Chapter XX: Letter XVIII: The Return Voyage and My Companions

S.S. “BUTUAN,” _March 12, 1905_.

I will begin a letter to you now, as I may not have much time for writing just after I get home. Not that there is really any fear of my letter to you coming off second best in any case! You say how much you like my letters, and what a pleasure they are to you, but they can’t be half such a treat as yours are to me. I can’t tell you what it is to hear all the home news, and about the frosty days, and the Christmas shops, and the cold, jolly winter, and all the things one longs for out here with a longing that is absolutely painful in this everlasting, sweltering heat.

Talking of heat, I don’t think I told you about a place above Manila away inland, called Benguet? It is nick-named the Simla of Manila because it is a cool region, high up in the mountains, where there are pine trees, and frost at night, and fireplaces in the houses. This resort is not much good to the average person, however, for it is three days’ journey from Manila by rail and road—when the said road is not swept away, which is its usual condition—and the trip costs more than to go to Japan. The governor and the whole administration move up _en masse_ in the hot season, and they have very nice houses, but there is not much in the way of accommodation for mere mortals. This is the only attempt at “hills” in the Philippines, which is a great pity, but then there are no roads, and the places away from the big towns are not at all safe. Even round about Manila the country is infested with what are officially called _Ladrones_ (robbers), who are really Insurgents, and quite recently the wife of a Filipino official was kidnapped, and there was a great fuss about it.

The _Butuan_ is, on this trip, even less of a floating paradise than when I came in her, for, on arriving on board yesterday, I found to my horror that she was simply swarming with a Filipino boys’ school going on an Easter outing to Iloilo. I wonder if you can even faintly imagine what that means, or even dimly picture the condition of the ship, when I tell you that there are seven four-berth cabins and we carry seventy-two first-class passengers!

I consider myself fortunate in being in the best cabin again, with nothing worse to put up with than the company of a pleasant native and her little maidservant. She, the mistress, is a full-blooded Filipina, and fearfully indignant at any insinuations to the contrary; a fat, swarthy person, with a good-tempered, flat face that is probably handsome according to its standards, and she wears a costume reduced to the last limits of propriety, in the form of an untidy skirt, a spotlessly white loose linen jacket, and slippers—which, I must say, is a most enviable get-up in this temperature.

She tells me she was first married to a Spaniard, who left her very well off, and her present husband is a German-American in the coastguard service in Manila. She is now on a visit to her brother in the Island of Negros. I took this person to be about thirty; but she tells me she is forty-three, and that her good temper has kept her young looking, which I can quite believe, for she takes the most “unpleasant episodes” with the greatest amiability, and is really quite a charming companion. She says that her husband is of a worrying nature, so he looks forty——

“Which is a very good thing,” she says, laughing all over her jolly fat brown face, “as he is only twenty-eight. Did you see him when we left Manila? He came to see me off.”

But unfortunately I had missed this individual amongst the seething crowds that pushed about the deck till we started, and were then bundled over the side and down a plank like so many sheep. I can’t think why on earth none of these places have a gangway for the steamers.

She has told me endless “yarns” about the Philippines and the Filipinos, the chief points of interest being emphasised by a bang of her fan on my knee, which conveys anything to me from her views on the Papal Supremacy to her opinion about the sanitation of this ship, the latter subject taxing even her powers of pantomime.

We have so far had the marvellous luck of coolness, a clouded sky, and wind. The wind, however, is a mixed boon, for it means waves—waves which would hardly count on the Round Pond, but make the _Butuan_ roll heavily, and prove too much for the Filipino boys and youths, who are thick on the ship as swarming bees. They must be thankful to get rid—on the deck, by-the-bye—of the fearful, greasy meals which they stow away with horrible greediness. Knowing that the Filipinos eat lightly and sparingly, I remarked to my cabin mate, who came to sit next me at table, about the diet of these young countrymen of hers. She, herself, like the other native passengers, only eats very little—some chicken and a few vegetables, rice, and fruit. The gesture she made as she looked at the schoolboys was most expressive.

“_Babuis!_” she said, which is Visayan for pigs, and as bad as calling a Frenchman _cochon_. “_Babuis!_ These Government Schools are ruining my people. I thank God that I have no son who will be taught to be insolent and unclean, and to eat like that.”

I asked her what she meant by “unclean,” and she said that the Filipinos wash a great deal, which I knew already, and are very careful in certain small details of cleanliness and sanitation, but that all the new schoolboys were little better than animals.

Opposite us at table sits a very good-looking American officer in khaki uniform, who is evidently not a keen advocate of equality, as he does not open his lips except to the captain, and even omits the little bow which the other passengers make on taking their seats at table. Moreover, he does not pass things, which is not a pretty example to the very polite Filipinos and _Mestizos_ at the table. All the Filipinos I have ever seen have those beautiful gracious Spanish manners which may mean nothing beyond mere politeness, but they do help to grease the wheels of life a great deal. The contrast to the older people of these horrible, noisy, ill-bred young “yahoos” is heartrending,—the first-fruit of the American ideal, dressed in appalling variations on the European costume; cheeky, gluttonous, self-important—just what one would expect of a mongrel Malay who is told he is the social equal of white women.

As I write this to you I am sitting on the narrow deck, trying to get as far away as I can from the schoolboy crowd, whose portion of the deck is unspeakable, apart from the fact that they think I am an American, and spit on my chair whenever they get a chance of approaching within range of it.

At the end of my chair (I brought my own with me) sits my cabin mate, looking at a lot of illustrated English papers which I have with me; and I am afraid my letter must read very disjointedly, as I am constantly leaving off to answer some of her endless and very intelligent questions.

Near us are camped a Spanish _Mestizo_ and his fat little wife, who wears a great deal of sham jewellery and a cotton dressing-gown—a very superior person, with no pretence at veiling her scorn of my Filipino friend, nor of me for talking to her.

The Filipina laughs very good-naturedly, and says the _Mestizas_ think themselves very great _señoras_, but she herself does not find their snubs humiliating, “For,” she says, “I behave as I should, and we all come from _el buen Dios_.”

She is great on _el buen Dios_, and one of the first of her innumerable questions was to ask about my religion. When I said I was a Protestant, she hastened, politely, to assure me that she was very broad-minded on the subjects of heretics, and refused to believe that they were all devils.

I remarked that I thought we were not much worse than anyone else.

“Oh,” she said, “I quite think you are no worse. Once we had a young man to board in our house, who was in my husband’s business, and he was a Protestant. The _padre_ used to come to me very often and tell me the young man was a devil, and that I must send him away. But I would not do so, for I am broad-minded, and I said he seemed as good as anyone else, and, though he was a good man, _el buen Dios_ had made him a heretic for His own good reasons.”

I complimented her upon her breadth of view, and asked her if she were an Aglipayano, but at this she very indignantly declared she thought it very wicked to side against the Holy Father, and one would surely be punished for such heresy. “They are worse than the heretics,” she declared, “and besides that, they are all _Insurrectos_.”

“But,” I said, “if you don’t sympathise with the _Insurrectos_, then you like the Americans?”

“No,” she said, “I hate them,” and she made an ugly grimace.

I asked her why.

She got quite excited, and exclaimed, “Why? Why, what are they doing here? Who asked them to govern the Philippines? Who wants them?”

“Oh,” I said, “but they are a very civilised people, and are going to do you such a lot of good.”

She simply laughed, and pointed with her fan at the schoolboys in the bows.

After a little while she said, “_Paciencia!_ In a little time they will go. I hear all my people saying that the Americans will go.”

“You want to govern yourselves, then?” I asked.

“Yes, but I don’t think we shall be able to. Some other nation will come and take the islands when we are left alone. The Japanese, many say; but we do not want the Japanese.”

On the whole she has made the voyage much more pleasant for me, for she interests me so much to talk to, and though it is uncomfortable to be at such close quarters in the cabin, nothing could exceed her kindness and good breeding, while the little maidservant is attentiveness itself.

At night I wanted to have the door open, but they were both very frightened, and implored me to shut it and lock it as well, which I readily consented to, as they were so timid, and I thought it a shame to make them uneasy, though I felt quite brave now I was no longer alone.

I daresay you are surprised at my accounts of these and other conversations in Spanish, but the fact is, though I have not tried to learn the _patois_ that obtains in the Philippines, I find it impossible not to pick up a good deal, partly from knowing Italian, I suppose, and partly from having to talk it occasionally in spite of myself. They speak badly, though, and the accent does not sound a bit like what one heard in Spain, besides which, there are so many native and Chinese words in current use. Instead of saying _andado_, they say _andao_; _pasao_ for _pasado_; and so on, with all the past participles, besides other variations on the pure Castilian tongue. I found that the Spanish grammars and books I had brought with me were of so little use for everyday life that I gave up trying to learn out of them, and just get along on what I pick up—though I am very shy of it, and would not for the world let any other English person hear me trying to talk! The native language is a queer, guggling noise; when written it looks all g’s and b’s and m’s, and full of uncouth combinations of hard consonants. Some of the names of places are native, but many are Spanish, and the Filipinos themselves all have fine, rolling Spanish Christian and surnames, which were dealt out to them indiscriminately by the priests.

ILOILO, _14th_.

Now I am home again, you see, and delighted to be back in my own house, though I had a very good time while I was away. The _Butuan_ got in at four yesterday morning, anchoring off the mouth of the river, and deck-washing set in at once—never was it more needed!

Oh, the scenes, the sights, the noises on that foul steamer! At the best of times she is dirty and uncomfortable, but no words of mine can convey her unspeakable condition with those awful Filipino boys on board—at least, no words that can be set down on paper.

The air of the morning was fresh, when we dropped anchor off the mouth of the river, and a nice cold breeze blew from the shore, which at first only showed as a black line in the dark, with one or two points of light where the town lay. Gradually it became more and more distinct in the dawn, till we saw the outline of the corrugated roofs, the palm trees, and the shipping on the river, while a faint, steady crowing of cocks could be heard.

Have I told you about the cock-crowing? It is one of the features of Philippine life, and one of the things you must get accustomed to, or lie down and die. It begins before daylight, and goes on till after the sun has set—the screaming of innumerable cocks, for every living Filipino keeps one, and most have two or three.

We got a candle, and I dressed first and went on deck, where I was eventually joined by a tremendous swell in a trailing silk skirt, French blouse with lace yoke, long gold chain, white canvas shoes, and so on, whom I just managed to recognise as my cabin mate.

While we leaned over the rail waiting for the _Sanidad_ (the port doctor’s launch), she told me she thought she should be able to get away that afternoon for Negros, but she hoped she should see me again, and said I must be sure to come and pay her a visit if I went to Manila again. To which end she proceeded to write down her address on a crumpled bit of paper which she pulled out of her pocket, handing me half of it to write mine on. I saw my piece had writing on it, and I said: “But is this not something you want to keep?”

“No,” she said, “it is only a note of my home accounts for last month.”

I looked at the accounts and saw the first item was: “To the _padre_—for a mass—two _pesos_;” then some vegetables and meat, and more _padre_; then cigarettes, and again _padre_, and lower down, yet again _padre_.

“You seem to pay a lot to the _padre_,” I said.

“Ah,” she answered, “for my mother’s soul.” (_Por el alma di mi madre._) “One must get to heaven.”

“But the missionaries tell you that you need not pay money to go to heaven.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But with them one is certain to get to hell.”

If my cabin mate was a swell, she was completely eclipsed by the brilliant appearance of the fat little _Mestiza_, who came up on deck and leaned over the rail not far from us with a really heroic effort to appear unconscious of her gorgeous clothes. Her husband was very waxed about the moustache, and thin and pointed about the boots, and he kept shifting his sombrero with a fat hand, which displayed one very long little finger nail and a huge diamond ring. The Filipino schoolboys were got up in all sorts of suits, some in tweeds, some in linen, and one in bright blue striped silk, which had shrunk a good deal, and a straw hat with the brim made in a pattern like an ornamental cane chair-back. The little chaps were showing each other their clothes, and the older boys, of fifteen and sixteen (or that was the age they looked), were fearfully busy and important, smoking cigarettes, giving orders, and switching their legs with little walking sticks.[5]

About six o’clock the _Sanidad_ came and gave us _pratique_, though I think if he had come before the deck-washing he must have put us all in quarantine for the plague. Apparently, too, there was no objection raised to the number of passengers in proportion to the accommodation, so we got ashore. Long before this the company’s launch had come fussing down the river and out to the _Butuan_, with C—— standing in the bows; and as soon as the doctor’s tour was over, I was conducted across the _Sanidad_ launch into the other, and we went straight to the wharf, and home in a _quilez_, leaving my luggage for the shipping agent to tackle.

When I arrived at our house, old Tuyay flung herself down the staircase into the road with screams and yells of joy, wagging not only her tail but her whole body; and when I got into the hall there was the cat from downstairs squeaking, and telling me some long story about all she had noticed while I was away, and following me from room to room.

This cat has established herself with us for the last few weeks, and now thinks it her right, not to say her duty, to smell everything that comes into the house. She was fearfully agitated about the furniture I brought from Manila, and while it was being rigged up, and other things shifted, and so on, the poor pussy went nearly wild with excitement and curiosity, to say nothing of laying herself out to be tumbled over and half killed.