A Philippine Valet—The Three Days Chinese New Year—Marionettes and Minstrels at Manila—Yankee Skippers—Furnishing a Bungalow—Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes—A New Arrival—Pony-Races in Santa Mesa—Cigars and Cheroots—Servants—Cool Mountain Breezes—House-snakes—Cost of Living—Holy Week.
February 16th.
News to begin with. I have engaged a Philippine valet, price $4.50 per month; a man with a wife, two children, and a fighting-cock, who buys all his better half’s pink calico gowns and all the food for the party on this large salary. It is a wonder what revolutions have taken place in my wardrobe. My heavy clothes, already grown musty from disuse, have been taken out, sun-dried, and laid carefully away. I no longer have to decide what to wear each morning, for it is settled for me beforehand. Everything that my “boy” wishes me to don is laid out on a chair during my early pilgrimage to the bath, and all that is necessary to do on my return is to get into them. It is quite a luxury, and I shall certainly be inclined to bring this cheap gentleman back with me when I return to Boston. My neckties, which have hitherto snarled themselves up in the corner of a drawer, now are [44]hanging from a neat clothes-line, side by side. My books and papers on the centre table are arranged with unnatural formality, and the smaller articles, such as lead-pencils, buttons, pin-cushions, are all adjusted in definite geometrical formation. At breakfast and dinner in the club-house I no longer have to whistle to be waited on, for my slave is always behind the chair, ready to spill the soup on my coat or pass the plum-pudding. These serving-boys all belong to the Tagalog race, which seems to include in its numbers most of the native inhabitants in Manila and the adjacent towns. They all have straight, thick black hair, speak their peculiar Tagalog language, and only pick up enough Spanish to carry them through the performance of their simple duties.
And still the holidays, more or less, continue. About this time of year there is one a week, and just now the Chinese New Year occupies about three days. The business part of the town is quiet. All the Chinese merchants have driven off on a picnic, and it is impossible to hire carriages of any sort.
Manila, on the whole, is waking up, and besides the opera we now have the marionette troupe, something entirely new to the average citizen. It seems there are four sisters travelling around the world with their little collection of string-pulled puppets, giving exhibitions in all the larger centres. Their fame had [45]preceded them, and so the other night when the doors of the Teatro Filipino were thrown open, a huge crowd assembled to see the performance. The stage was a fairly large one, but so arranged optically that it made the figures appear larger than they really were. The actors (puppets) were remarkable for their lifelikeness, and if one had not seen the strings stretching upward he would have taken them to be animate beings. Their costumes were complete and elaborate in every particular. First came a tight-rope walker, then an acrobat balancing a pair of chairs, and then Old Mother Hubbard, out of whose voluminous petticoats jumped half a dozen little men and women, all of whom danced and cut up as if they were really reasoning bipeds instead of material, loose jointed, wax-faced dolls. Old Mamma was especially good, and as she stirred up her little children with a long staff, looked at first this one and then that, shook her head, pointed her finger, and danced with the others, she brought down the house with applause.
Later on came a minstrel troupe, with two end-men, a leader who waved a baton, a harpist, and two other musicians. They all played, and the end-men cracked jokes. Next came a clog-dance between two darkies, and it was difficult to believe that they were not alive. Further on came a bulldog, which grabbed a [46]policeman by the nether breeches and pulled a huge piece out of them; a bull, who chased a farmer and threw him over a rail fence (this took wonderfully well, for the Spaniards go crazy over anything with a bull in it); then a boarding-house scene, with a folding-bed that shut up its occupants inside; next, a balloon ascension, in which a man on the ground was suddenly caught up into the air by an anchor thrown out from the balloon; then the death of the two a?ronauts, who fall from a dizzy height; next, a ride in a donkey-cart by two lovers, who find themselves run away with and get snarled up on the wagon, to be kicked black and blue by the donkey. Finally came a very complete little play of “Bluebeard,” with complete scenery, costumes, and ballet. All of the scenery was of the lightning-change sort, and the Spaniards, mestizos, and natives in the audience sat and looked on with open-mouthed wonder, too astonished to laugh, too senseless to cry, and able but to clothe their faces with expressions of wonder.
The Bull and Tiger Fight—Opening Exercises.
The Bull and Tiger Fight—Opening Exercises.
See page 38.
To change the subject rather abruptly, the captain of the Esmeralda, the little steamer on which I came from Hong Kong, has been good enough to ask me on board his vessel to tiffin as often as she comes into port. As Captain Tayler’s table is noted both for its excellence and profusion, the very few of us who comprise the American colony, as well as all the [47]Englishmen in town, always covet an invitation to spend Sunday in his company and enjoy various dishes that are not to be procured in Manila markets.
Besides the several steamers that ply between ports on the neighboring coast, there is now a large fleet of American ships at anchor in the bay, and our office, which shelters the only American firm in the Philippines, is a great centre for the various Yankee, nasal-twanged skippers, who, dressed in hot-looking, ready-made tweeds, come ashore without their collars to ask questions about home topics and read newspapers six weeks old. They delight to enjoy the sea-breezes generated by our big punka, and only leave the office on matters of urgent necessity. Several of the captains have their whole families with them, and one, who is especially well-to-do, owns his own ship, carries along a bright tutor, who is preparing some of the skipper’s sons for college, and has transformed the vessel into a veritable institution of learning. On nearly every evening the whole fleet in a body go to some one ship, sing songs and have refreshments, and the other night Governor Robie was the host. Being invited to partake of the festivities, we two Yankees went off into the bay at about sunset, ate a regulation New England dinner, with rather too much weight to it [48]for hot climates, and met all the belles of the fleet. The moon overhead was full, and with a good piano, violin, hand-organ, and a couple of ocarinas, giving vent to sweet sounds, we had an impromptu dance on the quarter-deck. We stayed out on the ship of our host and hostess all night. They apologized because the bunks in the state-rooms assigned to us were so hard, little realizing that we couldn’t sleep worth a continental on account of their being so ridiculously soft after our Philippine cane arrangements.
Everybody is talking horse now, and business will be at a standstill during the first few days of the coming month, when the pony races take place at the suburban course in Santa Mesa. As a result, every afternoon that some of us do not go rowing or play tennis, we adjourn to the race-track, and, in company with groups of Spaniards and wealthy mestizos, watch the smart ponies circle around the track.
And, speaking of the race-course, I have just made arrangements with one of my new friends to take a bungalow situated on a low rise that backgrounds the track at the quarter-mile post. It stands, prettily shaded by bamboo-trees, on practically the first bit of upland that later grows into the lofty mountains of the interior, and the view off over the race-course and low-lying paddy-fields, squared off into sections, [49]toward the city, is most picturesque. On another side we look off over the winding river toward the mountains, which hardly appear five miles away, and still another view is a bamboo grove, against which is backed up our little stable with various outbuildings, including the kitchen. A broad veranda runs entirely around the main building, where the living-rooms are located, and Venetian roll-blinds let down from the piazza-roof keep off the afternoon sun.
Yesterday I had my first experience in making extensive purchases of furniture, and was interested to see about twelve coolies start off from the city toward our country residence, three miles away, loaded down with beds, tables, chairs, and other articles. Four of them started off later on with the upright piano balanced on a couple of cross-sticks resting on their shoulders, and trotted the whole distance without sitting down to play the “Li Hung Chang March” more than twice. These living carriers rather take the place of express wagons in the East, and a long caravan of furniture-laden Celestials, solemnly going along through the highway at a jog-trot, is no uncommon sight. We shall need dishes, knives, pots and kettles, and a whole World’s Fair of trumpery, before we get started, and I shall have to be busy with a Spanish dictionary, in order to get familiar with the right names for the right things. [50]
You have asked me how the mosquitoes fare upon the newly arrived foreigner. To tell the truth, I have not seen more than half a dozen since coming to Manila, and those all sang in tune. Everybody sleeps under nettings, of course, but so far I have not seen as many biters flying around at night as there are in the United States of America. To be sure, one sees a good many lizards hanging by the eye-teeth to the walls, or walking about unconcernedly up-side-down on the ceilings, but they do good missionary work by devouring the host of smaller bugs, and it is one of our highest intellectual pursuits here in Manila to stretch out in a long chair and go to sleep gazing upward at these enterprising bug-catchers pursuing their vocation. And, now and then, from some piazza-roof or ceiling will drop on your face a so-called hairy caterpillar whose promenade on one’s epidermis will cause it to swell up in great welts that close one’s eyes and ruffle the temper.
Rats are more numerous than mosquitoes, and the other day, on my opening a drawer in some of our office furniture, three jumped out. The office was transformed into an impromptu race-course, and all hands were called to take part in the slaughter. But Manila doors are loose-jointed, and the rodents escaped somewhere into the next room. Since then I have had the legs sawed off of my desk, so that [51]these literary beggars, who delight to eat up one’s valuable papers, should not climb in and make a meal off of my private cable code—a thing which they started to do some time ago. They have already several times run off with the candle which was used for heating sealing-wax, and possess such prowess that they even took it out of the candlestick.
We had a new arrival at the club lately in the person of a young Englishman who came fresh from Britain. Someone had stuffed him with tales of indolent life in the Far East, for he came in to his first dinner at the club clad only in pajamas and green carpet-bag slippers. He also thought that the Spanish language consisted in adding final a’s to words in the English tongue and shouted all over the club next morning for sopa, sopa, with which to cleanse himself. But the servant brought him a plate of soup, and he is now trying to remember that soap in Spanish is translated by jabon, not sopa. Jamon, the word for ham, however, is close enough to give him trouble and he will no doubt ask for soap instead of ham at our next repast.
March 16th.
The pony races came off with great éclat on the first four days of this month, and were decidedly interesting. All Manila turned out, and such a collection of [52]carriages I have never seen. All the Spanish ladies put an extra coat of paint on their complexions, and, dressed in their best bibs and tuckers, made somewhat of a ghastly show in the searching light of early afternoon. The high, thatched-roofed grand stand presented a duly gay appearance as the bell rang for the first event, and the dried-up paddy-fields, far and near, crackled with natives directing their steps toward the centre of attraction.
In front of the grand stand groups of Spaniards, Englishmen, and sea-captains formed centres for betting, and off at the sides were refreshment-booths to which everyone made pilgrimage as often as the articulatory muscles were in need of lubrication.
Some of the ponies were splendid-looking little “critters” and made almost as fast time as their larger brethren, the horses. During race-afternoons, business in the city was entirely suspended, and everyone who had a dollar took it to the race-course to gain other dollars. As the currency system is all metal, bets were paid in hard coin, and if you happened to buy a lucky ticket in that gambling machine, the “totalizator,” you would perhaps have a whole hatful of heavy silver cart-wheels shoved at you on presenting the winning pasteboard. And it was no uncommon sight at the close of the races to see some of the thinly clad natives whom fortune had favored go [53]trudging home across the rice-fields, carrying a load of dollars in a straw hat or a bright bandana.
One by one the vessels are dropping away from their anchorage in the bay, and by Saturday our Vigilant will heave up anchor and start on her twenty-thousand-mile journey to Boston via the Cape, with her big cargo of hemp. Thanks to our attentions to the captains, they have seemed willing to take home for us any amount of souvenirs and curios, and I have sent along quite an assortment of stuffed bats, lizards, and snake-skin canes, which I feel sure will cause somebody to creep on their arrival.
Manila’s best cigar, made of a special, selected tobacco, wrapped in the neatest of silverfoil and packed in rosewood boxes tied with Spanish ribbon, costs about five cents and is considered a rare delicacy. One scarcely ever sees these cigars, the “Incomparables,” outside of the city itself, and the brand is so choice that but few smokers are acquainted with it. The foreigner in Manila thinks he is paying dear for his weed at $20 per thousand, and some of our professional smokers limit themselves to those favorite “Bouquets” which correspond to our “two-for-a-quarter” variety but sell here for $1.80 a hundred. Below these upper grades come a various assortment of cheaper varieties, including the cheroots, big at one end and small at the other, and the $3-a-thousand [54]cigars which are made of the first thing that comes handy, to be sold to the crews of deep-water merchantmen. A native of the Philippines wants his cigarette, and gets it. Packages of thirty are sold on almost every corner for a couple of coppers, and to my mind the Manila cigarette is far superior to the variety found in Cuba. Smoking is, of course, encouraged by prices such as these, and one finds it perfectly good form to borrow a cigarette, as well as a light, from his neighbor in the tram-car or on the plaza. Even on the toll-bridge which spans the Pasig you pay your copper for crossing, and get in change a box of matches; and if you are queer enough not to want the matches, the man will give you instead a ticket that avails for the return trip.
Suburb of Santa Mesa. From the Veranda of our Bungalow We Looked down on the Rice-fields and Race-Course.
Suburb of Santa Mesa. From the Veranda of our Bungalow We Looked down on the Rice-fields and Race-Course.
See page 48.
Sunday I left my room at the club and moved into our new house out in the suburb of Santa Mesa. It is just a week now since the Chinese cook came and began to christen the pots and saucepans, whose Spanish names I shall never get to remember. He began by rendering me a small account of the “extras” provided for our table, and I was floored the first thing on an item of five cents put down as “Hongos.” I asked him what that was. He spluttered around in Spanish and looked about the room to see if he couldn’t find a few growing in one of our pictures of still life on the walls. At length, being [55]struck with an inspiration, he seized a small fan, excitedly stuck it into one of our flower-pots, balanced on top of it an inverted ash-tray, and danced around, pointing first to the item on the bill and then to the peculiar growth in the flower-pot. I confess I didn’t follow his reasoning, till suddenly it struck me that for our first dinner in the new house we had partaken of mushrooms. Not far off from an ash-tray balanced on a Japanese fan growing out of a flower-pot—are they? The style of decoration in our house is especially Japanese, and, needless to say, artistic, since there are large Japanese and Indian shops in Manila, where one can get all sorts of gimcracks at low prices. Our servants number seven, a small quota for two of us. Although their wages are small, amounting, as a rule, to $4 apiece per month, yet it is necessary to have plenty of them, in order that a certain few shall be awake when wanted.
The fresh breeze, which in the evenings and early mornings blows down direct from the lofty mountains, is so cool that often several blankets have been necessary in the sleeping contrivance. Mosquitoes are still conspicuous by their absence, but the rats up in the roof sound tremendously numerous. All night they seem to be pulling boxes to and fro, taking up boards and nailing them down, and having a general all-hands-round sort of a dance. [56]
Nearly all of the older bungalows in Manila possess what are called house-snakes; huge reptiles generally about twelve or fourteen feet long and as thick as a fire-engine hose, that permanently reside up in the roof and live on the rats. These big creatures are harmless, and rarely, if ever, leave their abodes. Judging from the noise over my cloth ceiling, a pair of these pets find pasturage up above, and I can hear them whacking around about once a week in their chase after rats. They are good though noisy rat-catchers, but since they must needs eat all they catch, their efficiency appears to be limited to their length of stomach, and one night of energetic campaign is generally followed by several days of rest, during which the snake sees if he has bitten off more than he can chew. If the Philippine cats were more noble specimens of the quadruped, I should try to place half a dozen up in this midnight concert-hall, but they are so feeble that I fear their lives would be in danger. It is hardly to be wondered at that these native cats are modestly retiring, when you wake at night to hear your shoes being dragged off across the floor by some huge rice-fed rodent, and I don’t blame them at all for having right angles at the end of their tails.
The only way to get rid of the rats seems to be to buy more snakes, and this is simple enough, for you [57]often see the natives hawking them around in town, the boas curled up around bamboo poles, to which their heads are tied.
Some of our other domestic pets are lizards, supposed to be about four feet long, who sing every evening at 8.30 p.m., from somewhere off down in the shrubbery; several roving turkeys and pigs that belong to the boys that serve us, a cluster of fighting-cocks, and a family of puppies. It is easy to be seen that our establishment is thus somewhat of a tropical menagerie, and a performance is almost always going on in some quarter or other.
I have just completed the purchase of a horse and carriage complete, including the coachman, for $100, and on the first trial we passed everything on the road. The pony is a high-stepper, and rattled along over the ground at a terrific speed, as a good Philippine animal should. The coachman seems to know how to drive, which is a rare attainment among the natives, and so far, though he has run over two boys, he has not taken off any wheels in the car-tracks.
They say it costs a good deal to live well out this way, but that is a mistake, and if one lived at home in the same style the bills would be at least ten times as large. To be sure, it would be possible to come to Manila, board with a Spanish family in the old city, avoid joining the club, and live almost for nothing. [58]However, this is a custom not much encouraged in the Orient, and one cannot properly take his place among the colony of English and other Europeans without spending a certain reasonable amount.
Business is done more on a social scale than at home, and the lowest English clerk in the large houses feels that he must enter into the free and easy expenditure of his better-paid chief. After office hours are over everyone stands on the same social plane, and all business talk is tabooed. The office-boy often calls his lord and master “Bill,” and frequently has a better-looking horse and carriage.
The U.S.S. Concord has just come into the bay and been saluted by the fort. Some of her officers will probably come ashore to breakfast at the club, and it will probably devolve on the four Americans in the city to do what is needful in the way of courtesy to our fellow-countrymen.
To-day is the beginning of Easter Week, nearly all of whose days are holidays or holy days. This is one of the closest-observed seasons of the year, and on next Thursday and Friday, if you will believe it, no carriages are allowed to appear in the streets either of Manila or of the other cities. The tram-cars, to be sure, have of late years been allowed to run, and the doctor’s carriage and the ice-carts can obtain permits. Beyond them, however, everybody has to stay at home [59]or walk; and in former times tram-cars were forbidden and no one was allowed to carry an open umbrella. It seems the proper thing to do to make arrangements with some of the English colony to take a trip off into the mountains, and my chum and I expect to start off by launch on Wednesday afternoon. Our party will consist of five, not including half a dozen servants, who are to make arrangements for bringing the provisions and bedding.
On my return I hope to have some fodder for my pen and relate some of our experiences in the up-country districts.