Iloilo, June 5, 1905.

I don’t think I have yet mentioned to you the great excitement in Manila, and in the Philippines generally, which are convulsed by the wind of the coming of Mr Taft, the Secretary of War in the U.S.A., who, as I told you before, used to be Governor out here. He is returning now to the Philippines on a sort of tour of instruction for the benefit of a party of Senators who, so say the papers, have been opposed to Philippine interests at Washington, owing to these interests clashing with their own sugar plantations, mines, and tobacco industries. Everyone seems to think this expedition a very good idea, and it is going to be gay and social as well, for a good many ladies—wives and other relations of the Senators—are to be included, and they say that the President’s daughter, Miss Alice Roosevelt, may come too. Some say that she will come for the trip, as a pleasure party, and others declare that she is only to be sent as a pawn and symbol of the President’s goodwill towards Mr Taft and his schemes.

In the meantime the papers are full of personal descriptions and puffs preliminary of the members of this party, but by far the most popular figure seems to be that of the President’s daughter, about whom we get columns of description and narrative. She must be a very fascinating and charming and lovely girl, for though she is only twenty, she has refused numberless offers of marriage from all sorts and conditions of men, including the “effete hand” of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, he to whom our Princess Margaret of Connaught is now engaged. About this latter affair there is a very long account copied from another American paper—I mean a U.S.A. one, not a Manila paper—where it is said that Miss Roosevelt had declined to be a princess because she will not marry a man she does not love. I think that is highly creditable to her, don’t you? And such a fine example to some of her countrywomen.

This last week has been sunny every morning, and then clouded over in the afternoon, and generally there is rain towards evening, so we cannot make up our minds about our second trip to Nagaba, which has been on the tapis for some time. We were going last week, but put it off for various reasons till to-morrow. Now, however, the weather looks so threatening that I doubt if we shall go at all. We are not without compensations, though, as the cool-looking grey skies are delicious, and the nights almost cold, so that a sheet is necessary, and sometimes even a blanket. In spite of the lowness of the temperature, however, I do not feel refreshed, as I had hoped to do, for the S.-W. wind is very enervating and relaxing, and everyone really feels more languid than in the heat. This wind has unshipped our green sunblinds, as it comes in great gusts, roaring and tossing in the thick belt of high palms that fringes the beach in the distance. The sound of the surf and the wind in the palms is delightful to me, for it reminds me of the pine-woods at home.

A few evenings ago we got into some real country by leaving the trap on the Molo road and walking along a path that led away through some tall brakes of bamboo. These clumps of bamboo are very graceful and beautiful, and the outline of their tapering stems and little flat leaves against the sunset skies always reminds me of that embroidered Japanese screen we have at home—by which you are perhaps sitting as you read this! We passed the bamboos and bushes by the roadside, and came at once to big grass fields and palm-groves, with ramshackle huts dotted about and half-clad native—how well I can sympathise with their prompt abandonment of the unnecessary extras of the civilised wardrobe, and only wish it were our fate out here to be able to wear one garment in a palm-grove! We wandered about there for a long time, up and down paths and tracks, and enjoying wonderful glimpses of glades and green vistas that were like impossible fairylands. There was the pink and orange bloom of a fine sunset, too, to add to the unearthly beauty of the palm-groves, where we lingered a long time, just admiring everything in sight, and smelling the delicious freshness of the wet earth.

We are very anxious to go there some day and try to get a few snap-shots, as a reminder of the scenes, though nothing could reproduce the colour. It is difficult to get enough light, as C—— is very busy just now, and does not get home before six. Eight to twelve and two to six—good long hours for office-work in the tropics! Still, we manage sometimes to get out before the daylight has quite gone, as the days are getting longer, but then it is, of course, too late to take the camera. That, by-the-bye, is another illusion dispelled, for I am sure I have always read and heard that the sun in these latitudes sinks suddenly at the same moment all the year round. I have already told you that I have watched in vain for this phenomenon. I don’t know what happens in other places, but since the sun has come North here, the sunset has gradually changed to quite half an hour later than it was in December. In fact, it may be even later than that, for I can read on the balcony for a long time after tea before the light fades. Of course the twilight is brief compared to the length of time it lingers on at home, and I suppose it is sudden if it is compared to a long summer evening in England, but then you can think of our longest twilight as a flash if you compare it with Greenland!

About a month ago the basement of the empty house next door was taken by a typical Eurasian family—such a crew! beginning with an old father who goes about in a vest, slack, dirty trousers, and blue socks; an old mother, vastly fat, in petticoat, chemise, and slippers; some sons and daughters of all ages, and their husbands and wives and children, and two native servants. The basement they occupy consists of three large rooms. From our side windows we look right down into their windows, and get many astounding glimpses of their vie intime, including fearful revelations of dÉshabillÉ, which are the delight of C——’s life.

This family, who are quite well known in Iloilo Filipino and Mestizo society, and turn out great swells at the band, sleep about on petates (mats) on the floor, in native fashion, and some of their notions of sanitation are indescribable. The old father has a fearful voice, a loud, not-human bellow of insanity, which echoes in our rooms sometimes and quite frightens me, and C—— says I should be still more alarmed if I could understand the awful expressions he is using. They are always having horrid rows amongst themselves, all in slatternly rags in their filthy rooms—in the streets they are well-dressed and well-behaved, in true Eurasian fashion, all the world over. The sons are in various employments, which would keep the whole family in comfort, if not in decency, but one need hardly say that it all goes in Monte and buying diamond rings.

About a week ago, just as we had finished breakfast, there was a terrible hullabaloo coming from the dovecote next door, and we said to each other that they must be having a worse row than usual; when we heard yells and loud voices, and the old man bellowing out even worse words than the awful things he shouts out when he wants salt, or a cigarette, or a sock. We rushed to the side of the house looking on their windows, but a hand was pulling the shutters together, and the screams and yells and oaths were terrible. So we ran out on to the balcony in time to see one of the sons-in-law shoot out of the house, as from a cannon, yelling “Policia! Policia!” and go running up the street to the police station at the corner. A crowd began to collect at once in the street, while heads appeared at every window, and the pandemonium in the house became deafening.

Then, suddenly, a young woman in two garments ran out sobbing, with her hair down; followed a minute later by the fat old woman in her chemise and petticoat, wringing her hands and moaning, and running up and down, till someone caught hold of her and led her away to a house up the street. Then Juanita, the little native servant, with her hair streaming, rushed out with the baby in her arms; and the little girl of six came running in to the people below us, terrified and white and blubbering. Then another daughter—with a white, handsome face like a Bouguereau Madonna—hurried out, and after her a woman carrying clothes, whereupon a polite native clerk stepped across from an office and conducted her to the shelter of a friendly house.

All this time the bellowing and voices in the house went on undiminished, till the son-in-law arrived with a trim blue linen-clad native policeman. They went into the house together and shut the shutters and closed the door, and the noise died down, and the crowd outside melted away!

Nothing more happened all that day, and no human eye saw the policeman come out again. But next day we noticed that the old man was living with the natives under us; and C—— made some enquiries, whereupon they said, “The old man is mad,” adding quite casually that he stuck a knife into someone, so his family chucked him out.

Well, so he lived there for a few days, with the windows of the house next door all shuttered so that he should not be able to see in, and every now and then he roared out “Ramon y Ju—a—ni—ta—aa!” or “Juanita y Raaaaa—mooooon!” always the names of both servants, when the two natives would go trembling to him, with the children for him to play with!

This went on till yesterday, when there was an afternoon of shouting and cursing and futile advice, and the street blocked with carabao-carts, and natives swarming in and out of the house carrying furniture upside down, and trying to force it into the carts broadside on. We hear the reason and result of all this is that the old man has moved, some say to Manila, others, to the next street. I think the poor trembling old fat wife must have gone too, as I have not seen her about again since then. The house next door has its windows open on this side again, and there seem to be more people than ever lying about there—they never do anything—and Juanita-a-a-a still takes the babies out in a large wicker washing-basket mounted on squeaking wheels; and the young men and women look great swells at the bandstand on Sundays and Thursdays.

I mentioned the way these people slept on the floor. That is a curious Filipino habit, but I daresay it is very nice and cool, and the floor can’t be any harder than the Filipino bed. The servants sleep about on mats, generally in the hall of the house, but ours refuse to sleep in this house, as they say it is haunted by the spirit of a young Spaniard who died here when it was occupied by the Spanish Consulate. So they spread their mats on the Azotea, and if I wake up thirsty and go out into the hall for a glass of water, I see them through the open door, lying asleep on their mats in the moonlight, looking like pictures of the corpse on the battlefield, out of the Graphic, and rather weird and uncanny, with their clothes very white in the moonlight, and their dark hands and faces and dark bare feet; but on damp or cold (or what we call cold!) nights they look still more uncanny, rolled in blankets, and looking like mummies.

A friend who was here the other day told me an amusing instance of Filipino methods which happened a few days ago. A policeman came for his cook one morning, with a summons on the part of the cook’s wife for assaulting her. So off the cook went to the court, not the High Courts where American dignity administers the highest justice with his boots off and his feet, with holes in his socks, on a table before him, but the police court where a Filipino tries to deal with small offences.

In the evening our friend noticed that his own cook and not a substitute was in the house, so he asked the man what had happened in the morning.

“Oh,” said the cook, “they fined me five dollars and my wife five dollars too, and sent us away.”

“But,” said Mr —— “you beat her.”

“No one said I did not beat her. But they fined us both, you see, so I was allowed to go away again, free, in time to cook the seÑor’s dinner.”

And you may think that sounds like a sentence out of the Hunting of the Snark, but it is perfectly clear logic to the Filipino mind, and all parties seemed to think the most lucid and satisfying law had been administered.