Chapter XLI: Letter XXXIX: A Last Day at Nagaba—the “secwar”

ILOILO, _August 11, 1905_.

We went a last trip to Nagaba on Sunday, but only for the day, and were lucky in having very fine weather and delightfully cool, only 80°, with a lovely breeze blowing, and the sky a little overcast.

We roused ourselves up after lunch, and two friends came to the house to join the party, and we sent the “boy” for two _quilezes_. When we went down, I stepped into the first one; there was Tuyay lying in it already! How she knows when we are going out is simply marvellous.

We drove to the Muelle Loney, at the farther end of which _paraos_ are moored for hire, and chose a nice big boat, the _Valentino_, with an upper deck of split bamboo, a rabbit-hutch cabin of _nipa_ matting, and a crew of eight men, and set sail for Nagaba.

The sun came out soon after we started, so we lay half in and half out of the cabin and the shade it cast. It was a “three-man breeze,” so some of the crew ran out on the outriggers and others hauled ropes, while three ruffians sat on the deck, which was 3 feet wide, by-the-bye, and spread out a piece of blue paper, which they held down with their bare brown toes. We could not think what they were going to do, when, to our astonishment, one of them produced a pack of greasy cards and pieces of money and began the three-card trick! They did their best to get us interested in the game, the chief little old brown swindler losing to his confederates all in the best Derby style. We looked on with deep interest, but showed no signs of wishing to take part in the gamble, except for C—— to ask casually if they knew he was in the Secret Police, which made them look quite serious for a few minutes. This remark about Secret Police was no empty jest, for it is an Institution of the Free and Enlightened U.S.A., worthy of Russia or the Dark Ages. Well, after this disquieting joke about the Secret Police, the three-card trick seemed to lose its flavour, and the gamblers shifted billet again, to our intense amusement, crawling along the outriggers, and past the “cabin,” and on to the tiny space of after-deck, where the steersman sat huddled up with his legs round the tiller. Here they spread the blue paper out again, one of the confederates lying airily across the stern entrance, betting excitedly, with an occasional squint into the cabin to see if anyone was inclined to slip aft on the sly. But we never even looked round, so they soon abandoned that tactic and climbed on to the “cabin” roof, where they crouched like monkeys, chattering, and now and then a great flat brown face hung over the edge and looked down in on us; but we got rather tired of them, so C—— leaned out and hit one of them, and they gave that up too.

All this time we were skimming through the water, going at a tremendous pace, the boat leaning over first to one side and then to the other, with the white foam spurting up from the brilliant green sea, the half-naked brown sailors running out on the long poles of the outriggers, and the big sails filled out tight. It was most exhilarating.

We went straight across, a little wide of Nagaba, and then made a wide tack, which enabled the boat to go quite close to the beach, as the tide was high, and we came up right opposite the village. One of the boatmen carried me ashore, and the moment Tuyay saw me leave the ship, she flung herself into the water and swam after me in a sort of tragic despair that made us all laugh very much.

Then other brawny little natives took C—— and our two friends astride on their shoulders and set us all down on the dry sand, and we walked up through the little village of huts, all amongst the babies and dogs and pigs. There were several new swamps to be seen, and everything was even greener than when we were last there, which was before the S.-W. Monsoon had really set in. I noticed, too, that the bushes had flowered, as our friends had predicted, and one of them was a beautiful, scentless yellow blossom, a little like a snapdragon.

We had meant to go for a real walk, but the sun was too hot, as it was not more than four o’clock, so we wandered along to “our” house, through the fields and village. It was delightful to feel the fresh country air, and to smell the earth and plants after the streets of Iloilo, and we actually felt hungry, and began to ask each other what was to be done about food. Nothing was to be had at any house in the village, as we all knew by experience, but by luck we came upon a sort of open _nipa_ shed, where a little Filipino woman was standing behind a wooden tray containing ears of maize, little heaps of rice, and betel-nut, which was by way of being a shop. From her, and a youth who cropped up from nowhere and conducted the bargaining, we bought what the Americans call corn-pone, which is whole ears of young maize roasted. We munched the corn, which was very sweet and tender, and uncommonly filling—after about half a “pone” one could hardly breathe.

A little further on we regretted our haste in satiating ourselves with maize, as we saw a big open shed, with two steps up to it, and all sorts of glasses and dishes glittering on a table spread with a white cloth, evidently a sort of _Fiesta_ restaurant. We cheered up at this, and hurried along with talk of fizzing drinks, but when we came nearer, and out of the full glare of the sunlight, we got a horrible shock on finding it to be the Aglipay church!

So we trailed on, rather despondent, and very thirsty, between the huts and boats, through the deep soft sand, which was unpleasant to walk on. We saw a big _parao_ lying drawn up, hewn out of one vast tree-trunk, which is the original model of these long, narrow boats, and it looked like a huge _baroto_ (canoe).

When we got to the house, Tuyay was greeted most enthusiastically by a little spaniel friend, and the caretakers were civil enough to us, but incredibly stupid about a request for coffee. At last C—— made them understand by talking to them in Visayan, but it is really very strange how very few of the people in the country know any Spanish, and the town’s-people can only say a few words or phrases at the best.

We took chairs out of the house, opened the sliding bamboo frames shutting off the balcony, and established ourselves out there in the cool shade. There we sat for an hour, munching maize, and watching three fowls and three brown babies picking up mysterious food on the rocks and in the shallow pools. One of the babies was an elderly person of five or six, who was “minding” the other two, and one could see that he was older and more important, as he had on a very short and entirely foolish white muslin shirt, but the other two were in nothing but fat brown skin. The tiniest was a very serious and bullet-headed little chap, with thin arms and legs, and a huge rice-tummy. All three mites were squatting about, very busy and solemn, finding some little shell-fish, which they cracked between stones and ate with the gestures of monkeys.

They were to us a source of absolute delight, and it was not till the elderly pastor in the muslin shirt led his flock off to fresh pools out of sight that we went into the house and drank the coffee which the woman had prepared for us. It was excellent black coffee, made in the native fashion by holding the grounds in a little bag at the end of a piece of bamboo in a coffee pot—simple, but effective. With it went large flat cakes of yellowish sugar, called _caramelo_, and she had also produced from somewhere four ship’s biscuits. The latter were rather a relief after the maize, and indeed we thought the meal a delicious feast, though I have no doubt we would not have looked at it over the other side of the Guimaras Channel.

After this, as it was about six o’clock, and the sun was going down, we walked down to the river mouth and got on board the good ship _Valentino_ by crawling along another _parao_, which was beached in the shallower water further inshore, and thence by perilous ventures along those outriggers on which the sailors run about in a gale as if they were on firm land!

The sail back in the sunset was exquisite, all the mountains of Panay dark blue against an orange sky, a young moon overhead, and the air exquisitely fresh.

Altogether it was a most delightful trip, and I only wish we had had more such days, but with only one day a week to choose from it is often too hot, and sometimes too wet to go on the water. Most of the time, too, I have not been well enough for expeditions under the most favourable circumstances, and then, over and above all these reasons is the fact that one seldom has the inclination here to do anything or go anywhere. I think it must be owing to this latter phenomenon that there is no sort of “week-end resort” at Nagaba, for one can hardly understand how such an enterprising people as the Americans have neglected this golden opportunity for a business that, I believe, they understand so admirably—I mean sort of Simple Life Hotels. I remember an American whom I met at home once, in England, telling me a long story about some place in the Adirondaks, where people from New York (or was it Chicago?—no matter) go and live in tents; and millionaires catch food, and their priceless wives and daughters cook and sweep. The story came up _à propos_ the daughter of a millionaire who had just married an English duke, as this personage had been roughing it in the next tent to my friend. I think I may have told you the story at the time. But I have read so much and heard so much about the American love of country life that I am astounded to see how they all sit grilling in Iloilo when they might have a hotel at Nagaba. The truth is, of course, that such an enterprise might be a doubtful undertaking, as every American I have ever yet met or seen, from the highest to the humblest, is simply saving money to get away from the Philippines and back to “God’s Country.”

We are still undecided about our departure, as the _Sung-Kiang_ (the sister-ship of the _Kai-Fong_ and the same Line) has come in before what the Americans call her “scheduled” time. That is a very queer word of theirs, by-the-bye, and they work the poor thing to death, making it do all sorts of unnatural gymnastics in place of good, ready, useful English. Probably we shall wait for the _Kai-Fong_, but whichever we decide for, we shall not miss the Taft party after all, which I am very pleased about, and we have put our names down for the banquet.

They are in Manila now, the first intimation of their arrival having been a telegram in the Iloilo _El Tiempo_, headed “Impresiones de Miss Alice Roosevelt”—who had not been an hour in the Philippines, if she had landed at all, when the impression was what newspaper language calls “voiced.”

Now we have _The Manila Times_ of that and the following two days, which are “all Taft,” of course, set forth in the quaintest concoction of cheap picture-writing, bad grammar, and awkward, slapdash slang. Much about “Miss Alice,”—a whole column of an interesting description of that lady’s every gesture at a race-meeting—in fact she looms so large in the Philippine eye that it looks as if she were here for a very good reason; perhaps to take the fierce, white light off Mr Taft a little. They allude to the latter, by-the-bye, as “the _Secwar_,” which, when I first came across it, I took to be the name of some Indian chief, but it at last dawned upon me that the word was a contraction of Secretary of War, and I have since been told that it is his telegraphic address used as an affectionate nickname.

The American reporter seems to be as virulent in Manila as anywhere else, for before the party had landed one of these human mosquitoes asked a Senator what he thought of “these islands,” but the visitor cleverly replied that he had come to gather impressions, not to furnish them.

The papers are still full of guesses about the true reasons for this visitation, for so many of them persist in the theory that Mr Taft is not entirely actuated by altruistic wishes for the welfare of his “little brown brothers,” but has a wary eye upon the elector at home, and will pose as the Saint of the Philippines just as far as his own interests are safe. I think it is a great shame to say this, however, for it is obvious that he has done the best he can for the Philippines according to his views; and whether one agrees with his theories or not, his good intentions are not to be denied. I had a long talk with a man who has been here in a good business for thirty-three years, and is supposed to know more about the Philippines than any other white man alive; and he told me that, as far as enlightening the Senators went, he thought the Taft visit was a costly farce, for they are to be allowed to see and hear nothing that does not “suit the Taft book.” A week in Manila of meetings, balls, parties, and banquets, followed by flying visits to the principal towns in the provinces and more banquets, all feasting and flags and anthems; but not a glimpse of the miserable, wasted agricultural districts, the abandoned rice-fields, and the real truth of the labour problem. Moreover, their opinion of the self-government problem is to be formed by the conversation of a few well-educated and carefully selected _Mestizos_ in the towns.

The natives, themselves, however, are tremendously jubilant about the approaching visit of their Patron Saint, and expect all blessings to spring up miraculously in his footsteps.

Talking of natives, I am glad to say that our three excellent servants have found good billets, with a rise in importance and wages, and they are all so pleased, poor souls, that we took the trouble to recommend them to our friends. They did not want much touting, for the spotless tidiness of their appearance is an advertisement that speaks for itself and their honesty is patent, for we trust them in a way that no one else dreams of doing with their Filipino servants. I don’t know how the two house boys will get on with impatient Englishmen, for they are both very shy, faithful, simple countrymen—real unspoilt Filipinos. But if they were spoken to sharply, or muddled in their work, they would become confused and stupid at once. Not that there is anything peculiar to the Filipino race in these traits, because they are perfectly familiar to me in many kindly, simple, limited souls in other latitudes. You have to take them as you find them, only hoping, as with the same type at home, that their secret cunning may be ranged on your own side, and that if you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you may perhaps manage to contrive a useful little leather bag if you are patient enough.

_Note._—I have before me _The Manila Times_ of 17th January
1906, from which I give the following extract:—“While the
municipal and ecclesiastical dignitaries, etc., were awaiting
the arrival of Secretary Taft, a Government vessel slowly made
her way up the Pasig river filled with the dead and wounded
from the island of Samar. During the stay of the party in
Manila, four native men were brought in from the adjoining
province of Cavite frightfully mutilated because of their
pro-American sympathies.”