An Ohio Woman in the Philippines Part 3

The next morning we watched with interest the carabao as they were taken from the muddy pools in which they had found shelter for the night. The natives begin work at dawn and rest two or three hours in the middle of the day. It seemed to me too hot for any man or beast to stir.

When a large drove of carabao are ma.s.sed together it seems inevitable that they shall injure each other with their great horns, six or eight feet long but fortunately they are curved back. Strange, too, I thought it, that these large animals should be driven by small children--my small children were really sixteen to twenty years old.

We ventured forth upon this first morning and found a large cathedral close by. It was all we could do to push our way through the throng of half-naked creatures that were squatting in front of the church to sell flowers, fruits, cakes, beads, and other small wares.

We pressed on through crooked streets out toward the princ.i.p.al shopping district, but soon found it impossible to go even that short distance without a carriage, the heat was so overpowering. We turned to the old city, Manila proper, pa.s.sed over the drawbridge, and under the arch of its inclosing wall, centuries old.

We went to the quartermaster's department to get transportation to Iloilo. It gave a delightful feeling of protection to see our soldiers in and about everywhere. At this time Judge William H. Taft had not been made governor; the city was still under military rule, and there were constant outbreaks, little insurrections at many points, especially in the suburbs. We were surprised to find the city so large and so densely populated.

It is useless to deny that we were in constant fear even when there were soldiers by. The unsettled conditions gave us a creepy feeling that expressed itself in the anxious faces and broken words of our American women. One would say, "Oh I feel just like a fool, I am so scared." Another would say, "Dear me, don't I wish I were at home,"--another, "I just wish I could get under some bed and hide." But for all their fears they stayed, yielding only so far as to take a short vacation in j.a.pan. There is not much in the way of sight seeing in Manila beyond the enormous cathedrals many of which were closed. About five o'clock in the afternoon everybody goes to the luneta to take a drive on the beach, hear the bands play, and watch the crowds. It is a smooth beach for about two miles. Here are the elite of Manila. The friars and priests saunter along, some in long white many-overlapping capes, and some in gowns. Rich and poor, clean and filthy, gay and wretched, gather here and stay until about half-past six, when it is dark. The rich Filipinos dine at eight.

The social life in Manila, as one might suppose, was somewhat restricted for Americans. The weather is so enervating that it is impossible to get up very much enthusiasm over entertainments. During my stay in Manila, in all, perhaps two months, there was little in the way of social festivity except an occasional ball in the halls of the Hotel Oriente, nor did the officers who had families there have accommodations for much beyond an occasional exchange of dinners and lunches.

The Americans, as a rule, did not take kindly to either entertaining or being entertained by natives, and besides they could not endure the heavy, late dinners and banquets.

At one grand Filipino ball (bailie) an eight or ten course dinner was served about midnight. The men and women did not sit down together at this banquet, the older men ate at the first table, then the older women, then the young men, lastly the young women. After the feast there were two or three slow waltzes carried on in most solemn manner, and then came the huge task of waking up the cocheroes (drivers) to go home. While everything was done in a quick way according to a Filipino's ideas, it took an hour or two to get ready. The only thing that does make a lot of noise and confusion is the quarreling of Filipino horses that are tethered near each other. I thought American horses could fight and kick, but these little animals stand on their hind legs and fight and strike with their fore feet in a way that is alarming and amusing. They are beset day and night with plagues of insects. No wonder they are restless.

The Bilibid Prison in Manila is the largest in the Philippines, and contains the most prisoners. The time to see the convicts and men is at night when they are on dress parade. Of the several hundred that I saw, I do not think that anyone of them is in there for other than just cause. They are made to work and some of them are very artistic and do most beautiful carvings on wood, bamboo and leather. It is very hard now to get any order filled, so great a demand has been created for their handi-work. I could not but notice the manner of the on-lookers as they came each day to see those poor wretches. They seemed to have no pity; and then, there were very few women who were prisoners. I do not remember seeing more than three or four in each of the five prisons that I visited. Orders were taken for the fancy articles made in these prisons. One warden said he had orders for several months' work ahead.

ILOILO AND JARO.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

We went from Manila to Iloilo on a Spanish steamer. I gave one look at the stateroom that was a.s.signed to me and decided to sleep on deck in my steamer chair. I had been told that I positively could not eat the food which the ship would prepare, so I took a goodly supply with me.

The captain was so gracious that I could not let him know my plans, so I pleaded illness but he ordered some things brought to me. There was a well prepared chicken with plenty of rice but made so hot with pepper that I threw it into the sea; next, some sort of salad floating in oil and smelling of garlic, it went overboard. Eggs cooked in oil followed the salad; last the "dulce," a composition of rice and custard perfumed with anise seed oil, made the menu of the fishes complete. I now gladly opened my box of crackers and cheese, oranges, figs and dates.

As the sun declined, I sat watching the islands. We were pa.s.sing by what is known as the inner course. They lay fair and fragrant as so many Edens afloat upon a body of water as beautiful as any that mortal eyes have ever seen. Huge palms rose high in air, their long feathery leaves swaying softly in the golden light. Darkness fell like a curtain; but the waters now gleamed like nether heavens with their own stars of phosph.o.r.escent light.

On the voyage to j.a.pan, a fellow pa.s.senger asked if I were sure that Iloilo was my destination in the Philippines and, being a.s.sured that it was, informed me that there was no such place on the ship's maps, which were considered very accurate. The Island of Panay was there, but no town of Iloilo.

Iloilo (e-lo-e-lo) is the second city in size of the Philippines. It stands on a peninsula and has a good harbor if it were not for the shifting sands that make it rather difficult for the large steamers to come to the wharf and the tide running very high at times makes it harder still. There is a long wharf bordered with huge warehouses full of exports and imports. Vast quant.i.ties of sugar, hemp and tobacco are gathered here for shipment. It is a center of exchange, a place of large business, especially active during the first years of our occupation.

Immense caravan trains go out from here to the various army posts to carry food and other supplies, while ships, like farm yards adrift, ply on the same errand between port and port. Cebu and Negros are the largest receiving stations.

In the center of the town is the plaza or park. Here, after getting things in order, a pole was set, and the stars and stripes unfurled to the breeze. The quarters of our soldiers were near the park and so our boys had a pleasant place to lounge when off duty in the early morning or evening. When our troops first landed here in 1898 there was quite a battle, but I am not able to give its details. The results are obvious enough. The native army set fire to the city before fleeing across the river to the town of Jaro (Har-ro). The frame work of the upper part of the buildings was burned but the walls or lower part remains.

After the battle at Jaro, I went out to live for awhile in the quarters of Captain Walter H. Gordon, Lieutenant J. Barnes, and Lieutenant A. L. Conger, 18th U. S. A. I soon realized that the war was still on, for every day and night, the rattle of musketry told that somewhere there was trouble.

One day I went out to see the fortifications deserted by the Filipinos. They were curious indeed; built as an officer suggested, to be run away from, not to be defended. One fortification was ingeniously made of sacks of sugar. Everywhere was devastation and waste and burned buildings. The natives had fled to distant towns or mountains.

All this sounds bad and looked worse, and yet it takes but a little while to restore all. The houses are quickly rebuilt; a bamboo roof is made, it is lifted to the desired height on poles set in or upon the ground. The walls are weavings of bamboo or are plaited nepa. The nepa is a variety of bamboo grown near shallow sea water. When one of these rude dwellings is completed, it is ready for an ordinary family. They do not use a single article that we consider essential to housekeeping. Some of the better cla.s.s have a kind of stove; its top is covered with a layer of sand or small pebbles, four or five inches thick; on this stand bricks or small tripods to hold the little pots used in cooking. Under each pot is a tiny fire. The skillful cook plays upon his several fires as a musician upon his keys, adding a morsel of fuel to one, drawing a coal from another; stirring all the concoctions with the same spoon. The baking differs only in there being an upper story of coals on the lid.

It has been said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Two or three of us American women, eager to learn all we could, because we were daily told that the war was over and we should soon be going home, were rashly venturesome. But we soon found that it was unsafe to go about Molo or Iloilo even with a guide, and so we had to content ourselves with looking at the quant.i.ties of beautiful things brought to our door. We were tempted daily to buy the lovely fabrics woven by the native women. Every incoming ship is beset by a swarm of small traders who find their best customers amongst American women. Officers and men, too, are generous buyers for friends at home. The native weaves of every quality and color are surprisingly beautiful.

Jusa (hoo-sa) cloth is made from jusi fibre; pina (peen-yah) from pineapple fibre; cinemi is a mixture of the two; abaka (a-ba-ka) from hemp fibre; alG.o.don from the native cotton; sada is silk; sabana is a mixture of cotton and hemp.

We visited many of the places where the most extensive weaving is done, and there we saw the most wretched-looking, old women handling the hair-like threads. Each one had by her side some emblem of the Roman Church as she sat at her daily task. These poor, dirty, misshapen creatures, weaving from daylight to dark, earn about fifty cents a month. So many of the women are deformed and unclean, both the makers and the sellers, that it seemed utterly incongruous that they should handle the most delicate materials. In all my observations, I saw but one nice, clean woman of the lower cla.s.ses. In our happy country we do not think of seeing a whole cla.s.s of people diseased or maimed. In the Philippines one seldom sees a well formed person; or if the form is good, the face is disfigured by small-pox.

I was surprised, at first, on looking out after breakfast, to find at my door every morning from two to a dozen women and boys in sitting posture, almost nude, only a thin waist on the body, and a piece of cotton drawn tightly round the legs. Many would be solemnly and industriously chewing the betel nut, which colors lips and saliva a vivid red.

It would not only be impertinent on my part to relate particulars of our army, but I should undoubtedly do as Mrs. Partington did--"open my patrician mouth and put my plebeian foot in it." The first thing I did on arriving at Iloilo was to call mess "board" and go to bed instead of "turning in."

In time of special danger, the various commanders were very kind in providing guards--mostly, however, to protect Government property. I felt no great uneasiness about personal safety, though I always "slept with one eye open." We were so frequently threatened that we stood ready every moment to move on. Shots during the night are not, as a rule, conducive to sleep, and I did not like the sound of the b.a.l.l.s as they struck the house. I had my plans laid to get behind the stone wall at the rear of the pa.s.sage and lie on the floor. It was necessary to keep a close watch on the servants who were "muchee hard luc" (very much afraid) at the slightest change in the movements of either army, home or foreign.

Their system of wireless telegraphy was most efficient, so much so that one day at 2 P. M. I was told by a native of an engagement that had taken place at 10 A. M. in a distant part of the island, remote from the telegraph stations. I wondered how he could have known, and later learned of their systems of signaling by kites. For night messages the kites are illuminated. They are expert, not only in flying, but in making them.

Their schools are like pandemonium let loose; all the pupils studying aloud together, making a deafening, rasping noise. Sessions from 7 to 10 A. M., 3 to 6 P. M.

The large Mexican dollars are too c.u.mbersome to carry in any ordinary purse. If one wishes to draw even a moderate sum, it is necessary to take a cart or carriage. A good sized garden shovel on one side and a big canvas bag on the other expedites bank transactions in the islands.

At the time of the evacuation of Jaro by the insurrectos, our officers chose their quarters from the houses the natives had fled from. The house which we occupied had formerly been used as the Portuguese Consulate. Like all the better houses the lower part was built of stone, and the upper part of boards. There was very little need of heavy boards or timbers except to hold the sliding windows. I should think the whole house was about eighty feet square with rear porch that was used for a summer garden. The pillars of this porch were things of real beauty. They were covered with orchids that in the hottest weather were all dried up and quite unsightly, but when the rainy season began they were very beautiful in their luxuriance of growth and bloom. The front door was in three parts; the great double doors which opened outward to admit carriages and a small door in one of the larger doors. There was a huge knocker, the upper part was a woman's head. To open the large doors it was necessary to pull the latch by a cord that came up through the floor to one of the inner rooms. I used to occupy this room at night and it was my office and my pleasure to pull the bobbin and let the latch fly up when the scouting troop would come in late at night. Captain Gordon said that he never found me napping, that I was always ready to greet them as soon as their horses turned the corner two squares away. The entrance door admitted to a great hall with a stone floor, ending in apartments for the horses. On the right of the hall were rooms for domestic purposes, such as for the family looms, four or five of them, and for stores of food and goods. On the left there were four steps up and then a platform, then three steps down into a room about twenty feet square. There were two windows in this room with heavy gratings. We used it as a store room for the medical supplies. Returning to the platform, there were two heavy doors that swung in, we kept them bolted with heavy wooden bolts; there were no locks on any doors. At the foot of the steps was a long narrow room with one small window; it was directly over the part where the animals were. The hall was lighted with quite a handsome Venetian gla.s.s chandelier in which we used candles. From this room we entered the large main room of the house; the ceiling and side wall was covered with leather or oil cloth held in place with large tacks; there were sliding windows on two sides of the room which, when shoved back, opened the room so completely as to give the effect of being out of doors; the front windows looked out on the street, the side windows on the garden, on many trees, cocoanut, chico, bamboo, and palm. There was a large summer house in the center of the garden and the paths which led up to it were bordered with empty beer bottles. The garden was enclosed by a plastered wall about eight feet high, into the top of which were inserted broken bottles and sharp irons to keep out intruders. The house was covered with a sheet iron roof. The few dishes that we found upon our occupation were of excellent china but the three or four sideboards were quite inferior. The whole house was wired for bells. This is true of many of the houses, indeed they are all fashioned on one model, and all plain in finish, extra carving or fine wood-work would only make more work for the busy little ants. Even when furniture looked whole, we often found ourselves landed on the floor; it was no uncommon thing for a chair to give way; it had been honeycombed and was held together by the varnish alone.

My first evening in Jaro was one of great fear. We were told by a priest that we were to be attacked and burned out. While sitting at dinner I heard just behind me a fearful noise that sounded like "Gluck-co-gluck-co." An American officer told me it was an alarm clock, but as a matter of fact it was an immense lizard, an animal for which I soon lost all antipathy, because of its appet.i.te for the numerous bugs that infest the islands. Unfortunately they have no taste for the roaches, the finger-long roaches that crawl all over the floor. Neither were they of a.s.sistance in exterminating the huge rats and mice, nor the ants. The ants! It is impossible to describe how these miserable pests overran everything; they were on the beds, they were on the tables. Our table legs were set in cups of coal oil and our floors were washed with coal oil at least once every week. This disagreeable condition of things will not be wondered at, when I say that the horses, cattle, and carabao are kept in the lower part of the house, and the pigs, cats, and dogs allowed up stairs with the family. The servants are required to stay below with the cattle.

The animals are all diseased, especially the horses. Our men were careful that their horses were kept far from the native beasts. The cats are utterly inferior. The mongoose, a little animal between a ferret and a rat, is very useful; no well-kept house is without one. Rats swarm in such vast hordes that the mongoose is absolutely necessary to keep them down. Still more necessary is the house snake. These reptiles are brought to market on a bamboo pole and usually sell for about one dollar apiece. Mine used to make great havoc among the rats up in the attic. Never before had I known what rats were. Every night, notwithstanding the mongoose, the house snake, and the traps, I used to lay in a supply of bricks, anything to throw at them when they would congregate in my room and have a pitched battle. They seemed to stand in awe of United States officers. A soldier said one night, glancing about, "Why, I thought the rats moved out all of your furniture." They would often carry things up to the zinc roof of our quarters, drop them, and then take after with rush and clatter, the snake in full chase. Mice abound, and lizards are everywhere, of every shape, every size, and every color.

I spent a large part of my time leaning out of my window; there was so much to see. The expulsion of the insurrectos had just been effected, and very few of the natives remained, but as soon as they were thoroughly convinced that our troops had actually taken the town, they flocked in by the hundreds, the men nearly naked, always barefoot, the women in their characteristic bright red skirts.

The entire time spent there was full of surprises, the customs, dress, food, and religious ceremonies continually furnishing matter of intense and varied interest. I noticed, especially, how little the men and women went about together, riding or walking, or to church. Neither do they sit together, or rather should say "squat," for, even in the fine churches, the women squatted in the center aisles, while the men were ranged in side aisles. There are few pews, and these few, rarely occupied, were straight and uncomfortable. No effort was ever made to make them comfortable, not to mention ornamental.

THE NATIVES.

CHAPTER NINE.

The natives are, as a rule, small, with a yellowish brown skin; noses not large, lips not thick, but teeth very poor. Many of them have cleft palate or harelip, straight hair very black, and heads rather flattened on top. I examined many skulls and found the occiput and first cervical ankylosed. It occurred to me it might be on account of the burdens they carry upon their heads in order to leave their arms free to carry a child on the hips, to tuck in a skirt, or care for the cigars.

The Filipino skirt is a wonder. It is made by sewing together the ends of a straight piece of cloth about three yards long. To hold it in place on the body, a plait is laid in the top edge at the right, and a tuck at the left, and there it stays--till it loosens. One often sees them stop to give the right or left a twist. The fullness in the front is absolutely essential for them to squat as they are so accustomed to do while performing all sorts of work, such as washing, ironing, or, in the market place, selling all conceivable kinds of wares. The waist for the rich and poor alike is of one pattern, the only variation being in the quality. It has a plain piece loose at the waist line for the body, a round hole for the rather low neck, the sleeves straight and extending to the wrist, about three-fourths of a yard wide. These sleeves are gathered on the shoulder to fit the individual. A square handkerchief folded three times in the center is placed round the neck and completes the costume. As fast as riches are ama.s.sed, trains are a.s.sumed. All clothing is starched with rice and stands out rigidly.

The materials are largely woven by the people themselves, and the finer fabrics are beautiful in texture and fineness, some of the strands being so fine that several are used to make one thread. By weaving one whole day from dawn to dark, only a quarter of a yard of material is produced. The looms, the cost of which is about fifty cents, are all made by hand from bamboo; the reels and bobbins, which complete the outfit, raise the value of the whole to about a dollar. There is rarely a house that does not keep from one to a dozen looms. The jusi, made from the jusi that comes in the thread from China, is colored to suit the fancy of the individual, but is not extensively used by the natives, who usually prefer the abuka, pina, or sinamay, which are products of the abuka tree, or pineapple fibre. The quality of these depends on the fineness of the threads. It is very delicate, yet durable, and--what is most essential--can be washed.

The common natives seem to have no fixed hours for their meals, nor do they have any idea of gathering around the family board. After they began to use knives and forks one woman said she would rather not use her knife, it cut her mouth so. Even the best of them prefer to squat on the floor, make a little round ball of half cooked rice with the tips of their fingers and throw it into the mouth.

My next door neighbor was considered one of the better cla.s.s of citizens, and through my window I could not help, in the two years of my stay, seeing much of the working part of her household. There were pigs, chickens, ducks, and turkeys, either running freely about the kitchen or tied by the leg to the kitchen stove. The floors of these kitchens are never tight; they allow the greater part of the acc.u.mulated filth of all these animals to sift through to the ground below. There were about fifteen in the family; this meant fifteen or twenty servants, but as there are few so poor in the islands as to be unable to command a poorer still, these chief servants had a crowd of underlings responsible to themselves alone. The head cook had a wife, two children and two servants that got into their quarters by crawling up an old ladder. I climbed up one day to see how much s.p.a.ce they had. I put my head in at the the opening that served them for door and window, but could not get my shoulders in. The whole garret was about eight feet long and six feet wide. One end of it was part.i.tioned off for their fighting c.o.c.ks.

All the time I was there this family of the cook occupied that loft, and the two youngest ones squalled night and day, one or other, or both of them. There was not a single thing in that miserable hole for those naked children to lie on or to sit on. The screams or the wails of the wretched babies, the fighting of the rats under foot, the thud of the bullets at one's head, the constant fear of being burned out,--these things are not conducive to peaceful slumbers, but to frightful dreams, to nightmare, to hasty wakenings from uneasy sleep.