Hotel ——, Iloilo, August 22, 1905.

We are up-rooted at last, you see, out of our own delightful house, and enduring the cooking and service of the best hotel this place has to afford, while we wait for the Kai-Fong, which is reported to be loading hard wood at CebÚ.

This is not really such a bad place for Iloilo, which means that it compares unfavourably in comfort, cleanliness, and sanitation with a second-class Commercial in a small town in Spain. However, I have a very nice big cool room, opening on to a broad balcony, where little trees and plants stand in tubs, and that is very agreeable to the eye, as we are right in the town and not near any gardens. There are four doors in this room, and six windows, so that the room is capable of the necessary draught without which it is impossible to sleep. So far so good, but the Filipino bed has to be reckoned with—in this case, a vast four-poster, with a very handsome piece of carving at each end. That at the head is particularly beautiful, a very free and graceful design of leaves, and corn, and fruit, which I wish I could take home with me. We took the precaution of bringing our own petates and pillows when we left our house, as well as our own towels, and are continually thankful that we did so!

It is the chief hotel of Iloilo, as I said before, and therefore frequented by all the Prominent Citizens and their families, to say nothing of the military, as many of the officers board here. I think they must be such good-natured people not to make any fuss about the dirty linen and unwashed plates, or the cold and greasy food. I am afraid we are not so amiable, for we began at once to have it understood that, as we were paying the prices of a first-class hotel in London or Paris, we expected comfort and some cleanliness, and C—— said very definitely to our waiter that he would knock him down if he attempted again to hand things on the wrong side. This cleared the air a good deal, and when they found we insisted on having things nice, they did their best for us, and really they have made us so comfortable that we are quite patient about the Kai-Fong.

We cleared out of our own house on Friday (this is Monday), and spent all the following day making over the furniture to the various people who came, like Joseph’s brethren, bearing money in their hands. We were so sorry to see the rooms dismantled, for we loved that house, and had lived in it in such comfort, and so well cared for by our good servants. When C—— paid the latter off, he gave to each an extra present of money, which pleased them enormously; and the cook, really quite sad, said over and over again that he wished we would take him with us to England, and asked to be allowed to shake hands with us, which great honour we permitted. Sotero we have brought here to wait on us, as we would not allow Filipino hotel servants into our rooms, of course; but Domingo has been paid off, though he refuses to consider himself dismissed, and I believe he is sleeping in the empty house and standing guard over our big cases, though no one is likely to run away with them, as they take about five coolies each to move. I begin to realise here what our openness to the Monsoons meant, for I have just had to clear out of my bedroom, where I was writing, and come into the public sala (which is really a furnished corridor), because the wind shifted a little, so that it no longer blew into the bedroom. By this I mean that when the wind was off me, I burst into perspiration, my face dripping on to the paper, my hands as if I had dipped them in water, my clothes soaking, and my head beginning to ache and throb. Oh, I can’t find words to express how thankful I am to be going away from this horrible, everlasting heat! It gets on one’s nerves not to be able to move a chair, to walk two yards without dripping at every pore, and one’s clothes feel so irksome and heavy. If one takes exercise it is acute discomfort—if one does not, one is ill!

We are now having the echoes of the Comitiva Taft visitation, and it is really most amusing to see how the popular idol has fallen. Fallen for the Filipinos that is, for the Americans all think him very great and “cute” to manage as he has done, though they are all declaring openly that he should have said all this two years ago, as our friend shrewdly observed to us when we were leaving the banquet. Of course, there is something to be said for Mr Taft, for if he had made such unpopular utterances when he was Governor here, his life would not have been worth two cents a day. All the same, to the lay mind, such subtle change of front is not very palatable, and one cannot help wishing that politicians could afford to say straight out what they mean, and stick to it for good or evil.

The papers from Manila with the account of our festivities have arrived, and I never read such brazen lying in my life; in fact, the reports are so cooked that they leave off being annoying and begin to be funny. The wild scenes of popular enthusiasm, the crowded banquet, the frantic love of the people of Panay for their idol, and so on, and so on. And as to sheer reporting, Mr Taft’s speech (which the Manila people are informed was greeted by the natives with thunderous applause) is given at great length, but the impassioned utterances of the patriot who clutched the chair-back are dismissed in a few mild words. No mention, too, of the ominous banners in the procession, of the note on the back of the menu at the banquet, and not the faintest hint of the one or two hisses which greeted the sentiments of the Secwar himself. So much for the local papers. And if that is the way they dally with truth out here, one can only faintly wonder what impression of this trip is being disseminated amongst the intelligent voters in the far-off U.S.A., by our well-informed journalistic friend and others of his kidney.

The Iloilo banquet, by-the-bye, wound up rather disastrously for American dignity, as the rowdy party at the table near us got up some quarrel with one of the Filipino waiters; there were blows and fighting, and the whole lot were chucked out into the street. This, as you may imagine, has made a horrible scandal, and produced a very bad impression.

About the banquet, too, it now appears that the Filipinos subscribed 70 pesos towards that and the general expenses, and the rest of the community, ourselves included, made the sum up to the 4000 required, plus a grant from the Treasury.

C—— went to see our poor old Spanish friend about something a day or two ago (the ex-courtier, whose visit I think I described to you), and when C—— said that he had not seen him at the banquet, the old fellow replied that he had sent the committee 12 pesos towards the expenses, with a letter of well-wishing, etc., as he thought it was his duty to do so, and to contribute what he could.

“Well,” said C——, “but didn’t they answer with an invitation to the banquet?”

“No,” said the old man, “they did not even acknowledge the money.”

He seemed rather down on his luck about the whole thing, and more anxious than ever to sell his piece of land and go home to Spain to die.