An Ohio Woman in the Philippines Part 5

General Del Gardo surrendered with protestations of loyalty and has honored his word ever since; he is now Governor of the Island of Panay (pan-i). He is very gentlemanly in appearance and bearing and has a.s.sumed the duties of his new office with much dignity. Just recently I learn, to my surprise, that he does not recognize the authority of the "Presidente" of the town of Oton, who was appointed before the surrender of General Del Gardo, and that therefore the very fine flag raising we had on the Fourth of July, 1900, is not considered legal. We had a famous day of it at the time. All the soldiers who could be spared marched to Oton. There was a company of artillery, some cavalry, and the scouts. From other islands, Americans and our sick soldiers were brought by steamer as near as possible and then landed in small boats. We were somewhat delayed in arriving but were greeted in a most friendly manner by the whole town. We were escorted up to the house of the Presidente and were immediately served with refreshments that were most lavish in quant.i.ty, color, shape and kind; too numerous in variety to taste, and too impossible of taste to partake. After the parade, came the running up of the flag, made by the women of the town. The shouting and the cheering vied with the band playing "America," "Hail Columbia," and the "Star Spangled Banner." It was indeed an American day celebrated in loyal fashion--certainly by the Americans. It was the very first flag raising in the Islands by the Filipinos themselves. It is with regret that I hear that General Del Gardo has refused officially to recognize this historic occasion. After these ceremonies we had the banquet. I do not recall any dish that was at all like our food except small quail, the size of our robins. Where and how they captured all the birds that were served to that immense crowd and how they ever prepared the innumerable kinds of refreshments no one will ever know but themselves. We were all objects of curiosity. The natives for miles around flocked in to gaze upon the Americans. At this place there is one of the finest cathedrals on the Island of Panay, large enough for a whole regiment of soldiers to quarter in, as once happened during a very severe storm. The reredos was especially fine. It was in the center of the cathedral and was almost wholly constructed of hammered silver of very intricate pattern and design. Nave, choir, and transepts were ornamented with exquisite carving in stone and wood.

FLOWERS, FRUITS AND BERRIES.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Fruits are of many varieties; the most luscious are the mangoes. There is only one crop a year; the season lasts from April to July. It is a long, kidney-shaped fruit. It seems to me most delicious, but some do not like it at all. The flavor has the richness and sweetness of every fruit that one can think of. They disagree with some persons and give rise to a heat rash. For their sweet sake, I took chances and ended by making a business of eating and taking the consequences. The mango tree has fine green satin leaves; the fruit is not allowed to ripen on the tree. The natives pick mangoes as we pick choice pears and let them ripen before eating. They handle them just as carefully, and place them in baskets that hold just one layer. The best mangoes are sometimes fifty cents a piece. The fruit that stands next in favor is the chico. It looks not unlike a russet apple on the outside, but the inside has, when ripe, a brown meat and four or five black seeds quite like watermelon seeds. It is rich and can be eaten with impunity.

The banana grows everywhere, and its varieties are as numerous as those of our apple; its colors, its sizes, manifold. Some about the size of one's finger are deliciously sweet and juicy. They grow seemingly without any cultivation whatever, by the road as freely as in the gardens. Guavas are plentiful, oranges abundant but poor in quality. The pomelo is like our "grape fruit," but larger, less bitter and less juicy. Cut into squares or sections and served with a sauce of white of egg and sugar beaten together it is a delicious dish.

There are no strawberries or raspberries, but many kinds of small fruits, none of which I considered at all palatable, although some of them looked delicious hanging upon the trees or bushes. There is a small green kind of cherry full of tiny seeds that the natives prize and enjoy. The fruits of one island are common to all.

The flora of the country was not seen at its best; many of the natives told me. Trees, shrubs, gardens and plantations had been trampled by both armies and left to perish. Our government took up the work of restoration as soon as possible. The few roses that I saw were not of a particularly good quality, nor did they have any fragrance. No one can ever know what joy thrilled me when one day I found some old fashioned four o'clocks growing in the church yard. The natives do not care to use the natural flowers in the graceful sprays or luxuriant cl.u.s.ters in which they grow. They usually stick them on the sharp spikes of some small palm or wind them on a little stick to make a cone or set the spikelets side by side in a flat block. They much prefer artificial stiffness to natural grace. In the hundreds of funeral ceremonies that I saw I never noticed the use of a single natural blossom. The flowers were all artificial, of silk, paper, or tissue. One reason, perhaps, of this choice is that all vegetation is infested with ants; they can scarcely be seen, but, oh, they can be felt! The first time I was out driving I begged the guard to gather me huge bunches of most exquisite blooms but I was soon eager to throw them all out; the ants swarmed upon me and drove me nearly frantic. I learned to shun my own garden paths and to content myself with looking out of the window on the plants below. There are many birds but no songsters.

The betel nut is about the size of a walnut. The kernel is white like the cocoanut. They wrap a bit of this kernel with a pinch of air-slacked lime in a pepper leaf, then chew, chew, all day, and in intervals of chewing they spray the vividly colored saliva on door-step, pavement and church floor.

I often watched the natives climb the tall cocoanut trees, about eighty feet high, with only the fine fern-like leaves at the extreme top. These trees yield twenty to fifty cocoanuts per month and live to a great age. No one can have any idea of the delicious milk until he has drunk it fresh from the recently gathered nuts. A young native will climb as nimbly and as swiftly as a monkey, and will be as unfettered by dress as his Darwinian brother. The fruit is severed from the tree by the useful bolo.

The flowers in the parks when I saw them had all been trampled into the mud by the soldiers of both armies, but I was told that they had been very beautiful. There were also large trees, bearing huge cl.u.s.ters of blooms; one bunch had seventy-five blossoms, each as large as a fair sized nasturtium. These are called Fire or Fever Trees, since they have the appearance of being on fire and bloom in the hot season when fever is most prevalent. Other trees whose name I do not recall bear equally large cl.u.s.ters of purple flowers. The palms are large and grow in great luxuriance, and the double hibiscus look like large pinks.

THE MARKETS.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The market day is the great day of every town. A certain part of every village is prepared with booths and stalls to display wares of endless variety. We all looked forward to market day. There were mats of various sizes,--mats are used for everything. There are some so skillfully woven that they are handsome ornaments, worth as much as a good rug. There were hats woven out of the most delicately shredded fibers, the best costing from twelve to twenty dollars in gold, very durable and very beautiful. The best ones can be woven only in a damp place, as the fiber must be kept moist while being handled. There were fish nets of abaka differing in mesh to suit the various kinds of fish. The cloths were hung on lines to show their texture. We had to pick our way amongst the stalls and through or over the natives seated on the ground. I have seen a s.p.a.ce of two acres covered with hundreds of natives, carabao, trotting bulls, chickens, turkeys, ducks, fine goods, vegetables, and fruits all in one ma.s.s; and I had to keep a good lookout where I stepped and what I ran into. It was not necessary to go often for they were more than willing to bring all their wares to the house if they had any prospects of a sale. I have had as many as thirty natives troop into the house at one time. They finally became so obnoxious that I forbade them coming at all.

The silence of these crowds was noticeable. They were keenly alive to business and did not laugh and joke or even talk in reasonable measure. As a race they are solemn even in their looks, and no wonder, such is their degradation, misery, and despair. They have so little sympathy and care for each other, so little comfort, and so neglected and hopeless, so sunken beneath the so-called better cla.s.s that when a little mission gospel was started one could hardly refrain from tears to see the joy that they had in accepting the free gospel. It was no trouble for them to walk thirty or forty miles to get what they called cheap religion. They were outcasts from society and too poor to pay the t.i.thes that were imposed upon them by the priests in their various parishes, for no matter how small a village was there was the very elegant cathedral in the center of the town which only the rich and those who were able to pay were ent.i.tled to enter.

The poor blind people wandered from village to village in groups of two to twenty. Quite a number of the moderately insane would go about begging, too, but the worst were chained to trees or put in stocks and their food thrown at them. Even the dumb brutes were not so poorly cared for.

The houses of the rich, while not cleanly and not well furnished, always have one large room in which stands a ring of chairs with a rug in the center of the floor and a cuspidor by each seat. You are ushered in and seated in one of these low square chairs, usually cane seated. After the courtesies of the day and the hostess's comments on the fineness of your clothing, refreshments are brought in,--cigars, cigarettes, wine, cake, and preserved cocoanut. Sometimes American beer is added as possibly more acceptable than the wine.

The citizens of Jaro seemed to be friendly, they often invited me to their festivities; committees would wait upon me, presenting me sometimes invitations engraved upon silver with every appearance of cordiality in expression and manner. They could not understand why I would not accept; I would explain, that first, I had no desire; second, I thought it poor policy to do so when our soldiers were obliged to fight their soldiers, and they were furnishing the money to carry on the warfare; then too, most of their b.a.l.l.s were given on Sunday night. True, a Filipino Sunday never seemed Sunday to me. I could only say, foolishly enough, "But it is not Sunday at home." I could not attend their parties and I had little heart to dance. I had only to go to the window to see their various functions; it could hardly be called merry as they went at it in such a listless, lazy way, with apparently little enjoyment, the air that they carry into all their pleasures.

PHILIPPINE AGRICULTURE.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

It has been said that the prosperity of any nation depends largely upon its agriculture. The soil in the Philippines is very rich. The chief product, which the natives spend the most time upon, is rice; and even that is grown, one almost might say, without any care, especially after seeing the way the j.a.panese till their rice. They sow the rice broadcast in little square places of about half an acre which is partly filled with water. When this has grown eight or ten inches high they transplant it into other patches which have been previously scratched over with a rude one-handled plow that often has for a point only a piece of an old tin can or a straggly root, and into this prepared bit of land they open the d.y.k.e and let in the water; that is all that is necessary until the harvesting. They have a great pest, the langousta or gra.s.shopper, and they are obliged, when these insects fly over a section of the country, to scare them away by any means in their power, which is usually by running about through the rice fields waving a red rag.

As I have said before they gather these pests and eat them. I have seen bushels of fried langousta for sale in the markets. When they gather the rice harvest, it is carried to some nearby store room, usually in the lower part of the house in which they live. Then comes the threshing, which is done with old-fashioned mills, by pounding with a wooden mallet, or by rubbing between two large pieces of wood. Then they winnow it, holding it up by the peck or half bushel to let the wind blow the hulls off, and dry it by placing it on mats of woven bamboo. I saw tons of rice prepared in this way by the side of the road near where I lived. This being their staple, the food for man and beast, one can form some idea of the vast quant.i.ties that are needed. There was a famine while I was there and the U. S. government was obliged to supply the natives with rice for seed and food.

There is no gra.s.s grown except a sort of swamp gra.s.s. The rice cut when it is green is used in the place of gra.s.s. It is never dried, as it grows the year round. One can look out any day and see rows of small bundles of this rice paddy laid by the road side for sale or carried by the natives on bamboo poles, a bundle before and one behind to balance. It was astonishing to see these small men and boys struggling under the weight of their "loads of hay." None of the American horses cared for it; their hay and grain had to be stacked up along the wharf and guarded. It would be of little use, however, to the natives as they know nothing about the use of our products.

If there was any wheat grown in the islands, we never heard of it, and judging from the way in which flour was sold in their markets at ten cents for a small cornucopia that would hold about a gill, it was probably brought from either Australia or America.

They have a camote, something like a sweet potato. Although it is watery and stringy it does very well and is called a good vegetable. They raise inferior tomatoes and very inferior garlic. It was a matter of great curiosity to the natives to see an American plow that was placed on exhibition at the British store. I am sure when they can take some of our good agricultural implements and turn the rich soil over and work it, even in a poor way, the results will be beyond anything we could produce here in the United States.

Their cane sugar is of fine quality, almost equal to our maple sugar. They plant the seed in a careless way and tend it in the most slovenly manner imaginable, and yet, they get immense crops. One man, who put in a crop near where some soldiers were encamped in order to have their protection, told us that he sold the product from this small stretch of ground of not more than five or six acres for ten thousand dollars.

The natives so disliked to work that nearly every one who employed men kept for them a gaming table and the inevitable fighting c.o.c.ks; as long as they can earn a little money to gamble that is all they care for; houses, lands, and families are not considered. Nearly all the sugar mills had been burned in our neighborhood, but I know from the way they do everything else that they must have used the very crudest kind of boiling apparatus. The sugar seemed reasonably clean to look at, but when boiled the sediment was anything but clean. With our evaporating machines and with care to get the most out of the crop, the profit will be enormous. Often we would buy the cane in the markets, peel off the outside and chew the pith to get the sweet juice.

They raise vast quant.i.ties of cocoa, as indifferently cared for as everything else, also a small flat bean, but it has a bitter taste.

The largest crop of all is the hemp crop which grows, seemingly, without any cultivation. This hemp when growing looks something like the banana tree. They cut it down and divide it into lengths as long as possible and then prepare the wood or fiber by shaving it on iron teeth.

They are expert in this industry, in making it fine and in tying it, often times, in lengths of not more than two or three inches. They give a very dextrous turn of the hand and the finest of these threads are used in some of the fabrics which they weave. I often wondered how they could prepare these delicate, strong, linen-like threads that are as fine as gossamer.

A man who had cotton mills in Ma.s.sachusetts visited places where the hemp is prepared and the looms where it is woven. He said he had never known anything so wonderful as the deft manner in which these people worked out the little skeins from an intricate ma.s.s of tangled webs.

One of the curiosities of the world's fair at St. Louis will be this tying and weaving of hemp. Then a still greater curiosity will be the making of pine-apple fiber. This manufacture has been sadly neglected and crippled by the war and its devastations. They have learned to mix in other fibers because of the scarcity of the pine-apple. I did not see this prepared at all; only secured with difficulty some of the good cloth. It is considered by the natives their very best and finest fabric. They spend much time on its embroidery and their exquisite work astonishes the finest lace makers.

The field corn which I saw was of such an inferior grade that it never occurred to me to try it; indeed, they do not bring it to market until it is out of the milk.

On my return home I planted a few kernels as an experiment. There never was a more insignificant looking stalk of corn in our garden. With misgivings we made trial of the scrubby looking ears. To our surprise it was the best we ever had on our table. It seemed too good to be true. I gave several messes to my friends and this year am hoping to give pleasure to many others. I denied myself the delicious product that many might have seed for this spring.

MINERALS.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Gold is found in every stream of the islands. In small bottles I saw many little nuggets which the natives had picked up. Whether it would pay to use good machinery to extract he gold I cannot tell; but certain it is that they use a great deal of gold in the curiously wrought articles of jewelry of which they are all pa.s.sionately fond.

A man who was greatly interested in the mines of Klondike said that there were better chances of getting gold in the Philippines and that he had given up all his northern claims and was now using his energies to secure leases in the new territory. Other minerals, too, he said, are abundant and valuable.

I had a small bra.s.s dagger which I used to carry for defense and, upon showing it to some of my friends, since my return, I was asked if I saw this dagger made, because if I knew the secret of its annealing it would be worth a fortune to me.