As a drowning man catches at a straw, so was I eager for anything that would give even slight relief from consuming anxieties and pressing hardships. The natives responded quickly to the slightest encouragement; small change drew groups of two to fifty to give me “special performances.” There were blind fiddlers who would play snatches of operas picked up “by ear” on the rudest kind of a fiddle made out of hollow bamboo with only one string; it was astonishing how much music they could draw from the rude instrument. The bow was a piece of bent bamboo with shredded abaka for the bow-strings. Flutes were made of bamboo stalks; drums out of carabao hide stretched over a cylindrical piece of bamboo. Some of these strolling bands came many miles to my door, and while none of them ever produced correct music, still they were a great diversion.

There were strolling players, too. The first performance was the most interesting that I have ever seen. The players arranged themselves within a square roughly drawn in the middle of the road; then to the strains of a bamboo fiddle, bamboo flute, bamboo drum, the melodrama was begun. The hero pranced into the open square to the tune of a minor dirge, not knowing a single sentence of his part; the prompter, kneeling down before a flaring candle, told him what to say; he repeated in parrot-like fashion, and then pranced off the square to slow dirge-like music. Now the heroine minced in from the opposite corner to slow music with her satin train sweeping in the dust; though carefully raised when she crossed the sacred precincts of the square, and in a sauntering way, with one arm akimbo and the other holding the fan up in the air, she took the opposite corner and the prompter told her what to say. In the meantime the candle blew out; it was relighted; the prompter found his place and signaled to the hero to come on. From the opposite side again, with a bow and hand on heart, the lover repeated after the prompter his addresses to the waiting maiden. She pretended to be surprised and shocked at his addresses, fainted away and was carried off the stage by two women attendants; the lover with folded arms looked calmly at the sad havoc he had wrought. Now a rival suitor sprang into the ring and with a huge bolo attacked number one and killed him. The heroine was now able to return. She did not fall into the arms of number two. She only listened placidly to the demand of how much she would pay to secure so splendid a man as the one that could bolo his rival. The parents finally entered and settled the difficulty. The play closed with the prospect of a happy union. The company dispersed, the women and girls walking on one side of the road with the torches in their hands, and the men on the other, in two solemn files. There was no chattering or laughing; yet they all felt that they had had a most delightful performance.

Two or three concerts given at a neighboring town were very creditable, but only the better class attended; nine-tenths of the people resort to these crude, wayside performances. They look on with seeming indifference; there is never a sign of approval, much less an outburst of applause. They seem to have no place in their souls for the ludicrous, the comic, or the joyous. They were shocked by my smiles and peals of laughter. They have a strange preference for the minor key in music, for the dirge. No wonder when our bands would play lively music that they were quite ready to take up the catchy airs, but they would add a mournful cadence to the most stirring of our American airs. After awhile I found that the music oftenest rendered by the cathedral organ was the Aguinaldo March. I took the liberty to inform the commanding officer and that tune was stopped. After the surrender, to my great surprise and joy, the same organ rolled out “America”; it did thrill me, even if it was played on a Filipino instrument and by a Filipino.

Little boys often came with tiny birds which they had trained to do little tricks. One had snakes which he would twist around his bare body. And never was there a day without a cock fight. Sometimes the birds were held in check by strings attached to them, but it was a common occurrence to see groups of natives watching their birds fight to the finish at any time of day, Sundays not excepted. And they will all bet on the issue if it takes the last cent they have. They do not seem to enjoy it in a hilarious manner at all. It is serious business, without comment or jovial look or act. No one is so busy that he can not stop for a cock fight.

There are many kinds of monkeys on the islands. It is common to domesticate them, to train them to do their master’s bidding; they become a part of the family, half plaything, half servant. Parrots, too, are adopted into the household and learn to speak its dialect; they are almost uncanny in their chatter and they, too, do all kinds of tricks at the bidding.

I was daily importuned to buy monkeys, parrots, cocks, or song birds. I took a tiny bird that was never known to so much as chirp, but he grew fond of me, would perch upon my shoulder or would turn his little head right or left as if to ask if I were pleased with his silent attentions. The last morning of my stay in Jaro I went to the window and set him free but he immediately came back and clung to my hand. I took him to Iloilo and left him with the nurses; he lived only a day.