According to the Spanish calendar in my possession, there is a festival for every day in the year. There are services every morning at seven, every evening at five; often there are special grand festivals. The Jaro church has a wax figure of the Savior and this figure is dressed for various festivals in various ways; sometimes in evening dress, with white shirt, diamond stud, rings on the fingers, patent leather shoes, and a derby hat. This figure was placed on a large platform and either carried on the shoulders of men or put on a wagon and drawn by men. Once I saw the cart pushed along by a bull at the rear. This procession would form at the Cathedral door, march around the square and then usually go three or four blocks down toward the house where the priest lived, and by that time it would be very nearly dark and they would light their candles and return and go about the square again before going into the Cathedral.

Sometimes the figure was dressed in royal robes with long purple mantle and gilded crown upon the head; on Good Friday it lay in a white shroud as if in death; on Easter day it was arrayed in flowing white robes and was brought from the cemetery into town and borne at the head of a great parade. Those who could afford to do so would set up a special shrine in front of their homes, adorned with flowers and household images. The priest would, as a special favor, have special services before these shrines, and the more money spent on these shrines and the more paid to the priest the more distinguished the citizen. For days before the natives were busy making long candles out of carabao tallow. Some of these candles, huge and crude, would weigh four or five pounds. None of the so-called common people or the poor class would take part in any of these wonderful parades unless they were able to wear good clothes and have long trains to their dresses. I never saw any one in these processions who was at all poor; the poor simply stand by the roadside and look on. I asked my Filipino woman why she did not join; she said she would just as soon as she could get a dress with a train. It was not many weeks before she was in the procession, having earned the train by laundry work for the officers and soldiers. For the men, it was their joy to be able to purchase a derby hat. I never knew there could be so many kinds of derbies as I saw on the heads of these natives. It was said that a ship-load of them was brought over once, and they so charmed the male population that from that time on they all aspired to own a derby, no matter how ancient its appearance or of what color it might be. And no matter if they did not have a shirt to their back, if they had on a good stiff derby hat, they were dressed for any occasion and to appear before anybody.

The priests wear, first, a long, plain white robe, over this a black cassock, then a white cotta; and the more richly it is embroidered the better they like it. There was with this white cotta a white petticoat plain at the top and ruffled at the bottom. I did not know the names of the outer vestments but they were all embroidered. I offered to buy one of the heavily embroidered vestments from a priest but he refused, saying that it was very hard to get that kind of cloth embroidered so beautifully. He gave me one of the Filipino skirts; it was badly worn, but I kept it as a curiosity. Not knowing very much about the Roman church, there were a great many things done every day that I could not understand; for instance, when a priest went out in a closed carriage attended by two or three boys he would come from the church door with one of the boys in front of him ringing a bell vigorously. He would ring this bell just as hard as he could until the priest would get inside with his attendants and then they would drive away. When they returned they would go through this same performance of ringing this bell until they got inside of the church. I saw this many times and once asked a Roman Catholic soldier what it meant; he said he did not know.

It may be that these people need to be terrorized by the priests; certain it is that, when a priest walks through the village or when any of the people see him, they kneel and kiss his hand, if he is so gracious as to honor them with the privilege. The people bow down before him and reverence him though he may at any moment lift his cane and give them a good whack over the head or shoulders. I never saw this done, but several of our men told me they had seen it; and one captain told me that he saw the priest take a huge bamboo pole and knock a man down because he failed to get into the procession in double-quick time. They do literally rule these people with the rod.