A Woman's Impression of the Philippines. Mary H. Fee

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      Street Scene in Romblón

      Our stay at Romblon was not lengthy. We got out some time in the late afternoon, and proceeded on our way. I cannot remember whether we occupied all that night and the next day in getting down to Iloilo or whether we made Iloilo in twelve hours. I do remember the night trip down the east coast of Panay, with Negros on the invisible left, and all about us a chain of little islands where the fisher folk were engaged in their night work of spearing fish by torchlight. Dim mountainous shapes would rise out of the sea and loom vaguely in the starlit distance, the curving beaches at their bases outlined by the torches in the bancas till they looked like boulevards with their lines of flickering lamps. I remember that we fell to singing, and that after we had sung everything we knew, an officer of the First Infantry who was going back to his regiment after a wound and a siege in hospital said enthusiastically: “Oh, don’t stop. You don’t know how it sounds to hear a whole lot of American men and women singing together.”

      It was somewhere between ten and midnight when a light flashed ahead, and beyond it lay a little maze of twinkles that they said was Iloilo. The anchor chains ran out with a clang and rattle, for our Spanish captain took no chances, and would not pick his way through the Siete Pecadores at night.

      The Siete Pecadores, or Seven Sinners, are a group of islands, or rocks—for they amount to little more than that—some six miles north of Iloilo, just at the head of Guimaras Strait. On the east the long, narrow island of Guimaras, hilly and beautifully wooded, lies like a wedge between Panay and Negros. Beyond it the seven-thousand-foot volcano, Canlaon, on Negros, lifts a purple head. On the west lies the swampy foreshore of Panay with a mountain range inland, daring the sunlight with scarpy flanks, on which every ravine and every cleft are sunk in shadows of violet and pink. The water of the straits is glassy and full of jelly-fish, some of the white dome-like kind, but more of the purple ones that float on the water like a petalled flower.

      Iloilo was a miniature edition of Manila, save that there were more gardens and that there was a rural atmosphere such as is characteristic of small towns in the States. The toy horses and the toy carromatas and quilices were there, and the four-horse wagons with a staring “U. S.” on their blue sides. There were the same dusky crowds in transparent garments, the soldiers in khaki, the bugle calls, and the Stars and Stripes fluttering from all the public buildings.

      As Iloilo was not well supplied with hotels, we women were barracked in a new house belonging to the American Treasurer, whose family had not yet arrived from the States, We found our old friend, the army cot, borrowed from the military quartermaster. There was a sitting-room well equipped with chairs and tables. Our meals were obtained from a neighboring boarding-house which rejoiced in the name “American Restaurant,” and was kept by a Filipina. She was a good soul, and had learned how to make cocoanut balls, so that we bade a glad adieu to the bananas and guava jelly.

      Our own particular waitress was a ten-year-old child, who said “hello” and smoked a cigar as long as herself. In a moment of enthusiasm one of our number who was interested in temperance and its allied reforms tipped Basilia a whole Mexican media-peseta. When the reformer became aware of Basilia’s predilection for the weed, she wanted her media-peseta back, but Basilia was too keen a financier for that. The media-peseta was hers—given in the presence of witnesses—and she somewhat ostentatiously blew smoke rings when she found the reformer’s eye fixed upon her.

      At Iloilo we picked up the word tao, which means “man,” especially “laboring man,” for the Filipinos usually fall back upon the Spanish words caballero and señor to designate the fortunate individuals whose hands are unstained with toil. We had picked up the vernacular of the street carromata in Manila. This is very simple. It consists of sigue, para, derecho, mano, and silla. For the benefit of such readers as do not understand pidgin Spanish, it may be explained that these words signify, respectively, “go on,” “stop,” “straight ahead,” “to the right,” and “to the left.” The words mano and silla mean really “hand” and “saddle”; I have been told that they are linguistic survivals of the days when women, rode on pillions and the fair incubus indicated that she wished to turn either to the side of her right hand or to the skirt side.

      By this time we had begun to understand—just to understand in infinitely small proportion—what the old resident Americans meant when they joked about the Philippines as a mañana country. When we inquired when a boat would be in, the reply was “Seguro mañana”—“To-morrow for sure.” When would it leave? “Seguro mañana.” Nothing annoys or embarrasses a Filipino more than the American habit of railing at luck or of berating the unfortunate purveyor of disappointing news, or, in fact, of insisting on accurate information if it can be obtained. They are ready to say anything at a minute’s notice. A friend of mine in Ilocos Norte once lost a ring, and asked her servant if he knew anything about it. The boy replied instantly, “Seguro raton,” which is an elliptical form of “Surely a rat ate it.” The boy had not stolen the ring, but he jumped at anything to head off complaint or investigation.

      Time is apparently of no value in the Philippines. On the second day of our stay in Iloilo the Treasurer sent up two pieces of furniture for our use, a wardrobe and a table. They were delivered just before lunch, about ten o’clock, and the Treasurer would not be at home to sign for them till nearly one. When I came in from a shopping expedition, I found eight or ten taos sitting placidly on their heels in the front yard, while the two pieces of new furniture were lying in the mud just as they had been dumped when the bearers eased their shoulders from the poles. The noonday heat waxed fiercer, and the Treasurer was delayed, but nobody displayed any impatience. The men continued to sit on their heels, to chew their betel nut, and to smoke their cigars, and, I verily believe, would have watched the sun set before they would have left. In an hour or so the Treasurer appeared, and settled the account, the taos picked up the furniture and deposited it in the house, and the object lesson was over.

      In spite of shopping, time hung somewhat heavy on our hands at Iloilo. We made few acquaintances, for there were few civilian women, and the army ladies, so we were informed, looked askance at schoolteachers, and had determined that we were not to be admitted into “society.” The army nurses asked us to five o’clock tea, and we went and enjoyed it. They were, for the most part, gentlewomen born, and the self-sacrifice of their daily lives had accentuated their native refinement. I have few remembrances more pleasant than those of the half-hour we spent in their cool sala. As for the tea they gave us and the delicious toast, mere words are inadequate to describe them. We became sensible that the art of cooking had not vanished from the earth. After the garbanzos and the bescochos and the guava jelly, how good they tasted!

      In the course of two or three days we were notified that the vapor General Blanco would leave for Capiz on Saturday at five P.M., and some ten or twelve of us, destined for the province of that name, made ready to depart. I was the only woman in the party, but our Division Superintendent, who was personally conducting us and who was having some little difficulty with his charges, assured me that I was a deal less worry to him than some of the men were. I told him that I was quite equal to СКАЧАТЬ