Iloilo, May 8, 1905.

We were just going to Nagaba when I finished my last letter, I think, and now we have just returned, after having had a most delightful time over there.

We went over in the launch on Saturday, leaving here at half-past four, and to look at the start from here you would have thought we were going for good to China or Japan!

Before we set out, we sent a boy for a carabao-cart, inside which the gear was stowed:—two rolls of bedding; some large wooden cases with household effects; C——’s suit-case with what clothes we had to take; and Sotero sitting behind, carrying a mysterious bundle, with the cook beside him, got up in a clean pink and green muslin camisa and blue cotton trousers, carrying C——’s panama in one hand, and a long sack full of his beloved pots and pans in the other. C—— and I and Tuyay followed in the calesa, leaving Domingo in charge of the house, under oath to mucho quedado (take great care), but rather gloomy at not being in the outing.

At the Muelle Loney we embarked, with friends waving to us from the office windows as if we were going away for ever. The day was perfect and the crossing lovely, but a slight swell made it rather difficult for us to tranship into the small boat we had towed over. When we got to the other side, C—— did the complete and efficient sailorman in stowing the gear in the boat, handing me down (something after the fashion of the Arabs at Jaffa) into the cook’s embrace, and giving orders generally; but he spoilt the whole effect by falling into the boat right on top of me, and bonneting me in my own topee, at which debÂcle the cook showed all his dark red betel-stained teeth from ear to ear, and even Tuyay laughed.

The tide was very far out, showing long stretches of wet sand and reefs, all shining in the sunlight, with strips of very blue water in between. C—— quite redeemed his reputation for sailorising as he steered the boat ashore by the colour of the water over the sand banks; and we managed to get not very far from the front of the house, which we could just manage to make out amongst the trees and rocks, but the water-pipes on the bamboo frames going out into the sea, showed us where to look. The crew and the servants waded ashore, carrying gear, and Tuyay was chucked out and splashed along with them, while two skinny brown ragamuffins made a “chair” of their arms, and carried me—with puffings and groanings, so rude!—to land, and set me down on the beach with a sigh of relief. After landing me and the mÉnage, C—— rowed back to the launch to put the sailors on board, and she steamed away to Iloilo again. Coming back in the boat alone, he tied her up to a fish corral—a sort of wattle fence in the shallow water—and then waded ashore and came gingerly up the sharp rocks.

By the time he arrived I had unpacked, and it was about half-past five, so we put on bathing suits and filled the swimming bath, and the fun began at once. It was delicious, after the long, hot day, to splash about in the cool, fresh water, and we stayed there till it was quite dark, and we could see stars shining in the patches of dark sky between the branches. By-the-bye, I often think how strange it seems to see the same old Orion’s Belt and Cassiopeia looking down on us here. We see the Southern Cross, too, low on the horizon—a disappointing exhibition, and no one would think it was meant for a cross unless they were told so.

We dined early, and were hungry, which was delightful. The cook and Sotero managed wonderfully, so that we were just as comfortable as in our own delightful house. There was a firefly flitting all about the big room, looking so pretty; appearing and disappearing like a tiny fairy light.

Next morning, when I woke up, I heard only a few cocks crowing—nothing to speak of—and some twitterings of birds as well, and I think the latter pleased me as much as the whole trip! In the Philippines “the birds have no song and the flowers have no scent,” they say, which is a sweeping generalisation, but true for the most part.

We put on our bathing suits, had a cup of tea, and were out on the beach by six o’clock. The tide was far out again, with long stretches of shining wet, ribbed sand; the sea all fresh and blue, and glittering in the sunlight. But where we went was still in shade, for the sun had not yet come up behind the Guimaras hills, and the morning air was exquisite. We “ran races in our mirth” along the wet sands, till we got opposite the fish corral, where the water was deeper and the boat was tied up to a bamboo pole.

As we went along the beach, we saw people from the little huts we passed when we were here before, washing at a spring of water which flowed out from the rocks and down to the beach. They were some way off, though, and we were in the shade and they were in the still deeper shade under the cliffs, so we could not make them out very clearly, but we could see their coppered-coloured skins shining with water, and hear them laughing and talking.

We swam about the boat for a long time, and found the water quite warm in the shallows, even before the sun was up. I had brought C——’s panama, which I hung to the fish corral while I swam about in the shade, but when we went back to the house, I had to wear it, as the sun which was then on us is oppressively hot here as soon as it rises.

The fish corral, by-the-bye, is an ingenious trap, rather after the fashion of a maze, into which the fish enter but never have the sense to get out again.

When we got back to the house, we filled the swimming bath, which felt very cold after the sea, and it certainly washed off the salt water, but it was nearly as hard and harsh as the sea itself.

In the early morning a fleet of paraos (native sailing boats) goes across to Iloilo to the market with fowls, mangoes, maize, pine-apples, etc., and our cook took passage in one of these vessels to go and do his marketing, for it is impossible to buy a single thing in Nagaba, where the people only just keep enough for their own scanty consumption. He returned about nine o’clock, and I went into the kitchen to inspect the result of his shopping. The kitchen was in the regular native fashion, just a prolongation of the living-room, with the same split-bamboo floor, through which could be seen the fowls and pigs wandering about under the house. There was no ceiling below the thatch and rafters, and everything seemed very nice and trim—the fireplace being a high table of concrete with holes in the top. In each hole they light little pieces of charcoal, so that each pot has its own fire, which seems a cumbersome method, but it saves fuel, and must be quite enough trouble for a Filipino, who has probably one pot of rice to boil and no more. From the roof hang all sorts of dried fruits or vegetables, and queer little bundles of herbs for flavourings and for medicines as well. I noticed that amongst the things the cook had brought he had not forgotten the day’s supply of buyo. When first I used to go into the kitchen here to look at the day’s supplies, I saw this little packet, not unlike a lily-leaf, tied up with a wisp of twine, and classed it amongst the mysterious little odds and ends intended for flavourings. But one day I had the curiosity to ask, and the cook, with much shyness and shrugging up of his shoulders, told me it was buyo (betel-nut). I could quite believe it when I looked at his crimson teeth, and was thankful the supply was only for himself and not the other servants, for I could not stand being waited on at table by a person with a mouth as if he had been drinking fresh blood. The betel-chewers expectorate a great deal, though they can’t possibly do so more than their compatriots and the Spaniards and Americans, but the red expectoration is horrible, somehow, and I’ve often seen all the pavement outside a house or shop quite crimson with the great splashes of betel-juice ejected by the inmates.

We spent all the morning pottering about and reading, and regretting that we could not carry out our plan of bathing again when the tide was up and deep below the house, as we were expecting a party of English and American friends from Iloilo, who had announced that they would visit us on Sunday morning. But the party never landed after all, which was rather a disappointment, as we were done out of our bathe, besides having no use for a dozen or two of sodas which we had brought over with infinite trouble.

After the siesta, we thought we would make use of the boat for a little trip, so we sent into the village for two men who could row; and they fetched her to the beach and rowed us up the little estuary, past the village and up the river. Unfortunately, the tide had gone out again—very far out—and the river was too low to go as far as we had intended, which was to a convent and church, the corrugated roofs of which we had seen from a height. So we just went a little way up the narrow, muddy river, but we could not see much as we were below the level of the thick bushes that fringed the banks. At last we stuck and could get no further, so we turned back and went up a little back-water, and landed by a queer sort of lime-kiln in a palm-grove.

We scrambled ashore, and walked up a track through the woods of mangoes and palms, till we got up a good height, with a map view of the river winding far below and a glimpse of the roofs of the convent. Down in the valley the land was all cultivated, chiefly in maize-fields and bananas, which looked green enough though uninteresting, but the hills were pretty, and wooded with trees of all tones of green, and the distances exquisite in gradations of mauves and blues. From where we stood, the sea was quite hidden, for we had our backs to it, and the hill between us and it; and the view spread out below was like some tropical version of the valley of the Doons. We went on up through the wood, still big dark mango trees with leaves like laurels—dark and shiny—and feathery, graceful cocoanut-palms in between. The ground was all covered with straggling plants, wild mint, and dead palm-branches, while wild pine-apples grew in quantities, each fruit sitting in a flat bush of spiky yellowish leaves, and looking delicious!

By a very primitive hut in a clearing we came upon some natives, clad only in short white drawers, who were very nice and cheerful; very different from the people in the towns. They knew very little Spanish, but we made out that their chief occupations were gathering the fruit of the pine-apples for food and the leaves to make into the thread to weave the piÑa muslin. They made charcoal too, and all this information C—— elicited in Visayan and a few words of Spanish. I don’t suppose they trouble themselves much about even those simple occupations, and I should think the less thought they gave to the blessings of civilisation the happier they would be. What good on earth can education, whisky, votes, appendicitis, electric light, a free press, frozen meat, clothes, and pianos do to such happy simple souls? It seems so odd to think that in one part of the world cultivated, thinking men are trying their level best to destroy for others an ideally happy, simple life, while at home their one profession is a wish to return to it themselves, and their only idea of a holiday is to go off and camp in the Rockies, where they can approach as nearly as possible to the conditions one sees here in the country places. Indeed, as I told you, far from encouraging a simple, agricultural life, the land and other taxes, and the education they go to maintain, are having the effect of choking agriculture and hurrying the half-taught countrymen into the towns.

But even with the elect, with the Filipinos, the sums of money raised should be spent on roads, on remitting the poll-tax, on reducing the export duties—and then, when a generation or two has been peaceful and well fed, it would be time enough to educate the masses—if such universal education is necessary or beneficial to such a people, or any people at all. In the white countries, with all their thousands of years of progress through Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages, one can’t be sure, judging from the tone of literature that appeals to the masses, whether education has been an unmitigated boon; but hastily to apply the same methods to this infinitely lower development of the human race, is an absurdity that would be laughable if it were not pitiful and dangerous. And it seems so strange to think of a country being governed against its inclinations, not by legislators trained in its problems, but by a body of electors on the other side of the world, not one of whom knows more of its conditions and needs than the first cabman one would hail in London or Paris. Strange, is it not, when you come to think of it?

Well, to get back to our trip up the river in Guimaras, we came down through the woods again, and got into our boat about sunset, rowing back to the beach opposite the house in a pale crimson sunset glow, with long dark shadows of trees and houses falling on the sand, and when we got out at the house, we walked up over the rocks and pools, and saw the little bright metallic-looking crabs running into their holes again. We tried very hard to catch one, but it was impossible, for they run sideways at a great pace, simply vanishing like so many harlequins of crab-land.

We dined early, and spent the evening in long chairs on the balcony. It was a lovely night, fresh and cool, probably not more than 85°, with great stars shining brightly, making quite a silver light upon the sea. Many people from the village were out in the bay, wading in the shallows, and catching fish with spears and torches, shining a light on the water, and then plunging down a spear and bringing up the poor deluded fish. A man ran out from under our house, carrying a bamboo staff about 12 feet long, dipped in something resinous, and flaming at one end, and we saw another man join him, and they waded far out, till the torch was only a little speck of yellow in the silvery night. That was all very nice and primitive, but on the rocks below sat another engaging barbarian, squatting on his heels getting crabs out of the pools, and whistling “Hiawatha” perfectly in tune.

We had a very early start next morning, turning out at half-past five, and packing and breakfasting as soon as it was light, for we had to be back in Iloilo in time for C—— to be at his office at eight o’clock. We had not been able to get the launch to come and fetch us, so, when we were on our way back from the river the night before, we had stopped by the village and made arrangements to take one of the paraos lying at anchor there—long, thin frames of bamboo covered with bejuco matting, tarred inside and out, in shape sharp and narrow as a blade, with big canvas sails and great wide outriggers. The crews of these boats consist of several men, one of whom steers while the others control the sails or run out on the outriggers, for the art of sailing them consists in a very skilful balance, according to the direction of the wind; and breezes here are known as “one-man” or “three-man” winds and so on, by the number of men that would be required on the outriggers of a parao. They are said to be safe enough, but they look very risky, and skim over the water like swallows, also they draw very little water, and can anchor in very shallow places.

We got on board our parao, the Soltero, by about seven o’clock, and had a lovely, fresh three-man breeze, a glorious sunny morning, and I wished the crossing could have taken half a day instead of half an hour. C—— and I sat on the little narrow plank that served as deck; while the other half of the boat, where the “deck” stopped, was full of rolls of bedding and gear, and on top of all, sat the cook still clutching the panama and his sack of pots and pans. The boat towed behind, with one of the wooden cases in it, guarded by Sotero, holding in his arms a large and handsome rooster, to buy which he had asked for an advance upon his wages. I don’t like cock-fighting, and was depressed by the sight of this poor animal; but it would be silly to make a fuss and perhaps lose so good a servant, and, after all, though you can train a Filipino to understand your ways, it is no more possible to alter his being a Filipino by your theories than to wash his skin white with somebody’s soap.

I was so interested in watching the marvellously nimble way the sailors ran out upon the outriggers, first to one side, then we made a wide tack and the sail swung round, nearly knocking our heads off, and the crew rushed over to the other side, doing feats of balancing far more wonderful than anything I ever saw in a circus, for they had not got a nice safe net below them, with a lot of men in brass buttons holding on to the poles and looking up to see if they made a slip. On the contrary, there was nothing but their astounding balance and agility between them, and fathoms of choppy sea running with a swift current, and full of sharks.

They brought the boat to the beach at the end of the street which runs at right angles from our own, opposite the end of our house, and ran her broadside on in shallow water and then up on to the sand, where we could jump ashore from the bows.

The sailors and the cook and Sotero carried the gear up into the house, and when I went into the hall, I had the impression of having been some weeks in a strange country, whereas we had really only been within sight of our own town from Saturday to Monday. So many new things—and yet, though I have written till I am tired, I feel that I have not told you half what we saw and noticed.