Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines Part 8

I do not recollect of its once being caught in a river, although the natives kill the fish in the ditches and paddy fields in large quant.i.ties, either by shooting them with shot, as they flounder in the fields, or by pursuing and capturing them, and knocking them down with a stick.

In fact, I suspect the _dalag_ to be an intermediary between the reptile and the fish, although not naturalist enough to investigate the subject in a proper manner.

CHAPTER XXII.

Many of my readers may chance to be aware that the whole group of Philippine islands was mortgaged to Great Britain for payment of the ransom agreed upon at the time of our conquest of them nearly a century ago; and as up till this time neither the money nor the interest on it has been obtainable, as it probably never will be, they are, at this, or any other time, virtually our property, should the British Government foreclose the mortgage and demand payment. This, even at present, when the kingdom is groaning under extreme pressure for the necessary funds annually squeezed out of it, would not be thought a prudent course, even by the ultra-economical politicians who are so lavish of displaying their crude projects of retrenchment on neatly ruled-off paper.

There is no doubt, however, that the cash is never likely to be forthcoming from the Spaniards, and, under these circ.u.mstances, it surely would be worth the attention of Her Majesty's Government, more especially as they profess free-trade ideas, to make this state of things the basis of a request, or even of a _claim_, on the Spanish Government, for obtaining some liberal concessions in favour of their countrymen, and the rest of the world, carrying on commercial intercourse with the Philippines, which is now limited to Manilla; all foreigners being prohibited from engaging in the country trade, or from owning property in lands, houses, or ships in the Philippines.

Of course, the Spaniards themselves suffer for the illiberality of this policy, as there can be no doubt that, were it more free, and less burdened with restrictions of all sorts than it now is, it would be attended with the best effects to their own treasury, as well as be for the general welfare of the islands.

This is what they cannot yet comprehend; but it would not be difficult to make them understand it, if the employe who undertook the task understood it himself, and possessed knowledge enough of the character of the people he had to deal with. Any request, if made in a proper tone, by our Government, would draw attention to the subject at Madrid, and some good might be done, even were it only of partial advantage, as for many years to come they are not likely to step boldly out into the subject.

At Zamboanga, opposite Zooloo, there already exists a custom-house and other government offices for the regulation of their own trade with these islands. But no foreigners are allowed to reside at Zamboanga. Surely the permission for them to do so is worthy the attention of a government which has established and is supporting, at considerable expense, the colony of Labuan for the object not only of extending our trade and the use of the products of our manufacturing population, but also with the more generous and n.o.ble idea of civilizing the people in its neighbourhood by their influence, and of teaching them the blessings that flow from industry and peace.

The appointment of Sir James Brooke as Governor of Labuan was in every respect a wise proceeding, as it affords a philanthropist a very wide field on which to exert his influence. Unfortunately, however, for him, a number of well-informed people, residing in the neighbourhood of the spot where his philanthropic exertions are said to have taken place, deny their having had any existence; but, on the contrary, accuse that gentleman, through the columns of a Singapore newspaper, of the worst motives and conduct: in short, he is accused in that newspaper of murdering innocent natives in great numbers by falsely representing them to be pirates, to serve his own purposes and gratify his Sarawak subjects' dislike of them; the naval officers, whose services had been placed at his disposal to put down piracy, being misled by him.

I am not sufficiently acquainted with all the facts of the case to say with what truth this accusation is made, although, I believe, so grave a charge has never been contradicted by him, or by his friends authorized to do so in his name, and to state the true facts of the case to the public. But, as far as Labuan is concerned, those people who are best qualified to judge appear to be of opinion that, although it should have a fair trial for some years longer, it will never become a place of much commercial importance.

There is little doubt that were foreigners allowed to settle at Zamboango, where Zooloo, Mindanao, and the entire southern coasts of the Philippines would be open to their enterprise, it would be productive of the most beneficial effects, not merely to our merchants and manufacturers, but to the cause of civilization throughout all these barbarous countries, and would probably be found much more effective in putting an end to the existing state of piracy and kidnapping, which are now carried on to some extent, than any warlike means which have hitherto been employed to suppress them.

There are many other objects of a commercial nature worth the consideration of an enlightened government, such as the disproportionate protective duties in favour of their national shipping and the produce of Spain; and some degree of toleration to the religious opinions of foreigners residing at Manilla might also be obtained; so far, at least, as to permit their having a piece of consecrated ground for burying their dead, if no more should be granted; at present they are not permitted to place the remains of a Protestant within the limits of consecrated ground; but have to bury them in a field where Chinamen, who retained their country's faith till the end of their lives, are laid, and where swine are continually going about routing up the soil, at the imminent hazard of disturbing recently interred bodies.

Liberty for foreigners to settle in the country for the purposes of trade or agriculture, and to hold property, might be obtained without much difficulty, were it properly explained, and shown that their doing so would benefit the Spaniards as much as themselves.

Under the existing laws their inability to hold property prevents those foreigners who, after pa.s.sing many years in the country, have become as it were almost native, and where they have contracted ties and formed connexions which few men would like to break, from settling down in it for the remainder of their lives. As they have no means of investing their gains with security, though they have probably reached an age when the cares of business press heavily on relaxed energies, and they are disposed to sit down quietly, and enjoy themselves in the country where they are naturalized in every thing but in the eye of the law--all the interest which good citizens, holding pecuniary investments, naturally take in the well-being of the country, is withdrawn from them. No wonder, then, that they are careless about the domestic improvement of the Philippines, or of their progress in those arts which fill the treasuries of rulers, and make subjects happy.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The laws do not appear to be bad in themselves, but the dilatoriness with which they are administered has the effect of rendering them as baneful to those living under them as if they were radically bad; the delays and accidents inseparable from the mode of conducting legal business are very vexatious, and frequently from its cost it is quite inefficient for its purposes of justice. However, Spain and its colonies are not singular in that respect, as there is one great and flourishing country which I could name, where the same defects exist, although, thank G.o.d, in a less degree than they do either in the colony of Spain, or in that country itself; so the less said about the mote in our brother's eye, the better for those who have at this moment a beam in the organ of their own judicial executive.

In conducting a _pleito_ at Manilla, all is done by writing; first, the charge is made out and filed; then comes an answer to the charge; then a counter-answer is put in, and that again is replied to; and so on they go for any length of time, determined by the weight of the purses of the respective contending parties, till, if no more is to be said, or if one or both of them gets tired of the expense, and the case is decided, the other, if he be a rich man, can refer the whole affair to Spain, where the same pleadings have to be again gone through, and all the vexation and expense re-incurred, besides that the decision of the case may with a little management be protracted for any indefinite length of time. This is not worse than what happens at home, and is similar to some of our Scotch cases in former times, when for a century or more one case would be agitated to gratify family dislike or prejudice. That no one may think I exaggerate, it may be as well to mention a case which is still undecided at this moment, and which originated about 1731, between the lairds of Kilantringan and Miltonise in Galloway, although near kinsmen, namesakes, and neighbours.

There are few things more dreaded by the Spaniards themselves than a lawsuit with one another. Many of them, however, are glad of the chance it gives them to be revenged on people with whom they are not upon good terms. So vile is the whole law and practice relating to the testamentary disposal of property, and to such lengths have the abuses in this particular branch of it gone, that it has become a proverb among Spaniards to say that a wise man would prefer being a trustee on an estate, to being heir to it; and several people at Manilla are well known to be living on their gains from executorships, &c., having no other means of support. These persons, although their incomes are almost universally known to be so derived, are not in the least shunned as dishonest people, but are looked upon as being perfectly ent.i.tled to feather their own nests in place of performing their duty, as we should understand it to be in Britain.

The police laws and regulations are also badly administered, being very shameful to the Government which permits things to go on under the same loose system as before. Were there a more numerous and efficient police force scattered over the country, none of the Spaniards would be afraid, as many of them now actually are, to live out of town, or to make distant excursions to the country, from fear of the _tulisanes_, or robber-bands, which are scattered about in various places, and are found pursuing their avocations in the neighbourhood of the capital, although not so boldly as they did a few years since. These robbers plunder the country in bands perfectly organized, and bodies of them are generally existing within a few miles of Manilla,--the wilds and forests of the Laguna being favourite haunts, as well as the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Manilla, from which they can come by night, without leaving a trace of the direction they have taken, in bodies of ten and twenty men at a time, in a large banca. They have apparently some friends in Manilla, who plan out their enterprises, send them intelligence, and direct their attacks; so that every now and then they are heard of as having gutted some rich native or Mestizo's house in the suburbs of Manilla, after which they generally manage to get away clear before the alguacils come up.

The houses of Europeans are also occasionally attacked, although much less boldly within the last year or two; yet it is the custom for people to retire to bed, even in the heart of the town without the walls, with pistols, a sword, or some other weapon within reach. That these people do immense damage there is no doubt, as they not only plunder the country people of buffaloes and horses, but rifle their houses, if no better prey is to be had, to such an extent, that the natives are afraid to live at any distance from each other in many parts of the country, solely through fear of them. From this cause, patches of fine paddy land in out-of-the-way districts are left uncultivated, or are hurriedly ploughed and sown by adventurous persons, who after doing so retire into the nearest village to live, till the time comes to reap as much of the paddy as the deer and numerous wild pigs have left untouched.

The punishments of these bad characters are severe enough when justice chances to get hold of them; and, should their crimes be atrocious, they occasionally suffer death. Sometimes they are _garroted_, which is done in this way. After being seated at the place of execution, with the back towards a high post of wood, the culprit's neck is encircled by an iron collar attached to the post, and capable of compression by a powerful screw pa.s.sing through the post, which, on the signal being made, the executioner turns, and the victim is choked in a second. The practice is much less disgusting than hanging, as no effects are visible to an on-looker beyond the convulsive movement of a frame loaded with heavy irons to prevent a severe and disgusting struggle with departing life.

A good many of the _tulisanes_ are soldiers who, after committing some peccadillo, feared its discovery and punishment, and flying to the wilds have joined or organised a troop from among the bad characters in the neighbourhood of their hiding-place.

These executions are not unfrequent at Manilla. One morning, when riding near the usual place of execution on the sea-beach, I saw six deserters, who had composed a band of atrocious robbers, suffer death from the muskets of their former comrades; those who were not killed at once, having an end put to their existence by the pistols of a serjeant, who stepped close up to them before discharging the piece.

Truly it was a sad sight to see their former comrades degraded into executioners. The number of women who had collected to witness the last act of this tragedy was very great, very much outnumbering the men present. But they were princ.i.p.ally composed of the most worthless cla.s.s of females; yet on many of them the example appeared to make a considerable impression.

I have no doubt, whatever the present popular mawkish sentimental-mongers may write to the contrary, that these exhibitions, when happening rarely, tend, in a great measure, to restrain the pa.s.sions of the evil-disposed, although some of them may think it bold, among their hardened a.s.sociates, to turn the spectacle into a farce. I firmly believe that no human being can in cold blood look upon another's death by violent means without being forced to think about it for some time, greater or less, according to his or her temperament.

For minor offences criminals are sometimes flogged through the town. They are mounted on horseback, with their legs manacled or bound under the horse's belly, and a portion of their punishment is administered at several of the most public places in the town, by an executioner dressed in red, and with a veil over his face. Thus, supposing a thief sentenced to receive a hundred lashes or blows, they would most probably be administered by twenty at a time, in five different places throughout the capital, proclamation being made at each place, previous to the punishment, of the offence and of the name of the offender, who is dressed in the ordinary mode, with a shirt and pair of trousers, and exposed to the full view of the attending crowd.

Confinement in the jail at night, with labour in irons on the public roads during the day, is also a usual punishment; criminals being generally linked in pairs by a chain round the leg of each, and taken out, under a guard, to work on the streets or roads at Manilla, Cavite, or Zamboanga, at sunrise, and led back to jail at sunset. But as they are not forced by the soldiers to work much harder than they like, they take care not to injure themselves by overtasking their powers of labour, and are not apparently much discontented with their condition, from which I have seldom or never heard of their attempting to escape, although neither their food nor their lodgings in jail are very enticing; the former being bad black-looking rice and water, and the jail generally swarming with vermin.

They appear to prefer the partial liberty of getting out of jail, and of working in the streets in chains, to the monotony of a residence within the walls of the prison, and the sedentary labour they might be forced to pursue there.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Among the amus.e.m.e.nts of the Indians the greatest is c.o.c.k-fighting, for which they have a pa.s.sion; and nearly every native throughout the islands gratifies this taste by keeping a fighting c.o.c.k, which may be seen carried about with him perched on an arm or a shoulder, in all the pride of a favourite of its master.

During Sundays and feast-days, when no work is allowed to be done, nearly the half of the native population, if able to muster a few rials, repair to the village c.o.c.kpit, to arrange some match for their favorite fowl, on which they will sometimes stake large amounts, or to see the sport of their neighbours.

The privilege of opening a c.o.c.kpit is an important source of revenue to the Government, which farms it out to the highest bidder, who, I believe, has the power to stop fighting for money at any place within the limits of his district other than the privileged arena, for an admission to which he exacts a small charge from each person, which is the mode of reimbursing himself for the amount paid to the Government.

This place is generally a large house, constructed of _cana_, wattled like a coa.r.s.e basket, and surrounded by a high paling of the same description, which forms a sort of court-yard, where the c.o.c.ks are kept waiting their turns to come upon the stage, should their owners have succeeded in arranging a satisfactory match. Pa.s.sing across the yard, the door of the house, within which the matches come off, stands open: after entering and ascending the steps, the arena is before us, surrounded by seats sloping down from the wall towards it, so that every one may be able distinctly to witness the event.

After the owners of the contending c.o.c.ks have walked into the ring and displayed them, each armed with a long and sharp steel spur, many critical opinions are expressed by the Indians; and the judgments of the old men, who are keen upon the sport, are worth hearing by a visitor.

The spectators having viewed the birds carefully, the bets are made, by calling one of the men who are constantly walking round the outside of the arena, for the purpose of arranging the amounts of bets ventured on either of the birds. Giving him the money with which you back your opinion, he generally quickly finds, or may at the moment hold in his hand, the money ventured by some one else on the other c.o.c.k, and apprises you of the arrangement. But should your c.o.c.k chance to be a favourite, and the broker be unable to arrange an equal bet against the other, he tells you so before the set-to begins, and returns your money if you are not disposed to give odds.

In general the conflict does not last long: in from about two to five minutes after the set-to, one or other of the birds is pretty sure to be either killed, or so badly wounded by the steel spur as to show he has had enough of it, and to give in. Until this happens, the utmost quietness is maintained by the people, and their intense interest is only shown by their outstretched necks and eager looks, as well as by their muttered exclamations at the various stages of the fight; at the end of which, of course, the gainers are noisy, and in high spirits at pocketing the money, which is heard clinking all round.

The amount of money staked on the issue is never very large; at least, I have not seen more than eighty or a hundred dollars staked in any c.o.c.kpit, and the usual bet is an ounce of gold, or nearly four pounds.

Chance, in a great measure, appears to decide the event; as an early blow with the sharp spur is quite sufficient to cripple the bird which receives it so much as to determine the fate of the battle. Quickness and game no doubt tell to some extent, but not very much. Of course, the breeding of c.o.c.ks engages a good deal of attention by those interested in the amus.e.m.e.nt; but with the details of it I am not acquainted.

Many of the Indians, however, appear to be more fond of a good c.o.c.k, and to display more anxiety about it, than would be shown by them to their wives and children, who are not objects of nearly so much attention.

Although extravagantly fond of all games of chance, none of them appears to be so captivating as the c.o.c.kpit, which ranks as their chief pa.s.sion. Of games at cards, the princ.i.p.al one is _monte_, the playing of which is sometimes carried on to a great extent, which has caused such distress that the law has wisely endeavoured to stop the evil, by enacting severe fines and punishment against those caught playing at it. Houses suspected of carrying it on, are at all times subject to a visit from the alguacils, all the people found in them being carried off to jail.

But notwithstanding these measures, it is found impossible to put gambling down entirely, and some of the alcaldes, knowing the inutility of attempting to do so, habitually give private instructions to their policemen not to hunt for people playing _monte_, and not to molest them if found doing so. Tresilla, tresiete, &c., are names of other games at cards commonly played at Manilla.

Billiards is also a favourite game of the Indians, whose play differs in some particulars from ours, and from the usual Spanish game, which is also dissimilar to ours. Tables are scattered throughout the town, entirely for the use of the native population, some of whom show considerable dexterity.

Although bull-baiting used many years since to be an amus.e.m.e.nt here, it is never heard of now, having quite gone out of fashion. Neither are the bull-fights, as managed in Spain, practised here, probably from the effects of the climate on the men, who would not much relish a combat with one of the small, but spirited and powerfully shaped bulls of the country.

The considerable number of officers of the troops, and other government _empleados_, are acquisitions to the society of the place; for being princ.i.p.ally half occupied people, they are almost obliged to have recourse to amus.e.m.e.nts to kill the time, which would otherwise hang very heavy on their hands; and princ.i.p.ally to their exertions must we attribute the means of enjoyment, such as they are, which are now available here.