always telling him to do his best, for he was one of those half-clever people who always do things just not as well as they could do them. Whenever I reproved him, too, I found a stranger in the kitchen next day, who told me that he had been sent to take the place of my cook, who was ill “with his leg.”
Always his leg. Though no human ingenuity could find out what he was supposed to have the matter with his leg. I was inclined to think it was a “sulk leg,” but C—— observed darkly that he had heard before of fellows getting “drink legs.” On these occasions the cook’s wife was generally to be found—a pleasant-faced little woman, in a bright, clean dress, and wearing long, gold earrings—squatting on her heels, outside the hall-door, smoking a huge cigar. The moment I appeared she always repeated the information about the leg, with apologies, and vanished.
When the cook had recovered from his indisposition, he would take up his place in the kitchen, affable and fluent as ever, and no remarks would be made by anybody, for I put up with him as long as I could on account of his generally being sober—a rare and precious virtue. At last, however, when I was ill he surpassed himself in crime, sending in uneatable food to poor neglected C——, and giving me the same soup and rissoles every day, twice a day, for a fortnight, till I could not even bear the smell of them.
When C—— remonstrated, the cook instantly became impudent, and as impudence is where C—— draws the forbearing line with Filipinos, he gave the cook one good kick that sent him sprawling out on to the Azotea. C—— observed that if the cook summoned him for assault, he would half kill him next time, but our friend did not resort to Law. He gathered himself up and went off, and was no more seen again, though he sent the usual stop-gap to do his work next day. However, we had no intention of letting him farm our kitchen, so we asked the stop-gap, who was an excellent cook, if he would like to stay on permanently, and he said he would, and there he is “to this very day,” as they say in books.
The change has made a great difference in my housekeeping, both socially and materially. By socially I mean that I now have a quiet, silent, intelligent man to deal with instead of a chattering, cunning monkey; and by materially, that this man caters for us infinitely better for a peso, including firewood, than the other gem did for a peso and a half a day. He is willing to learn—real learning, not jabbering “mi sabe, mi sabe,” and then sending in the things all wrong—so I have got out my English cookery-book and explained many of our ways of preparing various foods, which he has grasped with intelligence and admirable results.
We are in great tribulation about ice, as a deadlock has occurred by which we are without any in this hot season—a most serious and horrible discomfort. From the beginning we, like everyone else, got our daily ten pounds of ice from the Government factory—the military supply—which came round every morning in the cart driven by the Stage Cowboy whom I think I described to you. When this cart pulled up and the handsome driver sang out “Hielo” (Ice!), servants flew out from all the houses and presented a ticket, each man secured his nice cold lump and rushed upstairs again to put it in the ice-chest.
But a month or more ago an American with a “pull” (political influence) got the municipal contract to supply this town with ice, to be worked in connection with the electric lighting of the streets, also placed in his control, on which the Government withdrew their supply so as not to interfere with private enterprise.
So far, so good. But the “’cute” financier had got an old electric plant, which works so badly that the arc-lights are extinguished and the streets are pitch dark at night. The ice has given out altogether. The financier, still being paid out of the rates, has gone off to Manila, and there is no redress anywhere, for he has a relative high up in office, is received everywhere, and—in fact he has a “pull.”
The Government won’t renew their supply of ice except to the Americans and the clubs. A few other people who have influence have managed to get a lump now and then, but for the greater part we struggle on, at 90° in the shade, with tepid water to drink, food decaying before the evening, and butter—even tinned train-oil butter—a thing of the past.
Such a state of affairs is not so astounding out here, however, as it may sound to you, for though you may have heard of the corruption of American political life, it does not strike one with such force when read in papers as when it comes home to you in daily life like this.
Even out here there seems to be no sense of that noblesse oblige, which alone can keep the ruling race upright before the eyes of the “little brown brother,” for one cannot take up a Manila paper without seeing the case of some Provincial Treasurer, or someone tried for official swindling.
Each town or district is controlled by a Presidente, a Filipino, something like a mayor, who, in his turn, is under the guidance of an American, called a Provincial Treasurer. Far from being an example of integrity, the Provincial Treasurer is very often anything but proof against the temptations that beset him financially. It is not hearsay; there are the actual police reports in the papers. And if those found out and brought to justice are so many, one can only speculate in amazement upon the numbers who escape, or are sheltered by influence or a “pull.”
It does seem such a pity that a great and noble nation should not be better represented in the eyes of another—and, when all is said and done—an inferior race.
Iloilo, March 31, 1905.
Many thanks for your letter of February 23rd. We were greatly interested in your description of the radium baths, though it seems difficult, out here, to imagine that there is anyone anywhere taking so much trouble to get hot! I must say, though, that I don’t feel this heat quite so much as one might imagine, at least, as far as actually feeling hot goes. For an evening or two ago I was quite surprised, when we were in Hoskyn’s stores, to notice that the thermometer was marking 92° Fahrenheit. Of course that was in the cool of the evening, but I had not noticed any particular heat during the day. I thought how much it would interest you to get some idea of the temperature we live in, so we bought a thermometer and have hung it up in the sala. In a way, I am sorry we have done this, as we did not know before how hot we really were, and did not mind the heat half so much.
A watering-cart has begun operations, and as I write, it is passing down the street. It is a most amusing contrivance, consisting of a carabao waggon with a cask laid longways on it, and a native sitting astride the carabao, guiding with a goad and one string. The water flows out of a bamboo pole at the back of the barrel, and a spray is produced by means of a circle of holes, through which the water squirts uncertainly. The only result, as far as the roads are concerned, is a long narrow puddle and a great waste of precious water, though I expect it is sea water they use. The whole contrivance is so amusingly extravagant, shiftless, inefficient—so characteristically Filipino!
À propos of the ways of the natives, a Spanish friend of C——’s, who was here the other day, told us a long and harrowing story, which was to him somewhat of a tragedy, though to me, I am afraid, it was only a source of amusement. This man tried the venture of keeping a small stable of quilezes for hire, which is a favourite speculation with young men who want to play with a little capital, either with the idea of trying to keep body and soul together in this expensive country, or else with the perennial hope of being able to get away from it. One of the Englishmen professes to have made a good thing out of it (quilez-hiring), but when we told our Spanish friend this hopeful news, he refused to be comforted, and hunched up his shoulders and spread out his hands, saying, “Horses are cheap enough, and fares are high, which is very well from our point of view; but you have the eternal Filipino to deal with.”
“What does he do in this case?” we asked.
“He does nothing,” said the Spaniard. “In this, as in every other employment, he does not think it necessary to learn, or to know anything at all.”
We said we had observed this trait, and that anyone seemed to be confident in signing on for any job, anyhow.
“They do,” he said, “and this is the sort of conversation I have with every man who represents himself as a driver. ‘Where were you cochero before?’ I ask.
“‘With señor L—— at B——.’
“‘How long ago was that?’
“‘Five years ago.’
“‘Where were you cochero after that?’
“‘Oh, I was not cochero. I was cook to señor S——.’
“‘And then?’
“‘Then as muchacho with señor C——, and then as cook——’
“‘And you are a cook, not a cochero!’
“‘Oh no. Mi trabajo (my job) is really a cochero, but I went as cook to señor L——, and as muchacho to señor C——, and as——’
“‘Yes, yes. I heard what you said.’
“Then, as this is as good a man as you may hope to get, you engage him, and it is a great piece of luck if you get half your fares, and the pony not killed.”
This story, and many others I have heard to the same effect, account, in some measure, for the marvellous and eccentric driving one sees going on—one can hardly call it “driving,” though, it is simply a rough and tumble with destiny, and there are more street accidents in Iloilo in any given number of hours than in the same time in the whole of London.
It is so Filipino to be content with make-shifts—the same thing, the same lazy Malay, and Spanish Mañana in their food, their music, their houses, their work—nothing thorough, nothing complete, no heart put into anything but cock-fighting and talk. I don’t suppose any influence could alter these racial faults, certainly not the hasty assimilation of mathematics, electric trams, and ice-cream sodas. They are stupid, too, these people, with the malicious cunning of all stupid people, and cruel—sickeningly cruel.
A night or two ago we went again to the cinématograph, but the evening was rather spoilt by an unpleasant “incident.” While C—— was getting the tickets, I sat on an empty bench by the wall, whereupon a common native boy came and sat down beside me.
I got up and walked away, for there were plenty of other benches empty, and I knew this was only an act of impudence. When C—— came back with the tickets and saw what had happened, he was simply furious, wanting to kick the fellow out of the place, and pretty well out of the world too! “You should have sat there,” he said, “and beckoned to me to kick the brute out.”
But I implored him to let the thing pass unnoticed. “For,” I said, “if you touch him you know he will summons you, and the case will go against you. Besides, according to the customs of the country, the man was not doing any harm, for he thought I was an American, and his equal.”
Whereupon C—— exploded; but luckily the door of the show was just opening, so I got him to hurry in to secure good seats, and the “incident” passed off. But when one thinks of the social status of the coloured person in America!—Words fail me!
We are having more drought now—the rain-water tanks empty, and the well-water brackish. We filter the latter, even to make tea with, which makes the tea more palatable; but for washing, it is like using sand-paper on the skin, and after soap has been used the water remains perfectly clear, with the soap in a woolly cloud at the bottom. I wish some millionaire philanthropist would take it into his benevolent head to help his country with this “Trust from Heaven,” as they call the development of the Philippines, and begin with building an aqueduct from the hills into its second largest town! However, the 40-acre law would stop any extensive enterprise of that or any other sort.[6]
Water is being brought over from Guimaras and sold in the streets at fabulous prices, only I am happy to say we have been lucky enough, so far, to secure a daily supply out of a friend’s well, sufficient to get along with if we are careful.
All this time I have not told you our great piece of news, which is that we have bought a horse and trap—or rather a pony and a calesa—a sort of small dog-cart, with big, spidery wheels, to seat two, which tips up unless a third person, generally the groom, is sitting on a small perch behind. This is a very light and comfortable trap, and the pony an exceptionally good one, both being the property of an American officer we know who is going to Manila and selling off his effects. It is a great stroke of luck to get hold of such a turn-out, and we are to enter into possession in ten days or so, or possibly longer. I shall be glad to drive, as it is not very pleasant for ladies to walk about the town, owing to the way the Filipinos have of shoving white people off the footpath, when there is one, and expectorating as close as they dare.
Iloilo, April 9, 1905.
Many thanks for the book about carpentry, which arrived quite safely by this mail, and is a treasury of delight to C——, who has got all sorts of ideas out of it. One of the first things he did was to swarm up the box-room door, getting through a flap in the matting ceiling and up into the roof, to see what hold there would be to fix up a punkah over the dinner-table. All the English people, and many of the Americans, have punkahs in the dining-room, but we have not troubled about one so far, as we are so lucky in our splendid draught through the hall, right across the dinner-table. Now, however, the Monsoon is changing, and with the wind this other side of the house, we want a punkah badly, for, you see, if you get out of a draught here you nearly suffocate.
A Philippine Pony.
C—— said it was like a huge hall up in the roof, and fearfully hot, which I could quite believe, as the thermometer in the dark, airy rooms below stood at 91°. Many of the houses have a sort of small top roof, like a little hat, with a wide gap, which acts as a ventilator, and lets off this heat out of the space above the ceilings; but, of course, the corrugated iron always makes a dreadfully hot roof, however it is treated. The only cool, healthy, and reasonable houses are the native ones of palm thatch, but they are so very inflammable and dangerous that no company will insure them. Though the way the native huts are lighted with naked, flaring lights or rickety lamps, and remain unburnt for two hours, is a marvel and a never ceasing source of interest to us when we go about after dark. In each grass-covered carabao-cart, too, there is a flaring torch by way of complying with the lighting regulations, and when one sees them jolting and swaying along, it is impossible to imagine why the regulations are not exceeded by the whole cart going along in a blaze.
We went a walk last night, down this street, through the Plaza Libertad, and down two more streets to the Muelle Loney, the quay along the estuary. As C—— had come back from the office late, we did not have tea till sunset, and by the time we went out it was nearly dark, and the moon had not risen. The Muelle was all deep shadows and spots of light, and the lamps in La Paz, the suburb the other side of the river, made long reflections of yellow light in the dark water, while the masts and sails of the ships at anchor stood out like Indian ink-drawings against the deep blue sky. All along the quay are offices of business houses, stevedores, customs, etc., and vast camarins (warehouses) with low, corrugated iron roofs, and open in front with iron bars like colossal menagerie cages. Inside the camarins could be seen shadowy piles of sacks of sugar, which is to be detected by a certain heavy, sweet, nauseous smell.
The quay itself is a very wide road, with a stone wall going into the river—the latter deep enough to allow steamers of a fair size, such as the Kai-Fong and the Butuan, to come up and lie at anchor opposite the wharves and camarins, as I told you when I went to Manila. There are a lot of curious, rusty old steamers huddled together at the side of the quay, with open decks and fixed iron awnings, which ply between here and Negros, and other neighbouring islands; little launches belonging to the offices; and the big steamers that go to Manila and Hong Kong, which all look quite commonplace by daylight, but seemed very mysterious in the darkness, with a light burning here and there, and always the tinkle of a guitar, and a voice singing softly in a minor key.
There was one big, dark bulk, larger than the others, which was a Hong Kong steamer, and we heard the funny, quacking jabber of the Chinese crew on the fo’c’sle. They can’t get ashore in the Philippines, as a guard is placed on the gangway, and the captain is liable to a fine of 2000 dollars if a Chinaman escapes ashore. Now and then one reads in the Manila papers about a Chinaman without a passport having been caught, sentenced to a few months of Bilibid prison, and returned to Hong Kong. As we passed the Chinese steamer, I could not help thinking how tantalising it must be for such keen, industrious men to be almost on the soil of this Eldorado of lazy natives and high wages. The few who do enter, as I told you, make fortunes very quickly, or what is a fortune to them, as well as the fortunes of those who employ them. It is most unfortunate that popular opinion in the far-away U.S.A. is so dead set against this source of prosperity and revenue.
At intervals along the Muelle, with its jumble of dark buildings on one side and jumble of dark ships on the other, in front of the offices and camarins, and at the corners of the little dark alleys that turn off into the town, were numbers of little stalls, each with a flaring naphtha light, round which natives were sitting about laughing and talking, and chewing betel-nut, and haggling for hours over the price of some little bunch of eggplant, or a tiny, insanitary fish. The wares were laid out on flat rush trays—bananas, maize, horrible-looking toffee, native fruits, and tumblers of pink tuba—a drink made of the sap of the palm tree coloured red. The stall-keeper was invariably a little brown native woman, with a huge cigar in her thick-lipped mouth—not such cigars as are sold at home, but a loose bundle of tobacco leaves about four times the size of the largest cigar you ever saw, and tied round with cotton or fibre. The way their mouths stick out beyond their noses when they are pulling at these big “weeds” makes their flat faces look very funny. I saw a native girl the other day, walking round the Plaza at Jaro, in a very tight sarong and freshly-starched camisa, puffing at a big black cigar all coming to pieces and tied up with white cotton, and her swaggering gait, and the way she looked to right and left for admiration, displaying a profile with absolutely no nose, was one of the most comical things I have ever had the luck to see.
There are always any amount of natives along the Muelle in the evening, for it is a favourite lounge, and they make such picturesque groups, loafing about the stalls or lying against the walls in deep thought or opium. Their voices are subdued, and they are all perfectly good-humoured, and another point about such a crowd here is that there is no smell from them, for the clothes of the poorest Filipino are spotlessly white and clean, and their bodies carefully washed. One or two costumes made up from empty sacks amused us very much, and they are really very effective, for the wearers imagine the names on them to be a pattern, and arrange the rows of letters quite carefully, generally across the back and chest. Beyond the offices and ships we came to immense mud-flats, which are partially covered at high tide, and look quite nice when they are a sheet of shallow water, but appear depressing, and smell nasty when they are bare. The tide was far out, and the rising moon showed up a lot of curious tracks and channels, with planks across them, and in the distance the backs of some of the houses in the town. Such a desolate place! The spot to which one would think sick animals would crawl when they feel they are going to die.
A lot of little native boys were rushing and screaming about in a remote corner, their short shirts fluttering behind them, playing some mysterious, meaningless game, revolving round certain heaps of manure and dead dogs. The little chaps seemed happy enough, but they looked so uncanny, like little black and white imps in the moonlight.
In time, I daresay, all this desolate waste will be reclaimed and built over, for someone told me that the Harbour Company are filling it up with dredgings. In Manila I saw a vast mud-flat being reclaimed in the same way by harbour-dredging, and the flattened, finished part had lines drawn on it, which I was told were the ground plans of streets and houses. It seems so strange to go on building the towns out on the mud-flats in a climate like this, when there are acres and acres of native huts standing on sound land a few feet above the sea-level. I asked a man who has lived here many years why this was done, and he told me that it was because of the great cost of transport, owing to the high rate of wages, which would take away all profit if one had one’s shops and camarins far from the water’s edge. I said I thought it must be very unhealthy on the mud.
“Absolutely fatal,” he said. “But then, you see, it is a toss-up between a chance of fever on the mud and a certainty of starvation in the town.”
I enjoy the walks about very much, or rather, I am more interested and amused than exhilarated; but all the same I am looking forward so to having our trap and going for drives, and even though there are only two roads, still we shall be able to get out of the town. I keep thinking that it is spring at home—or rather, I try not to think of it! How one longs to see a bunch of daffodils or a snow-drop; to hear a blackbird sing; to see beautiful oaks and elms coming into leaf instead of these eternal green palms, and to feel fresh and invigorating air instead of this everlasting swelter and sun!
We have a queer old neighbour here, an ancient Spaniard, who lives on the ground-floor of a house, in two rooms which are, so C—— tells me, hung with pictures of Isabella and the King; medals on velvet, framed and glazed; and certificates and memorials, for he was once some official in the Royal Household of Spain.
He is a courtly and dignified old person, though about 4 feet 6 in height, and as broad as he is long. He is very poor, and when he can sell some piece of land, he is going back to Spain to die.
This personage came to call on me a few evenings ago, on account of having on a black evening suit, as he had been to a funeral. We stumbled along in Spanish, and would have done better if my guest had not persisted in trying to remember French so as to convince me that he really had been in Paris. However, we got on very well, and I showed him some of papa’s sketches of Spain, which enchanted the poor old thing. Over the Alhambra he waxed quite sentimental, with his head on one side and one podgy hand raised to heaven. Of course the fact of my having been in his native land made me quite charming, and compliments bloomed like spring-flowers in the gardens of the Vega.
He had told C—— that he wished to come and pay his respects, as he had heard that the señora had good custumbres, which is a Spanish word for good breeding and good manners—not that I mean the two can be separated, but that the expression conveys those two, in a sort of way. This fact he repeated to me again, with much decorative compliment, and many assurances that I did not look the least like an Englishwoman—and oh, no! not a bit like a Frenchwoman—and still less like an Italian! Anyone would know at once that I must be a Spaniard—and from the southern land, where the women are elegant as flowers, and their eyes speak of love.
At last he backed himself out, still showering compliments, and offering to teach me “la lengua Castellana.” His Spanish was beautiful to listen to, so round and full and correct, and he implored me, with his hands clasped, not to learn the language of “los Indianos,” as I told you the Spaniards call the Filipinos.
All the Spaniards here long and yearn for Spain, and everything Spanish, which is only natural, I suppose. They hate the Archipelago, as they call it, but confess that the prospect of continuing to earn a living here ties them by the leg.
Another old Spanish friend of C——’s, a man in business, amused me very much one day, by giving me, as one of his reasons for disliking the Philippines, that he was in constant terror of “los Indianos” coming and “click”—he drew his finger across his throat.
“Really?” I said. “But you don’t, honestly, think that, do you?”
“Señora,” he said, “I know it will happen some day. There will be such an uprising as will wipe us all out. Mi corazon” (my heart) “beats perpetually with terror.”
I thought, however, that this life of secret anguish could not have done much harm to the old fellow’s system, for he looked remarkably flourishing after thirty years of life in the tropics, without any idea of panic at all.
As to this panic, I am surprised to find how prevalent is this notion of a general uprising, for though the Philippines are full of Insurrection, and many of them in a state of open warfare, still one can hardly believe that a reign of horror could sweep over these slow little towns. Not that the Filipinos are not capable of any atrocities when roused—and in the War many terrible and horrible things happened, which are not printed in newspapers or found in books.
Iloilo, April 14, 1905.
Yesterday, Sunday, we had the launch offered us, so we arranged a little trip in the cool of the evening.
We drove down to the Muelle Loney (too hot to walk at five o’clock), and when we had got on board the launch and seated ourselves in basket chairs in the bows, she steamed down the river and the estuary, and out into the channel. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and the air was delicious. As to the scenery—words fail me! The blue and green of the sea, and the mauve and rose lights reflected on Guimaras from the brilliant sunset behind us over the Panay Mountains, were like some wonderful picture wrought in amethysts and sapphires and exquisite enamels, while all along the shore line the groves of palm trees glowed in the strong light like a border of emeralds set in golden sand.
We crossed over, going close to the opposite shore, with the object of visiting an old steamer which lies over by the quarries from which they are getting the stone to build the harbour. This steamer used to be a French packet, and was bought cheap by some Spaniards for inter-island traffic, but the owners soon found she burnt her head off with coal, and did not pay for her keep, so now they are trying to sell her, and she has lain out there at anchor for a year or more; a fine old boat, with splendid saloons and cabins all rotting away.
We climbed up the rickety gangway and came up upon what looked like the ship of the Ancient Mariner or the Flying Dutchman, all still and silent, everything ready as if for use, but worn and rotten with the sun and weather. We went all over her, into the saloon with its long table of handsome, polished wood and ghostly chairs with high, carved backs; and into the cabins where the closed scuttles were dark with dirt, and there was a musty smell like bones, and our own reflections in the cracked green mirrors made us jump. C—— said he was sure there must be a forgotten skeleton of a pirate in one of the dingy bunks hidden by close-drawn curtains of faded green cloth, and really, the prospect of something of the sort seemed so inevitable that I did not dare look in one of them!
We came out on the deck again, which looked quite a cheerful place after those spectral saloons and cabins, and we saw the galley, with dead fireplaces, and wandered on the bridge, up a very unsafe companion. Old Tuyay had scrambled off the launch after us and followed everywhere, struggling and slipping up and down stairs and ladders, smelling about, and getting stuck somewhere every now and then, and having to be helped and hauled by the collar.
When we got back to the launch, there was still enough daylight to make a paseo along the coast a little way. We went so close to the land that we could see right into lovely little bays, where palm-thatch huts stood amongst the groves and the white sands, and tiny figures were walking about or wading in the shallows for fish. It all looked exactly as it must have appeared on some fine evening, when the first Spanish navigators or Captain Cook came sailing along in their big three-deckers, while the people ran away into the jungles and began sharpening their arrows at the sight of a white face.
We said to each other how much we should like to be Navigators, and go about in fine ships and land in undiscovered islands, and, if we escaped the arrows, fire a rifle or take a photograph, and be made kings for being so clever. Instead of doing that, however, we steamed back to Iloilo when darkness fell, and on landing, went to the Plaza Libertad, where a band was playing a two-step.
This band which performs twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, from about half-past five to eight, is a new and delightful institution. It is not due to any enterprise on the part of the authorities, military or civil, but is a purely native enterprise, consisting of a number of Filipinos who have collected themselves together under the title of La Banda de Musica Popular. They started the notion of playing in the Plaza twice a week if they could raise enough subscriptions, whereupon we all paid up at once, promising to make the same contribution every month in so good a cause. I think our share, personally, comes to about 2 pesos a month, and it is really well worth it, for now the band is an institution, and a very good one too. They have not got a very extensive programme—some marches, a few “coon” tunes, an overture or two, and some dance music—but they play with spirit, and with the marches they are particularly successful. It is very creditable, too, when one thinks that this is a brass band, for the only instruments the Filipinos are really proficient with are the mandoline and guitar.
It is a great pity that the American authorities left this very important affair to drift so that the natives themselves, in sheer desperation, started a band depending upon public charity. I am not exaggerating in calling it important, for the Filipinos, like all other Orientals, can understand and be ruled by tangible and visible signs of the ways of a ruling people; but the empty bandstands in the towns, and the dull, colourless lack of ceremonies or ceremonial of the American régime have had an extremely bad effect, though the Filipinos are laughed at for wanting the gay, courteous Spaniards back again. Not only is this fact patent, but I have heard the people say so, and they are accused of being unreasonable about wanting the Spaniards back again after having got rid of them; but really, quite apart from their not having courted foreign rule at all, and loathing the usurpation of the Americans, the Filipinos have something to complain of in the lack of all that pomp which an Oriental loves and understands. The American Ideal is noble, grand—but it cannot be compressed into an Oriental brain. I can’t make myself better understood than by asking you to picture what India would be if the durbars were stage-managed by Americans!
We delight in the band evenings, when we sit and watch the groups of natives walking about under the pretty trees; the fat mothers with coveys of slim, dark-haired daughters in fresh muslin frocks; the young Filipino “mashers” in white suits with straw hats worn daringly on one side, and long, thin, tight boots, trying to hide their shyness by a lot of swagger with a walking-stick; and all the little comedies and flirtations that go on. I have hardly ever seen any white people there except ourselves; a newly-married American couple who sit in the dark shadows very close together, and some American soldiers in khaki and turned-up sombreros. The programmes always end with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” on which we stand up and C—— takes his hat off, but the American soldiers unfortunately seldom trouble to salute their Anthem—and as to the Filipinos, they remain truculently seated with their hats on. It makes one feel rather foolish to be the only ones to take any notice, but C—— insists.
We have now entered into possession of our trap and pony, and have had some blissful drives along the eternal roads to Jaro and Molo, out in the sunset and back in the starlight or moonlight, skimming along on rubber tyres. Tracks that we used to tear down when anyone lent us a carriage are now rigorously tabooed! Everyone here drives top-speed, and the Filipinos all crawl about the roads, and never dream of getting out of the way unless one shouts out a native word—“Tabé!”—when they just move enough to avoid instant death like a clever matador in a bull-fight. The curious thing is we have more trouble with the natives who are walking towards us instead of those going the same way. That may sound strange to you, and even incredible, but if you knew the Philippines and the Filipinos you would understand that it could not be otherwise. This element is very exciting, and makes an ordinary evening-drive to Molo rather better than a trip on a fire-engine in Piccadilly.
I quite forgot to tell you that some time ago an unknown man was announced and walked into the sala, in the evening, just before C—— came home. This person was an American, of about thirty, with rather a good-looking face and the usual thick, long hair parted in the middle. He bowed and said:
“Mis’ Darncey, I guess?”
I said Mrs Dauncey was my name.
“Is your husband to home?”
I said he was not, and began to get alarmed, for I thought the man had come to tell me of some accident to C——; but he soon reassured me by telling me he guessed I could tell him what he wanted to know, which was whether we had a spare room, as he was looking for a family for himself and his wife to board with.
I nearly fell down flat with amazement, but I managed, I hope, not to show my surprise, for I remembered that the Americans live out here in “messes,” often several families together, and I reflected that this touting must be some curious custom of which I had not heard. So I said, quite politely, that I was very sorry, but I was afraid this house was only large enough for ourselves.
“Oh,” he said, with a great deal of bowing, but no intention of going away, “I heard this was a big house and reckoned you didn’t fill it.”
“We have a room empty,” I said, “in fact we have two, but I am afraid my husband would never hear of such a thing as anyone we did not know, or any friend, either, coming to live with us.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “My wife is in a quilez downstairs, and I can fetch her up to see you and look at the rooms.”
At this fresh and astounding announcement, I gasped. But I kept my temper, and replied that I thought he need not disturb his wife, for we had really no intention of taking anyone to live in our house; but the man would not be convinced, and argued the point, saying that he had been to six other people, and he was “fair tired of going around.”
I was wondering how to get rid of him, for he was so remarkably oily and polite, and kept on saying ma’am every two words. But just then C—— came home, and when the visitor introduced himself, with explanations of his mission, C—— flushed up, and I began to be afraid he would kick the man out. But luckily the American was quick enough to see there was no mistaking the few words C—— said, nor the manner in which he said them in, and he bowed himself out in a about two seconds.
A strange story? But stranger still is the fact that this was not a common man—I mean his position was not what we call common—as C—— has found out that he is an official high up in the Customs service, and lately married to a schoolma’am. And stranger still is the fact that the Americans to whom I have told this story can see nothing odd in it at all.
I can’t suppose that such peculiar customs really prevail in the United States, and that if C—— were to call on the President’s wife, as they are all equals, and leave me in a cab below while he asked her if she took in boarders, that he would not get into trouble. Fancy if this man made a big fortune out here, and we called on him in his mansion in New York and insisted on taking rooms in it—the idea is preposterous—but why?
After this person had departed, we soothed our excited nerves by sitting on the balcony and watching one of the eternally beautiful sunsets. I will describe it to you, for it is very much the same every evening, with varying shades of intensity. The sky behind the palms in the distance was deep orange, fading into rose, and overhead into apple-green blue. We went through the house and out on to the Azotea, and all the sky on that side was like a radiant, pale amethyst, with a big bright moon rising—a great silver shield—through the lilac and rosy mist; the water a deep sapphire blue; and Guimaras a brilliant green outline dividing the sea and sky. The tide was in, and the water came up to the wall at the end of the garden, where a sheep was nibbling grass at the end of its tether, perfectly indifferent to a fool of a puppy, which ran backwards and forwards barking at its heels. In the empty stables on each side of our own is a regular camp of poor people, who were lounging by the well, watching one or two naked brown babies playing on the ground. They all looked so peaceful and happy and so picturesque in the sunset and moonlight, that we agreed with each other that perhaps life in the Philippines might be quite pleasant if one only lived the right way and had a brown skin covered by a minimum of clothes.
They are a singularly happy people, these Filipinos, when they are unspoilt by the advantages of civilisation. One never sees or hears people quarrelling, and they are so kind to their children—always laughing and chattering and showing their fine white teeth, so that to watch a group of poor people is always a pleasure. We have been amused for a long time by the spectacle of a house that is being built in the suburbs, a stately go-as-you-please undertaking that is being gone through in an amusingly characteristic manner. They begin a house by constructing the roof, all lashed with bejuco, and very neatly put together, which sits on the ground an indefinite time. Then the arigis—the posts of bamboo or hard wood—are put in position, and a floor is made about 15 or 20 feet from the earth. Our friends on the Molo road got so far, and then started to live in the bit that was finished, camping in a sort of tent on the split-cane floor, with the roof lying alongside on the ground. I daresay they were “out” of nipa thatch, and did not dare to trust the building out of their sight, for the town-dwelling Filipinos are shocking thieves and burglars. Whatever their reason was, there they lived for quite a long time, till at last we were quite relieved to see them begin to put thatch on the framework. Then, one day when we passed we saw that the roof had also been thatched and hoisted into place, though how this latter feat was brought about I don’t know, as we unfortunately missed that part of the operations; but I have been told that, when the roof has been thatched, it is raised and put in position by sheer human force and much advice and swearing.
Iloilo, April 27, 1905.
Nothing from you by the mail to-day. The forwarding from Manila seems to be so unsatisfactory that we think you had better begin sending letters straight to this place. The address for the future, therefore, will be to us to—P.O. Box 140, Iloilo. You have to put this, as there is no delivery of letters—a most strange and tiresome system. In the outside wall of the post-office is a recess with a number of pigeon holes, some glazed, some shut with a flap, each with its own lock and key, of which the owner keeps a duplicate. On the wall outside is a blackboard where the arrivals and departures of mails are chalked up, and when you see a mail has come in, you go off and do a sort of “bran-pie” dip in your pigeon hole to see what you get out.
To-day we have had a very heavy thunderstorm, which has filled the tanks and cooled the air, the thermometer having gone down from 90° to 82°. The rain came on just as I was dressing after my siesta, so I hurried on a dressing-gown and went out on to the Azotea to see about the pipe, as it was no good blowing my whistle for a servant in the noise of the storm and the terrific din of the rain upon the iron roofs.
I found Sotero having a glorious time with a petroleum can, which people use here for all water-carrying, like we used to see them do in Palestine. This can was fixed to a line, and the muchacho was risking his neck to let it down so as to intercept the overflow of a roof gutter belonging to the people below, and filling every tin, jug, and bath the house possessed, all spread out on the Azotea; giving the concrete floor of the Azotea itself a liberal wash-down at the same time. He was hopping about the balcony, face beaming and clothes dripping wet, and I laughed as I thought of the conventional idea of an English butler! He is a very good butler, all the same, or has learnt to be one, for when he came to us he did not know how to lay a table; while now, if we give a dinner, he insists on arranging everything himself, and does it perfectly, even to folding the serviettes in fancy shapes, which he has got some other servant to teach him.
All round I hear stories of the miseries and terrors people go through with their Filipino servants, and “the inevitable muchacho” is a standing joke in the American papers. But our retainers just jog along in perfect peace, always in the house, always clean and tidy; and as to their work, not only not shirking it, but improving every day, and always ready and willing to give any help in the stables, or anything they can think of. I agree with my friends that we have been very lucky in finding such excellent “boys,” but I must take a little credit to myself too, for having treated them with the utmost consideration and politeness, showing them things patiently over and over again, and never once speaking sharply or angrily. I am sure they appreciate such treatment instead of the way in which I see people scolding and cursing their muchachos, and that our having such good and trustworthy servants is not entirely due to random luck in choosing them.
Now the rain has come. We shall have mosquitoes again—they had almost disappeared in this long drought, but an hour or two after a shower the place is humming with them again.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday, on account of which a procession was going about of all sorts of people carrying palm branches, headed by a banda de musica playing “Hiawatha,” and in the midst a large cart covered with coloured paper, bearing an image of some sort; all very tawdry and crude, and not in the least picturesque.
In the evening, when we drove into Jaro, we saw some Negritos from the mountains inland—the aborigines who sometimes come down into the towns on such occasions of Fiesta to do a little trading, and beg and pick up what they can. These people are very small, much smaller even than the Filipinos, who are so little; and they have quite black skins, irregular faces of real nigger type, with big heads of fuzzy black hair, like Bescharins. They were all very dirty and ragged, and looked very skinny and miserable beside the plump Malay town’s-people, and those we saw were begging from door to door, and from everyone they met, poor souls.
Sometimes in the Filipino race a child is born with curly locks instead of the usual black, straight, Chinese-looking hair, and this curliness is considered a great beauty, and tremendously admired; which is very strange, as, of course, such a trait is only a reversion to some strain of the despised Negrito; but the Filipinos are far too stupid to know that. In fact, if the hair is so curly as to be positively woolly, they are more pleased than ever.
On Fiesta days, too, certain beggars appear, sitting by the roads displaying horrible deformities, and praying away at an amazing rate, sometimes with a child to run out and beg for them. It is a simple, unsophisticated idea, that of having your begging done for you, but I don’t know that the custom is confined to Filipinos.
A day or two ago an American described to me an incident of Filipino life, which I thought very characteristic of this people. She told me that after she first came here, she was sitting in the house one day, when she heard a band coming along the street playing a rattling two-step march, so she rushed to the window and pushed the shutter aside to see the fun, which turned out to be a funeral, with a pale blue coffin, decorated with garlands in carved wood painted pink.
I asked her if she thought the people imagined the occasion to be a festive one; but she said no, that they simply did not know one sort of tune from another, she thought, for they were walking along in the most approved mourning style, and as to the coffin, it was only the Filipino idea of taste. It is curious to think what a very thin veneer of our civilisation these people have acquired, and how they would shed it all as easily as my little lizard has cast off his old coat; and would probably, as he does, feel infinitely lighter and jollier in the primitive covering underneath.
Iloilo, April 24, 1905.
This is Easter Monday, and since Thursday the town has been crammed full of people—natives—and alive with processions. We got a double allowance of the latter, as the Aglipayanos turned out in full force—fuller force, in fact, than the Orthodox, and their marching and counter-marching was most interesting, even if a little confusing.
We are having holidays, of course, but a holiday here is never very complete, as the different religions go their own way, and now, for instance, the Chinese shops are all open; but the Spanish and Mestizo establishments are shut, while the Englishmen have all gone away, except a few juniors left in charge. One party has gone shooting, and they were very anxious for C—— to accompany them, but he did not like to leave me alone here, and refused. There is plenty of good shooting—wild duck, snipe, etc.—but some way inland, and the difficulty is to get there, when you are a busy man, with only forty-eight hours to spare at rare intervals.
À propos of shooting, C—— has only now got his gun back from the Customs! It was detained by endless dilatoriness and delays, and the finding of the sureties, which I described to you. There was more trouble and fuss and worry about that gun and my little revolver than you, who have not been in this country, would believe. Such a lot of signing of papers, taking of oaths, and so forth! all of which precautions seem remarkable and rather superfluous in a “perfectly peaceful and contented country.”
Well, C—— tried to console himself for not going shooting by playing lawn-tennis at the Bank, where a very good court has been marked out in a field at the back of the house, by the estuary. That gives you a little hint of the climate, does it not? A grass lawn-tennis court in the hot season?
We walked to the Bank and back, as the pony had gone to be shod, and on our way home we were stopped in the Plaza by crowds of people evidently waiting for a procession to pass. We got across the road as best we could, and up into the garden in the middle of the Plaza, where we managed to get a foothold amongst a line of people—all natives of the poorer classes—standing on the low wall. Just as we got there the procession began to come past—a long double file of women in black skirts and black or white camisas; the men in mourning, which is an ordinary swallow-tail evening suit. This was Good Friday, and the Emblems of the Passion were borne aloft, draped in black, while the Madonna, carried shoulder-high on a big platform, had on a stiff, black robe; and the whole company was moving slowly along to a guitar and mandoline banda de musica, with big crape bows on their instruments, playing slow tunes in minor keys.
What do you think this procession was?—Christ’s Funeral! The whole parade was a real funeral procession, and the last thing of all, preceded by acolytes in black, swinging censers with large crape bows on them, and followed by priests in black vestments saying (not chanting) prayers, was a huge black and gold catafalque—the coffin made with glass panels—through which could be seen a wax figure of the dead Christ lying swathed in an embroidered white satin winding-sheet, with a last touch of realism in His head, bound with a blood-stained handkerchief where the Crown of Thorns had rested.
We waited long on the wall of the Alameda while this weird and gruesome procession trailed past, dwindling away down a long, straight street to the right, with its files of bowed figures and its great, black, swaying catafalque.
When we turned to come away, C—— drew my attention to the curious fact that the Cathedral door was shut—a most extraordinary spectacle—which struck me as peculiar at once. At first we could not understand the reason, and thought it must be part of the solemnity. “Perhaps,” I said, “they go so far as to take the procession to a cemetery.”
“I know!” said C——. “They’ve shut the doors because these fellows are the Aglipayanos!”
Then it also occurred to us that of course this procession had had the native music, whereas the Orthodox go about to the strains of a brass Constabulary band to show that they are all right with the Government. I must tell you, too, that on these, and all occasions, fights are so frequent between these sects of the followers of Christ that the processions go about with a strong escort of police.
As the tail end of the procession passed, we looked up our street from our vantage point on the wall, and C—— said: “What a pity we are not on our own balcony, as they have made a round, and are coming past the house.”
But I thought they could not have had time to do that, slow as they had been, and was sure that what we saw must be the head of the procession passing the other side of the square. It was quite dark by now, and all the mourners carried lighted tapers. The crowd in the square and the procession all seemed hopelessly mixed, but when we at last made our way to the end of our own street, we found that we were both right about the Funeral, for there were two of them—the tail of the Aglipayanos was passing the end of our street, while away up, beyond our house, the road was blocked by the Romanists waiting to let the others go past.
We tried to get up our street, but the R.C. procession had started to come down it, so we took refuge on a flight of stairs through an open doorway. We had a very good view of this Funeral too.
It was just the same style of thing, only with more Spaniards and Eurasians amongst the mourners; and, following the bier of the Christ, a dozen or so of converted Chinamen with their pigtails lopped off. In this procession, too, the priests were white men, but on the other hand, the Aglipayano padres are all Filipinos, only we had not been near enough to the first procession to see their faces, which would have shown us at once which sort they were.
The Papists had their drums and trumpets tied with huge black bows, and their catafalque was a still more gloomy erection, set round with large oil lamps in frosted globes, and topped by great bunches of nodding black plumes, like the old prints of the funeral of Wellington.
About midnight we were awakened by the sound of a slow, muffled band and feet shuffling along the road, so we went out on to the balcony, and saw the R.C. procession go trailing past, very solemn and uncanny in the moonlight, with their yellow taper-flames looking like little bits of gold paper in the strong white light. This time they had not the great catafalque with them, which, we imagined, must signify that the Christ was at rest in the tomb.
Next morning, Saturday, things were very quiet, and the town much as usual, except for the crowds of people everywhere, all crawling up and down the streets in very clean clothes, with innumerable tiny children.
Easter Sunday was very gay, beginning with deafening bells well in the dark hours of the morning, when even the cocks had hardly begun to tune up for the day. The great excitement was a children’s carnival (at the end of Lent!), got up by the Spanish Club; which event resolved itself into the inevitable procession through the streets, for these people are as inveterate procession-walkers as the Swiss; and whatever comes off, they turn out and walk about the streets, quite conceited and perfectly happy, taking the whole mummery with invulnerable seriousness.
These children were really a very pretty sight, though, and the little things seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. At about four o’clock they began to assemble, forming up and marching round the Plaza, and then up the Calle Real to the Gobierno (the Government buildings), round the grass plot in front of that building, back and down the street parallel to this, and finally along here, when we saw them from our balcony.
One of the prettiest cars was got up as the Sea, with clouds of pale green and blue tulle, the back of the car a great fan-shaped shell, in which sat a very pretty little Mestiza girl dressed as a mermaid, with a long pasteboard tail, and driving two swans. Another was “the world”—a huge globe with the four continents sitting one at each corner; another was a monster basket full of a miscellaneous collection of ballet-fairies, toreadors, Faust and Mephistopheles, gipsies, and so forth, all very solemn and perfectly happy. One tiny person of two years old was dressed as a cupid in pink muslin and roses—such a darling—and one little girl was a funny wee clown, as broad as she was long.
After they had all gone past, we went to the Spanish Club to see the prize-giving, which was very amusing. “Iloilo at a glance” was squeezing and surging about in the big room upstairs, and I thought the floor must cave in; but Mr M——, who is a member of that club, told me it was all right, as they always put props under the floor for a funcion, a characteristically Spanish and haphazard idea.
There was a band playing somewhere, and in an alcove a big tea-table spread out, while the whole of one wall was lined with long tables displaying the prizes—really lovely toys.
We walked about, talking to the children, all very keen to show off and explain their costumes, and the mermaid immensely proud of the little wheel on which her tail moved along the floor. One miniature couple in evening dress, looking like grown-up people seen through the wrong end of a telescope, were well worth watching and following about, for neither of them would have sacrificed his or her dignity to a smile for anything in the world.
The prize-giving went by vote, but the poor mites who had not got prizes were consoled by toys doled out in a novel and pretty fashion at the end of the show. I fancy I have seen it somewhere in a cotillon, but can’t be sure. From the ceiling hung two huge Japanese umbrellas, with coloured ribbons dangling from each spoke, and when they were lowered at the end, the children filed past underneath, each taking off a ribbon and tearing away to see what present it was good for. We saw the little man, of the couple in evening dress, going about showing off his prize—the first prize, I think it was—which was a beautiful doll. Then, to our astonishment, we found that the couple were a pair of little sisters, Filipinas, of course, for there were, none but Filipino, Spanish, and Mestizo children taking part in the fête, though all the American Colony, as they call themselves, were in the room. I think there are very few American children here, and those that there are look miserably white, and thinner even than the Spanish or Mestizo youngsters.
We left about seven, before the rush, as we had the trap waiting outside, and the last thing we saw was the mermaid showing somebody her tail and the poor clown crying sleepily on her mother’s shoulder.
In the evening there was a baile, which we summoned up energy to turn out for, but it was hardly worth the effort, as the floor had been spoilt by boots in the afternoon, while the band, half asleep, poor creatures, played intolerably slow and mournful music, to which the dancers crawled languidly about, for it was a very hot night, without a breath of air anywhere.