A Woman's Journey through the Philippines Part 2

Meanwhile there was much work accomplished in the town, a fine telegraph office being established on the princ.i.p.al street; and a trench completed by the sh.o.r.e end party; while much overhauling of the cable in the tanks, and daily drills given to the Signal Corps soldiers in cable telegraphy and the care of the instruments kept those aboard ship busy. Tic--tack, clic--clack, went the little telegraph instrument at one end of the quarter-deck, and clic--clack, tic--tack answered an instrument at the other end, hour after hour through the long, warm mornings, and the longer, warmer afternoons.

On New Year's eve, several officers from the fort saw the century in with those of us remaining on the _Burnside_, but the time pa.s.sed so pleasantly that no one remembered the auspicious occasion until the sound of sharp firing from the sh.o.r.e broke in upon our conversation. The jangling of church bells followed, and one of the sh.o.r.e officers, usually a very cool and self-contained young fellow, sprang to his feet, exclaiming as he buckled on his revolver, "Great heavens! An attack on the town and I not there. May I have a ship's boat at once?" But even as he spoke the _Burnside's_ whistle blew a great blast, and several shots from the ship answered those on sh.o.r.e, every man with a revolver, shotgun, or rifle adding his quota of noise to the general hubbub.

And so it was the new century came to Mindanao, some thirteen hours ahead of its advent in New York or Washington. Before eight bells had ceased striking a search-light greeting was sent to our friends at Lintogup, but they, being tired after a hard day's work, slept supinely on, unaware of our good wishes or the fact that a fine young century had been born to the old, old world.

I am sorry to relate that the next day a court-martial was held in Misamis to try the irrepressible guard who, in a burst of enthusiasm due to their first taste of twentieth century air, had fired off their rifles. The soldiers were sentenced rather heavily, rifle-shots in a Philippine town at that time being productive of dire results. Indeed, the shrill warning of the church bells and scattered shots in a Mindanao village meant one thing only, an uprising in the town or an attack from the outside, the incoming of a new century being of far less importance than the preservation of order and quiet in the garrison, and no cognizance could be taken of a new year which must be ushered in with a clang of firearms or the jangle of church bells--shrill heralds of disaster.

On New Year's morning the presidente and secretario of Misamis, accompanied by their respective families and a young Moro slave, the property of the secretario, came aboard the _Burnside_ to return our call. It was the first time any of them had ever seen a modern steamship, and loud and voluble were their exclamations of wonder at what we have come to regard as the every-day conveniences of civilization. After seeing the electric light, electric fans, and the shower baths turned on and off several times, the presidente craved permission to essay these miracles himself, and, to his own great surprise, accomplished supernatural results. The old wife watched him tremblingly. Surely, these were works of the Evil One, and, as such, to be left to heretics. But still the man persisted in his madness, and with a turn of his wrist brought light out of darkness or water and wind from the very walls.

Finally he turned around, and with a humourous twinkle in his eye, that belied the gravity of the rest of his face, he said: "The _Americanos_ are a great people--a wonderful people--and how unlike the Filipinos! When a Filipino wants sunshine or rain or wind, he must wait until the good Lord gives it to him. When an _Americano_ wants sunshine or rain or wind, he turns it on!"

The whole party was intensely interested in the big telescope which drew Misamis within a stone's throw of the ship, and they could not in the least understand how we cooked in the steam galley without any fuel, while the ice-machine and cold storage rooms were quite beyond their comprehension, none of them ever having seen ice before. Of course, on seeing the strange substance, it must be tasted as well, so iced drinks were served on the quarter-deck, these being received with much preliminary trepidation and ultimate gustatory gratification. As for the small Moro slave, I only hope he did not die from his excessive libations, for he drank unnumbered gla.s.ses of lemonade, making most violent faces the while, and rubbing his small round stomach continually, as if the unaccustomed cold had penetrated to his very vitals.

On going ash.o.r.e, each of the three children carried back a box of American candy, the order of our guests' departure being somewhat delayed by Senora Presidente's intense fear of going down the gangway. As I have said before, she was a fat old lady, and the way was steep; but finally, after much persuasion, she slipped her bare feet out of their velvet _chinelas_, gathered her voluminous skirts close about her, and, seating herself upon the top step of the ladder, _slid_ down! Surely a simple solution of the difficulty.

That evening a ball was given in our honour at the Headquarters Building, which for the time being was transformed into a most attractive place with palms and flags and coloured lanterns, while just outside the broad windows a wonderful tropic sky, hung with silver stars, added its enchantment to the scene. No carriage being available in the town, we walked from the dingy little wharf to the Headquarters Building, arrayed in our very best, and followed by a guard of armed soldiers, our escorts themselves wearing revolvers.

At every corner a dark form would shoot out suddenly from the shadows and there would be the swift click of a rifle as it came to position, while a voice cried, "Halt! Who's there?" "A friend," some one would reply, or "Officer of the garrison," as the case might be. Then again would come the sentinel's voice telling the person challenged to advance and be recognized, at which one of the number would march forward, and, on being identified, the rest of us were allowed to pa.s.s the sentinel, who, meanwhile, kept his rifle at a port, his keen eye watching closely, that no enemy slip by under our protection.

It was a rarely beautiful night even for the tropics, that first of January, and as we women wore no wraps of any description, the contrast between our satins and chiffons and the rough khaki clothes of the soldiers was a strange one; and still stranger was the fact of our going under guard to a ball, a ball that at any moment might be interrupted by the bugles blowing a call to arms, whereupon our partners would have to desert us, perhaps to quell an uprising in the town, perhaps to defend it against an attack from the outside.

But fortunately the occasion was not marred by any such sinister happening, and doubtless still lives in the annals of Misamis as a very grand affair, for everyone of consequence in town was invited to the _baille_, and everyone invited came, not to mention those not invited who came also. When we arrived the rooms were quite crowded and the dancing had begun. Far down the street we heard the music and the sound of the women's heelless slippers shuffling over the polished floor to a breathlessly fast waltz. If possible the people of Misamis dance faster and hop higher than the people of Dumaguete, and how the women manage to keep on their _chinelas_ during these wild gyrations is quite beyond me.

As the secretario of the town played a harp in the orchestra--surely an evidence of versatility--we ventured to ask if he would play a two-step very, very slowly, and hummed it in ordinary time. At its beginning the Filipinos who had started to dance, stopped aghast. "Faster, faster!" they cried in Spanish. "No one could dance to such slow music. This is a ball, men, not a funeral!" But the secretario held the orchestra back, and in a few moments the Americans had the floor to themselves, the Filipinos stopping partly because they found it impossible to dance to such slow music and partly because they wanted to watch us.

They were all astonished at the apparent lack of motion in American dancing and the fact that we got over the ground without hopping. Many of them asked officers stationed in the town if the women wore a special kind of shoe to b.a.l.l.s, as they appeared to be standing still and yet moving at the same time, while one old man was heard explaining to his cronies that we wore little wheels attached to the soles of our slippers--he had seen them--so that we did not have to move at all, the men doing all the dancing and merely pushing us back and forth on the floor. So much for the glide step as contrasted with the hop, though it must be confessed that the natives were quite frank in liking their own dancing better than ours, one of the reasons being that it gave them so much more exercise.

During the evening the natives gave a Visayan dance, called in the native tongue "A Courtship." As the name implies, a young man and woman dance it _vis-a-vis_, the man courting the woman rhythmically and to music, she at first resisting, flashing her dark eyes scornfully as she trips by him, holding her fan to her face until he looks the other way, then peeping over its top at him, only to turn her back in disdain when, emboldened by her interest, he approaches. Finally his attentions become more p.r.o.nounced, at which the girl grows coy, dropping her eyes shyly as they dance past one another, and covering her face again and again from his too ardent gaze; now bending her supple waist from side to side in time with the pa.s.sionate music; now closing her eyes languorously; now opening them wide and smiling at him tenderly over the top of her fan, a graceful accomplice to her pretty coquetry. At last she surrenders to the wooing, the happy pair dancing away together while the music plays faster and faster until at last it stops with a great crash, that, we trust, not being symbolical of infelicity in wedlock. The dance was very well done, and the native audience enjoyed it thoroughly, calling out chaffingly in Visayan to the couple on the floor, and occasionally beating time to the music with hand or foot.

It was at this ball we met for the first time a family of American _mestizas_--three sisters there were, if I remember rightly,--all pretty girls, with regular features and soft brown hair, this hair distinguishing them at once from the other women of the place with their more conventional blue-black tresses. It seems that the grandfather of these girls had been an American sailor, who for some reason or other was marooned at Cagayan, Mindanao. Making the most, or as a pessimist might think, the worst of a disadvantageous situation, he married a native girl and raised a large and presumably interesting family, his descendants being scattered all over the island. The Misamis branch were extremely aristocratic, and so proud of their blue blood that since the arrival of the American troops they have a.s.sociated with no one else in the village. It is said that the girls even refer to the United States as "home," and occasionally wear European clothes in preference to the far more becoming and picturesque costume of _saya_, _camisa_, and _panuela_.

While in Misamis I verily believe that family was pointed out to us twenty times at least, and whenever a man lowered his voice and started in with, "You see those girls over there? Well, their grandfather was an American--" I steeled myself for what was to follow, and expressed surprise and interest as politely as possible, for it is hard to attain conventional incredulity over a twice-told tale. After the genealogy of the family had been gone over, root and branch, we would invariably be told the story of how the grandfather, grown rich and prosperous in his island home, once went to Manila on a business trip. He had then lived in Mindanao over thirty years, during which time he had spoken nothing but Visayan, varied occasionally with bad Spanish.

His negotiations at the capital taking him to an English firm, he started to address them in his long unused mother tongue, when to his extreme mortification he found he could not speak a word of English. Again and again he tried, the harsh gutturals choking in his throat, until at last, flushed and angry, he was forced to transact his business in Spanish, all of which amused the Britishers to the chaffing point. Leaving the office, the American flung himself into the street, muttering savagely under his breath, a torrent of old memories surging through his brain, those harsh English words in his throat clamouring for utterance. On and on he went, until at a far corner he suddenly pulled himself up sharply, turned on his heel, and with all speed walked back to the English firm, a shrewd smile playing about his hard old mouth. Throwing open the door of the office, he walked abruptly in, saying as he did so, in an unmistakable Yankee drawl, "Blankety blank blank it! I knew I could speak English. All I needed was a few good cuss words to start me off!"

On the afternoon of January 3d, a party of Monteses visited the _Burnside_. Gaily turbaned and skirted were these Moro men, their jackets fitting so tightly that some one suggested they must have grown on them, that they were "quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees or the plumage of birds." One's olfactory nerves also bore evidence that frequent ablutions or change of garments were not customary among our guests, and the fact that when shown over the ship they evinced but little interest in the bath spoke volumes.

Strange to say, what the Moros most admired were the bra.s.s railings around the walls of the saloon, and the bra.s.s rods down the different stairways, in fact all the bra.s.s fittings on the ship, a thing that puzzled us not a little until the interpreter explained that the Moros thought the bra.s.s was solid gold, and were naturally much impressed thereat. Firearms they also enthused over, and looked with envious eyes at the shotguns, rifles, and revolvers exhibited, evincing great delight at the six and the one pounder guns on the quarter-deck. With the greatest equanimity they accepted several little presents made them, nor deigned thanks of any sort for benefits received, stuffing the different articles into their wide girdles with a stolid indifference which was enlivened by a smile once only. This was at a case of needles given to the leading Datto or chief, which, through the interpreter, we told him were for the wives of his bosom; whereupon they all smiled broadly, the interpreter explaining it was because we had sent the needles to women, as among Mindanao Moros men do all the sewing.

Being Mohammedans, they were very careful not to eat anything while on board ship for fear of unconsciously transgressing the Holy Law, even refusing chocolate candy because it might contain pork. They were shown ice, but took little interest in it, nor did they seem surprised at the cold storage rooms or the electric lighting. It is possible they thought Americans had attained the one really great thing in having white skins, after which all else followed as a matter of course.

The next day we went to call on the presidente and his wife. They lived in a bare, forlorn old house, with nothing attractive about it save the floor of the _sala_, which was of beautiful hard wood polished with banana leaves until it would have served for a mirror. Everything was scrupulously clean, but bespoke poverty, from the inadequate furniture of the _sala_ to the patches and darns on the old wife's stiffly starched skirt of _abaca_. This poverty was all the result of the war, we were told, as much of their out of town property had been confiscated or ruthlessly destroyed by the insurgents because of the presidente's unswerving loyalty to the American government.

Both the presidente and his senora were delighted to see us, and while he discoursed on politics and what the coming of the cable meant to the people of Mindanao, the good housewife bustled about and brought forth the greatest delicacies her larder afforded, laying them out with proud humility on the marble topped table of the _sala_. There were peaches and pears, canned in j.a.pan, and served right from the tin; there were little pink frosted cakes made in times prehistoric, to judge from their mustiness, and carefully packed away in gla.s.s jars for just such great occasions; there was good guava jelly and a Muscatelle that breathed of sunny vineyards in Spain--indubitable evidence of better days.

The house was so bare and shabby that this gastronomic outlay seemed an unwarrantable expense, yet what could one do but accept their hospitality in the same generous spirit in which it was offered? So at ten o'clock of a steaming hot morning we cheerfully stuffed ourselves on badly preserved fruits, elderly small cakes with enamelled complexions, and tiny sips of liquid fragrance, our reward of merit being the little senora's beaming face.

Indeed, she even stopped apologizing after a bit, and while the presidente was toasting everybody from the "Chief Magistrate of America" down to our very humble selves, she sent a _muchacho_ out to borrow the hand-organ belonging to a neighbour, this musical instrument being highly venerated in Misamis. On its arrival the presidente himself turned the crank, and with such vigour that I feared a stroke of apoplexy on his part.

A little later, as we were leaving, the senora took us into what would have been the stable had they possessed horses, a large open s.p.a.ce under the house, to the right of which a room had been part.i.tioned off with bamboo. Inside this part.i.tion a Filipina servant worked the senora's loom. Back and forth went the shuttle under the little maid's deft fingers, and up and down went her slender bare foot on the treadle, so that even as we watched the striped red and cream _abaca_ grew under our very eyes.

Unfortunately I became enthusiastic, and nothing would do but that the old lady must present me with several yards of the pretty stuff. I felt as if I should be tried for larceny, what with those indigestible fruits, the pink cheeked cakes, the Muscatelle, and finally the _abaca_. I protested vigorously, I even pleaded, but in vain.

"You are my daughter," laughed the senora, happily, "my white daughter. The _abaca_ is yours--coa.r.s.e stuff that it is," and she reached up timidly and kissed me, first on one cheek and then on the other, the joy of giving in her dear old eyes.

The next day dawned so clear and beautiful that three of us decided, there being little work on hand until the Lintogup party's return, to take a long drive around Misamis, and if we had time to even go so far as its four outposts. On the previous day the presidente had unearthed a queer little carriage out of a junk heap, and put this conveyance and a wise looking piebald pony at our disposal. The carriage was an odd affair between a _calesa_ and _carromata_ in shape, or like a high surrey with a small seat for the driver in front. It was beautifully clean, with a new bit of carpet at our feet, and cushioned in sky-blue tapestry. As there was but a single seat at the back, in addition to the driver's seat in front, one of the two men of our party offered to relieve the Filipino in charge of the trap, and do the driving himself, but the native shook his head, declaring we would find the pony unmanageable. We thought not, but the driver was firm, and although the back seat was not very wide, we piled in upon the sky-blue cushions, trying to look as pleasant as possible in the circ.u.mstances.

After some persuasion on the part of the Filipino, the piebald pony started and proved to be a fine little animal with an unusually clean and even gait. The air was fresh and invigorating, and as we pa.s.sed other _Burnside_ friends trudging through the sand of the beach or toiling laboriously along the dusty road of the town, we congratulated ourselves on securing the only available trap in the place, and marvelled at the way our pony covered ground.

"Why, any one could drive him," remarked one of the trio. "He's a fine little beast." "To be sure," a.s.sented the others. But just then a treacherous feminine hat blew off, and we had to stop and pick it up. That was but the work of an instant--the stopping--but when it came to starting again--well, you just ought to have seen how that piebald acted! He simply laughed at the idea, his laugh extending in ecstatic chuckles all the way down his spinal column till the very carriage shook with his mirth. Then he planted his two fore feet down hard as much as to say, "I challenge you to budge me one inch from this spot," and though the Filipino threatened, entreated, implored, and finally beat him unmercifully with the handle of the whip, the piebald stood his ground.

At last the two men clambered out of the high vehicle, and after tugging for some minutes at the rope bridle, succeeded in starting the stubborn animal along, but at so furious a gait that they had all they could do to get up over the wheels and into their seat again. All went well for about a quarter of a mile, when to our surprise the driver started to turn around. "Here, _hombre_," called one of the men, in what he was pleased to consider Spanish, "we don't want to go home yet. We want to go to the outposts--way out, sabe?" Yes, he "sabed," grinning broadly the while, but this, senor, was the outpost.

We were dumbfounded, and stared stupidly at the white tent among the trees. "Why don't they call 'em _in_posts?" growled one of the men, and then to the driver, "Very well, _hombre_, take us to the other three. We want to see 'em all." But this was easier said than done. Again our wise-looking piebald balked, and balked most awfully. Again the two men, at imminent danger to life and limb, jerked at the rope bridle, and again barely escaped with their lives as they performed the perilous acrobatic feat of falling headlong into the carriage while it was going at full speed.

After the sixth performance of this kind, one being at a street crossing where some raw cocoa beans were drying on a _petate_ in the sun, and the three others at the different outposts, we decided among ourselves that we had best dismiss our _cochero_ and return to the ship, since it had taken us more than two hours to drive where we might have walked in thirty minutes.

It was here a most embarra.s.sing situation arose, for just as we were debating what to pay our Jehu, something in my boot heels suggested that perhaps the native was not a coachman at all, but a Filipino gentleman taking us to drive at the request of the presidente. There was the sign manual of Misamis's four hundred about him. He wore shoes. Moreover, he sported a very large and very yellow twenty dollar gold piece on his watch-chain. But stronger even than these evidences of native gentility was the freedom from restraint in the very frequent remarks he had tentatively thrown over his shoulder during the drive, and the fact that he had not weakened when, on first coming ash.o.r.e, we had tried to browbeat him out of driving the horse.

"But if he _is_ a _cochero_, and we don't pay him, he'll think we're cheating him," wailed one of us.

"And if he isn't a _cochero_, and we do pay him, he'll be indignant,"

affirmed another.

My boot heels gave me another suggestion. Being a woman, I suppose I have intuitions, but I trust my boot heels every time. They are more reliable. "How would it do," I suggested, with a consciousness of superiority which I trust did not sound in my voice, "How would it do to stop a sentinel and ask whether our friend is a coachman or the mayor of the town?" and even as I spoke a sentinel hove in sight and was promptly interrogated by the men.

"Him?" returned the soldier in answer to our questions, "Him? Why, he's the richest man in these parts, I reckon, and holds some big job under the government. I forget what just now, but provost marshal, chief of police, or somethin' like that." We gasped at our narrow escape, and after getting that villainous automobile horse in motion again, pressed some cigars upon our distinguished host, and on reaching the dock thanked him heartily for our charming morning, impressing upon him that the _Burnside_ was at his disposition at any and all times, an invitation of which he later availed himself.

On the afternoon of January 9th the fault which we had been seeking so long in the cable tank was located, and two and a half miles of cable were taken out before the fault could be removed. We then weighed anchor and buoyed six miles out, talked with Misamis over the wire, and then attached the end to a buoy and dropped it overboard, preferring to wait until morning to make our splice and proceed on our return trip to Dumaguete. At daylight we picked up the buoy, drew the end of the cable on board, spliced it, and at eight o'clock were proceeding toward the island of Negros, laying cable as we went.

Then for the first time did we hoist the cable-ship insignia on the foremast head, three b.a.l.l.s, which at a little distance looked not unlike the sign of a p.a.w.nshop, though our three b.a.l.l.s were hung vertically from the masthead, two red ones with a white octahedron shape between them. After dark two red lights with a white centre light were subst.i.tuted for these signals, each serving as a warning to other vessels that we were either laying or picking up cable and could not be expected to observe the etiquette of the high seas. In other words, we were to have the right of way. As I understand it, disabled steamers also carry three b.a.l.l.s by day, all of them being red in that case, and by night three red lights, our centre white ball by day and centre white light after dark protecting us from well-meant efforts at rescue by other vessels, which would of course foul our cable and cause no end of mischief.

We sailed very slowly to Dumaguete, not over five knots an hour, with the cable paying out perhaps six knots, this speed limitation being necessary in order to stop the ship quickly in case of accident. It seemed a sentient thing, that cable creeping slowly along the paying out machinery, winding itself over the drum, and then stretching out to full length and disappearing down the covered wooden cable troughs on the main and quarter decks, and so into the sea at the stern of the ship; the hose meanwhile playing a stream of water over the drum, brakes, and jockey pulley, where the friction is always greatest. This water ran off in a dirty yellow stream, flooding the forward deck, while the tar from the cable decorated the ship from stem to stern, thus transforming our _Burnside_ from a pretty, trig looking yacht into a veritable work-a-day old scow.

Everyone on board was in the best possible spirits all morning because we were really under way and accomplishing work that showed. Even the natives in the tank, swiftly pa.s.sing the cable from hand to hand, were singing in barbaric monotone to themselves, while we idle ones on the quarter-deck read a marvellous tale of love and bloodshed to the monotonous accompaniment of the cable shuffling through the wooden troughs beside us.

At about four in the afternoon, however, just as we were lazily deciding to ring for tea, there came a rush of feet from the forward part of the ship and a jangle of the engine-room's bell meaning "Full speed astern!" But quick as the ship was in coming to a standstill, and quick as were the Signal Corps men in stopping the machinery, the cable itself was quicker, and in less time than it takes to tell it, a tangle of cable in the tanks blocked the drum, causing so tremendous a strain that the cable broke, the end going overboard.

We were all sick at heart, none more so than the poor Filipino who had been knocked flat by the cable on its erratic departure from the tank. Fortunately, the native was more frightened than hurt, and not many moments later joined in a game of monte with his friends not on duty at the time. The cable laying machinery was then transformed into a grappling machine, and by half past seven that evening the strain on the dynamometer showed we had in all probability hooked something. An hour later the end was on board, and by midnight a satisfactory splice had been made by a sergeant of the Signal Corps, in charge of such work, and his band of native cable splicers. Then sufficient tests were made to ascertain if the joint were perfect, that is, if the insulation of the new piece of cable, when added to that already laid, gave the right answer.

Meanwhile some one ascertained our position with a s.e.xtant, these observations being marked on the cable map and entered in the log to facilitate the work of locating and repairing the splice in case of accident at that particular point, though it must be confessed that these splices often proved more sound than the original cable. After this data had been duly registered, the bight was lowered over the side of the ship and we were again under way, "dragging our tail behind us"

like the poetical sheep of the nursery rhyme.

Everything worked perfectly after this, and we arrived off the Dumaguete buoy the following afternoon. On sighting it, a boat was lowered, in which our "able cable seaman," as we called him, with his crew of native "buoy jumpers," set forth to fasten the cable attached there to a stout rope from the ship. Then the buoy was cut away and taken into the little boat, the cable being heaved aboard by means of the drum, where, after detaching the mushroom anchor, tests were made and final telegraphic instructions sent to Misamis about connecting the office there. Then the final splice was made, and the two women of the _Burnside_ were given the privilege of cutting the slip-ropes that held the cable on the ship. It had already been lowered over the bows, and only these ropes held it in place.

"If anything goes wrong now, you are to blame," said the Powers-that-Be severely, and I, personally, felt the responsibility of so momentous an event, and awaited with no little nervousness the signal which would tell us to sever the ropes, for it was important that the two fastenings should be cut at exactly the same moment to avoid a strain on the cable. "Now!" called the cable expert. It was a thrilling moment. My little _kris_ dagger seemed scarcely to make an impression on the stout Manila rope. "Faster! Harder!" called some one, and we sawed with all our strength. A moment more and the green waters of the bay had opened and closed over the cable--the first stretch of it laid on the trip--and we women had helped do it.

Everyone on board was excited over the great event, the very natives, tired as they were, sending up a faint _viva_, and at dinner that evening it was easy to see a strain had been lifted from all the officers. Not a man but was freshly shaved and attired in immaculate white linen in contradistinction to the inevitable khaki. Later, however, the young officer who had been sent ash.o.r.e to make the final adjustments in the Dumaguete office, came aboard with the disheartening information that Misamis could not be raised, and the ensuing depression on the _Burnside_ was appalling.