Chapter XXXVII: Letter XXXV: Declaration Day—the Cult of the Flag—a Procession, Festivities, and a Ball

ILOILO, _July 4_.

This is a tremendous day here, and a universal public holiday—Declaration Day, you know; the anniversary of the day when the States declared themselves independent of the Mother Country. All the town is gay with palm-branches and myriads of Stars and Stripes, while the fun began at sunrise this morning by a great letting-off of Chinese crackers, and Americans coming out on their balconies in pyjamas and firing pistols into the air.

I think the Americans must be a very patriotic people, for out here they keep up these anniversaries with even more fervour, I am told, than they do at home, where they are a tradition of the soil. The cult of the national flag, too, is a perfect passion with them, and I have yet to see an American house out here where the Stars and Stripes do not appear in some part or other. In very many houses the flag is used as window-curtains, as ceiling-draperies, as _portières_, as tablecloths, besides little extra sort of Christmas-cake flags being stuck about wherever an ornament is wanted. One does not see this sort of thing in colonies of other countries, but the American flag devotion is really so sincere that one cannot cavil at its excess. Nevertheless we should consider it odd if the houses of high officials, and of everyone, in fact, in one of our colonies were decorated with Union Jacks in this fashion! Of course the Spaniards laugh at it very much; but then they are, very naturally, rather critical of all things American. One of them was holding forth bitterly to me on this flag question a day or two ago, and when I said that I thought it very nice to see so much patriotic feeling, he waved his hands and replied, very hotly: “It is not patriotism! It is farce! We, who have been born and bred for hundreds of generations on our native soil and love our country as a mother—we hold our flag sacred! We do not use it as furniture!”

I was much amused at his vehemence, but did not dare to smile for fear of hurting his feelings. Instead, I tried to soothe him down by saying that I thought the flag cult was perhaps a benefit as a direct appeal to the elementary natures of the Filipinos. This move of mine was a failure, however, for he burst out with renewed fury: “The Filipinos! What they think of it! Ha! You should hear them!” So I gave him up as a bad job!

To get back to the Declaration Day. The popping of pistols and throwing of crackers into the streets went on intermittently till about eight o’clock, when a procession began marching about the town, and luckily the day is extremely fine, though it is very hot indeed, as, though the thermometer is as low as 84°, there is not a breath of wind stirring, and all nature is very still and bright and shining.

The procession began to pass our house at about nine, so we had no more trouble to see it than just to lean over the balcony with some friends who had come round to profit by our position. C—— tried to get some snap-shots, but I am afraid they may not come out very well, as the camera is damp, like everything else in the house, and has a good coating of the prevailing blue mould.

The first spectacle that came along was a number of American officers on horseback, in khaki, with sashes of any colour they seemed to fancy—pale blue, pink, scarlet—slung round one shoulder and tied in a large bow on the hip. They rode the big army horses, which are no larger than ordinary horses at home; but, as I told you before, they look like pantomime animals after one’s eye is used to the Filipino ponies.

There was some hitch, out of sight, as the procession reached us, and all the officers pulled up their horses and turned round to look back. I don’t know what it was, but they halted a long time, trying all the time to get into the shade of the houses, for the heat was already very great. The men’s khaki suits were dark with perspiration, quite a different colour! Their horses dripped puddles of sweat when they halted, and one white horse was gradually turning _purple_!

The Americans rode in the style which I notice they all adopt. It does not look well according to our ideas, for they slouch in the saddle and flap their elbows, sitting with their legs sticking out straight as if the horse had tar or something on its ribs which the rider wanted to keep clear of. They seem to hold their reins in any sort of way, in each hand and up to their chins being the favourite method, which looks awkward, to say the least of it. After them came one or two Filipinos, who all ride very well by instinct, sitting their horses firmly and gracefully, with flat thighs, and moving as if they were part of their mount, so that it is a pleasure to look at them. The little ponies and horses of the Filipinos pranced and curvetted about in a most engaging manner, which desirable result is brought about by means of an ingenious contrivance, borrowed from the Spaniards, of a sharp iron spike which runs into the roof of the horse’s mouth when the rein is pulled, causing the animal to fret and foam and sidle to the admiration of beholders, who wonder how the rider can be so brave and cool with such a spirited steed.

After this little cavalcade had got past, the procession proper came along, headed by a military band from Guimaras, playing extremely well, and a long column of American soldiers, all in khaki and wearing khaki felt sombreros, such as our troops adopted in the Boer War, turned up at one side and with a narrow blue cord knotted in front, the ends finished off with two small blue acorns. They marched very well, all looking as exactly alike as so many toy soldiers on an expanding frame—you know the things? All very tall men, with long, handsome faces, narrow shoulders, and long, thin legs, not at all a robust type, no wiriness and no depth about them.

After the soldiers came a dozen or so of ordinary civilians in white linen suits and _sombreros_, with stars and medals on their breasts. They were followed by a similar group of men on foot, and these two little bands represented the Veteran Army of the Philippines, which includes anyone who volunteered in any capacity during the War. We told C—— he ought to be in that company, or at least to have a medal, as he was once made a temporary “_loo_tenant,” and fought for the Americans in Samar. I think, however, that the V.A.P., as they call it, confines itself to American volunteers. With the American craze for societies and so forth, the V.A.P. are a sort of brotherhood, and have lodges and badges and meetings, and all that sort of thing. They gave a dance when we first came here, to which we went, and were awfully disgusted when we arrived to find that we had come too late for a solemn Lodge Meeting at which some ceremony had been performed.

After the V.A.P. came a lot of Philippine Scouts, quite the opposite build to the American soldiers, as they were very small, square men, with brown, square faces, high shoulders, long bodies, and short legs. Sturdy-looking little people, and looking very trim and smart in their neat khaki uniforms. Their band followed them, and behind that came the Constabulary, more little square “brown brothers” in white gala suits, with _their_ band.

A string of carriages came next, decorated, wheels and all, with Stars-and-Stripes flags and filled with all sorts of Americans, Filipinos, _Mestizos_, and Spaniards, men and women, a very gay crowd. Following them was the Fire Brigade, consisting of natives marching on each side of an old hand-pump, like a thing on a sailing ship, and carrying a most amusing banner, painted with a picture of a house on fire, where a man in the middle distance worked a hose with a Niagara pouring out of it, while in the foreground a huge woman holding a giant baby sat on a packing case amongst a lot of very small furniture.

Next came a Filipino Base-ball Team, in khaki knickerbockers and black shirts, with ATLETICA in large white letters across their chests, after the fashion of that base-ball team we once saw play in the gardens of the Borghese.

The great feature of the procession was a large car decorated with a quantity of American flags and portraits of Washington, surmounted by a big pasteboard column, striped red and white, on the top of which lay a scroll of paper, held down by a gigantic gilt ink-pot with a mammoth quill stuck in it, and on the scroll was written CONSTITUTION in big letters.

All the men in the Port Works went past, some carrying hammers, and some bearing, between five or six of them, immense long boring-rods for blasting. They were Filipinos, of course; in fact, with the exception of the American soldiers and a dozen or so of the occupants of the carriages, the whole procession was Filipino—all quite pleased and childlike to march about with banners to Sousa’s stirring tunes. I don’t suppose one in twenty of the “little brown brothers” had the vaguest idea what their big white brothers were so rejoicing about; or if they had ever heard of Townshend and the Stamp Duties they would think the commemoration of the removal of a yoke of foreign bad government and taxation was something to do with their own everlasting struggle for independence. Besides this comical side to the rejoicings, there was the absurd anomaly that a great part of the funds for this celebration had been contributed by the British commercial houses!

Well, it was an interminable string of people. The Normal Schools of Jaro, La Paz, Molo, etc., each under their own banner, a long file of boys and then girls in all sorts of outfits and colours, but the girls all wearing the Filipino _camisa_, and many of them carrying the branches of artificial and gilt flowers, which they use in religious processions. It was particularly noticeable that there was no priest of any sort in the procession, nor were the priestly colleges or the Convent Schools represented in any way.

We got quite tired of watching them at last, especially as the whole thing kept on getting muddled up and having to stop for long, weary halts. We came to the conclusion at last that as there was no crowd in the street or at the end of it; there must be a tiger round the corner. But a very literal Scotch friend said: “There are no tigers in the Philippines.”

A dance was given by the Spanish Club last night, and there is to be another to-night, at the invitation of the Presidente of the town, at his official residence, the Gobierno. I am not well enough to go to both, for I have not been out of the house for weeks, and even now it is rash to stand at all till my feet are healed, but I felt I must go to one of these functions, so I have chosen to-night, which is, according to Iloilo notions of etiquette, far the less exclusive of the two, so it will be much the more amusing.

I have been writing this, lying in my long chair in the _sala_, while C—— went out to the Plaza to see if he could hear any speeches or anything funny. He has just come back, and tells me there was a platform erected in the Plaza, where speeches had been rolled off, but he had been too late to hear any of them. A great pity, as I daresay they may have been amusing, because one of the speakers was a rabid pro-Filipino and the other (both Americans) a keen pro-American. I will finish this letter to-morrow, so as to be able to tell you all about the ball.

_July 5._

We went for a drive yesterday, late in the afternoon, and when we got as far as the Plaza, we found a terrific _Fiesta_ in progress—all the lamp-posts decorated with Stars and Stripes and Japanese lanterns; and a huge stage, covered with palms and more Stars and Stripes, put up opposite the bandstand, and full of Americans, while vast crowds of Filipinos surged below—the men in white and the women in colours like those in a cheap church window—and it all looked very gay and pretty. I was very much surprised to see all this, as I had had no idea anything of the sort was in contemplation, and I was sorry that neither I nor the other Englishwoman had been invited to the stand, but I suppose they thought we would not care to take part in rejoicings over the Declaration of Independence although our countrymen had contributed, by request, a great part of the funds for the celebration.

We pulled up and looked on for a little while, much interested in a tug of war which was unlike anything we had ever seen. The two sides, Filipinos, stood on a long wooden frame like a gigantic ladder lying on the ground, and on this they lay at opposite ends, with their purchase on the rungs, and pulled at the rope with no effect whatever to the amateur eye; but apparently some man in command thought otherwise, for a voice suddenly sang out that one side had won, whereupon the competitors all let go the rope and fell quite limp, and then got up and walked away.

They had races, too, and a greasy pole—no, two greasy poles—of bamboo, with a packet of money at the top, and, of course, a flag of Stars and Stripes. Up these the enterprising native youth of Iloilo swarmed, to the intense joy of the onlookers, who howled and roared with appreciation. All sorts of dodges were allowed, which were ingenious if not particularly sporting. One small boy tried to get to the top by covering his hands and feet with sand, with which his pockets were laden and bulging, while the man who eventually got to the money hoisted himself by a device of bars of wood and rope, which betrayed him at once to C—— as a sailor. We very nearly gave up waiting for this enterprising mariner, who took an immense time to get up to the thin part at the top of the pole, where he could abandon his contrivance and get his hands round the bamboo—but he secured the prize, and the people below bellowed with delight.

There were very few Americans amongst the crowd, all the officers and officials being in the stand, with many ladies in light frocks and big hats, while the rank and file could be seen in the bars round the Plaza, not caring a rap about tugs of war or greasy poles, or their “little brown brothers.” In the gaol the prisoners were crowded at the barred windows, getting what fun they could out of the general atmosphere of liberty; and as we drove round the Plaza, I saw a most ragged and miserable young countrywoman carrying a sad, puny baby at her breast, talking to her man through the bars of the prison, where the female relations come and hand food in to the dark ragged fellows inside. She slunk away round the Plaza, and her face was too pitiful for words, she was so gaunt and haggard. We had no money with us, but I doubt if she would have taken it if we offered it to her, as the country people are very proud, and very sensitive about “_verguenza_,” which is Spanish for shame. Very few of the white people seem to understand this _verguenza_, by an appeal to which, as I told you before, wonders can be done with a Filipino.

This little incident put me out of humour with the Declaration celebrations, so we drove out on to the Molo road a little way and then returned, and I had a good long rest before dinner to prepare me for the evening’s festivities.

The day wound up with the ball at the Gobierno, which is a kind of Government House comprising public offices, and the Law Courts, and so forth. It is a big building across the end of the Calle Real, with a large over-hanging balcony or verandah, under which the carriages pulled up on a stone-flag pavement, all muddled up anyhow, anywhere, each one turning and going out in any direction the horse chose, with the usual shouting and confusion and swearing on all sides.

The big stone basement was decorated with palms tied against the columns, and Stars and Stripes, and all up the staircase more Stars and Stripes and more palms.

The ball went on chiefly in the Court Room, a long narrow apartment, where the scheme of decoration was half a dozen huge American flags draped over the walls; and, stowed away over one doorway, a few folds of the red and yellow of Spain. On one side of the Court Room, through wide arches, was another long room, and on the street side was the long balcony, open to the night, and cool when compared to the rooms.

When we arrived, the ball was in full blast with the Official Rigodon, which C—— and Mr M—— who went with us, did not care to dance, and I could not, so we sat in a row and looked on, and I talked to an American friend we had met as we came in. He asked me to dance, but I said that was not possible for me, as my feet were still unhealed, and all bandaged up for this dance.

“Oh,” he said cheerfully, “I guess you are right to be careful, because if you neglect those things they turn into tropical ulcers, which are _in_-curable.”

“Do they?” I said.

“Why, yes, I had a friend who got mosquito bites poisoned just so, and he died of them.”

In spite of this, however, I spent a very cheerful evening, and was quite rewarded for the trouble of going out by the spectacle itself. For some time our American friend remained by us, as he said it was the last chance he would have of seeing us to say good-bye, because he was going back to the United States. We asked him if he were going on leave, but he said no, he was giving up his appointment; which rather surprised us, as he is one of the chief officials here, and has a very good position. But he said he simply could not stand the Philippines any longer, and would rather work for half the pay in any other country.

“Besides,” he said, “I am entirely out of sympathy with the whole thing, and can’t see what we are doing here anyway.”

I said, “But you have the country to develop.”

“Oh, I’m sick of hearing that,” he said. “What I want to do is to go right back to the States and see some development done there.”

“Where do you mean?” we asked.

“Why, in my own State alone there are hundreds of miles of virgin soil which I reckon I want to see developed before these silly old islands.”

“Ah,” I said, “then you don’t like the Philippines?”

“Have you ever met anyone who does?”

“No,” I said, “at any rate not one American who does not loathe the place, except one woman, the wife of a missionary, who says she likes it, but then she spends all the disagreeable season in Japan.”

“That’s so,” he said. “And I guess if I come back it’s going to be on the religious stunt, with no work and lots of _va_-cation.”

The guests at the ball were all sorts and conditions of men, rather what C—— calls a “heterogeneous mass,” but most of the Americans were there too, and several new people whom I learned were officers and their wives from Camp Josman, over in Guimaras. One little woman particularly took my fancy, with her pale, pretty face and masses of fair hair, and a really lovely pink silk ball-dress. She looked so fresh and charming, but I felt quite anxious about her nice dress, as my own black skirt was a source of trouble on such dirty boards, where, I am sorry to say, some of the guests did not hesitate to expectorate when they felt inclined for this national pastime.

The floor, as I say, was simply rough, unpolished, dusty, dark-wood planks, and all the American men, except our friend and two others, wore day suits and boots, while many of the women had on walking shoes, which did not improve things.

The natives were all got up in blinding colours—little, dark, square-faced women in the harsh aniline dyes of thirty years ago—and some of them had on very handsome diamonds. C—— and I and Mr M—— were the only English people present. I believe the others, as well as many of the Americans, all thought the official ball not sufficiently select, which seemed to me a very amusing point of view in a place like Iloilo—or anywhere else for the matter of that.

After watching the ball-room for a little while, we thought we would like some fresh air, so we moved out on to the balcony, where the air was fairly cool, and where the band was stationed on a platform of two steps in height. This was the Constabulary, native brass, which sounds very well out of doors in a procession, but is rather deafening in a room. On the platform were two or three music-stands at which a few men lounged, but the rest of the twenty-five sat and blew (all brass and two flutes) wherever they pleased, most of them festooned gracefully about the steps of the stand; some lying almost full length on one elbow; and some huddled up with their chins on their knees, looking exactly like performing monkeys. One man with strips of black sticking-plaster on his flat, brown face, lay on the steps of the stand, gazing at the ceiling, and playing his cornet in one hand.

There were benches all round the balcony, and on one of these we sat, in company with a lot of other guests, while some energetic and perspiring dancers came out and extended the ball to the balcony, dancing solemnly up and down in front of the band. When some people moved away from the bench nearest the platform, half a dozen bandsmen instantly took possession of their vacant places and sat there, leaning back and blowing away at greater ease. They seemed to be playing instinctively while thinking of other things. One small boy on the bench by us was fast asleep, with his fingers still moving up and down on the stops, which so interested Mr M—— that he got up and put his ear down to the fellow’s trumpet, but declared he could hear no sound coming out of it at all. The other bandsmen watched him do this with impassive, expressionless faces, if they looked at him at all. This was during the second Rigodon, which we could see going on in the long Court Room, and when the last figure was reached, a bandsman suddenly sprang up from a recumbent position on the steps and tootled the first few bars of “Hiawatha,” which they all struck into with a swing, and some of the sleepers opened one dull eye, while the man with the black sticking-plaster on his face was suddenly galvanised into walking up and down to the tune—a sort of dancing walk—in front of the bandstand.

While we sat by the band, we were joined by another American friend, also a “prominent citizen,” with whom I had a long and interesting shout about the Philippines in general, and Mr Taft in particular, which was most entertaining, for this friend was as ardent a pro-Filipino as the other had been anti-Taft and anti-everything. This man was very enthusiastic about Mr Taft’s scheme, as he called it, and when I said, “What scheme?” he replied:

“Why, the way we run these Islands.”

Whereupon we entered upon a hot discussion, for I was all in favour of roads and irrigation, and he was all for school-desks and more teachers. I quoted a paragraph I had seen in the Manila papers, where the public were informed that some new and wonderfully fertile valley had been opened up in the Island of Luzon, and that the Government’s first care had been to send ten thousand school-desks to this favoured spot. Whereupon he said:

“Well, what is the matter with that, anyway?”

I begged him to consider what Ceylon would be now if Sir Samuel Baker had opened it up with school-desks instead of roads and reservoirs.

“Oh,” he said, “I never thought of it in that way. But perhaps our idea of raising these races is right. It is an experiment which time will prove.”

And that we argued too, with a running comment of amusement on the _baile_, in spite of the loud blasts of the band.

Before we left, we had excellent supper in a side-room, where two long tables stood covered with food, and all the ceiling was draped with loops of greenery and paper lanterns. There were plates set out, each with a helping of excellent cold turkey in the middle surrounded by little piles of stuffing and vegetables and things, which we followed by very nice meringues, and accompanied with delicious iced drinks—ice from the Government factory—such a treat! While we were at supper, standing at one of the long tables, a paper lamp flared up and fell in a flaming mass just behind me. C—— and some Spaniards promptly stamped it out. But some of the women were frightened, so the Spaniards sang out:

“Terminado! Terminado!”

And everyone went on eating again.

A little group of natives and _Mestizos_ came into the room immediately afterwards, but they had not seen the lamp fall, and one of the women in a light trailing gown passed over some smouldering fragments. C—— sprang forward and said in Spanish:

“Your dress! There has been a lamp burnt there!” And pointed to the sparks.

But the woman merely glared over her shoulder, as if he had offered her some insult. I could gladly have stuck my fork into her impudent, bold, brown face, and can’t, as yet, see why in the Eternal Fitness of Things she did not catch fire and flare up.

After supper we watched a waltz and a two-step, and then went away about twelve.

On our way out I passed one of the alcove openings into the inner room, where I saw a sad, white Bouguereau Madonna face looking up at a man bending down, and recognised one of the heroines of the late _funcion_ (a delightful Spanish slang word) next door. So I perceived that the Marble Misery was a chronic pose, and nothing at all to do with her relations stabbing each other. Only, I must say she looked more “in the picture,” running down the street with her hair streaming, than in a bright ball-room.

We had gone to the _baile_ in a hired _quilez_, as we did not want to take our own frisky pony out on such a night of Chinese crackers underfoot and rockets overhead, and we had told the _quilez_ man to come back for us. To our astonishment, he did so. Not that it was much of a treasure in the way of a carriage, for it was so badly balanced that our weight at the back would have lifted the pony clean off the ground if the driver had not kept the balance by squatting on the shafts over the pony’s tail. The little animal tore along, and it was a wonder and a mystery to see how the driver stuck on at all. It was probably chiefly done with his toes, for Filipino toes stand apart, supple like fingers, and are used in the most marvellous and uncanny ways. In the streets the Filipinos wear, or ought to wear, only slippers of gaudy velvet, called _chinelas_, but many of them now affect stockings and pointed shoes, which I think must be one of the most doubtful blessings of civilisation. In the procession I noticed many of the little school girls and boys with stockings on and awful shoes, and one or two of the little girls even wore hats, but, if I described them to you, you would not believe me!

Well, have you ever had such a long letter in your life? And yet there is any amount more to tell you if I only had the energy to write it.