Iloilo, July 14, 1905.

We are having much cooler weather now, the thermometer sometimes as low as 77°, and hardly ever above 80°, and at night it has even been down to 64°. We have had some spells of hot sunshine, which have brought the flowers out in the few gardens and the cemeteries. We get a trayful now and then of all sorts of queer-looking blossoms, mostly bright reds and yellows, with no smell, and very gaudy and handsome. Many of them I have seen in hothouses at home, especially one big bright yellow funnel-shaped flower; but I don’t know any of their names, except the native words told me by the charming white-haired old Filipino gardener who brings them. Amongst the last lot was a thing exactly like a large periwinkle, which made me think at once of the garden at home, and some stuff like May-blossom, which made me feel more homesick than ever! They are beautiful, all these flowers, when they come in fresh, but there is no scent about them, and they seldom live twenty-four hours. One I do recognise, and that is the Canna lily, which I have seen in hothouses at home, and some irises of different sorts. I am feeling much better, so we went for a drive yesterday between the showers, but got caught in two tremendous squalls—one in the town and one on the Molo road. The calesa has a hood, which is raised on crooks, and one can shut oneself in altogether in heavy rain, with an arrangement of waterproof curtains, the reins passing through a hole in the high apron. It looks so funny, in wet weather, to see the bottled-up calesas going about, being driven as by magic, with the miserable sota (groom) trying to make the best of his narrow perch behind.

The roads were a maze of huge pools of water, through which we just splashed anyhow, and all the palm-groves were brilliantly green, and full of new little fairy lakes, which looked so lovely that they were well worth the discomforts of the drive. Near the huge Priests’ College, a little way out of Iloilo, we saw some carabaos having a glorious time in various new pools. They looked very picturesque, with their great dark curved horns, standing out against the shining water and the green grass. The greenness is wonderful—too wonderful. There is no beauty of purples and soft blues about a wet day here; it is all grey and green, and even the little lakes in the palm-groves are very garish, and all exactly alike. One longs for a change of colouring, and these crude tints get on one’s nerves like an oleograph in a hotel.

Talking of nerves, the perpetual sounds were added to, as soon as the rainy season set in, by the bell-like voices of countless frogs, singing in every ditch and pool. They sing in the day, but at night they are loudest, or else most noticeable, and their melodious notes might be pretty if one heard less of them and a long way off.

A day or two ago Sotero came to me saying that a woman was at the door wanting to sell me a ring. I said I would look at it; so he went off and brought me a dirty little piece of newspaper, out of which emerged a huge pearl set in a very common, florid, claw setting. I looked at the pearl and saw that though it was white enough, it was very rough, with no iridescent lustre, what connoisseurs call “skin,” I believe. I also noticed that as the stone tapered away, and was discoloured under the setting, it could not be worth more than £10 at the most. But Sotero said the woman wanted two hundred pesos (£20), so the incident came to a rapid close. When C—— came back in the middle of the day, and I told him about the ring, he said he knew it quite well, for it had been hawked all over Iloilo; and everyone thought the price asked a preposterous sum. In spite of which the woman refused all reasonable offers.

The pearl came from the pearl-fisheries of the Philippines, which are chiefly in the Sulu Islands, far away South, where the Philippines almost touch British North Borneo. They say the pearls are not very good ones at the best, but none of the best specimens find their way about the Islands, for they are sent straight away to Singapore by the Chinamen who own the fisheries. Here there are oysters with beautiful, transparent, white pearl shells, of which the small panes of the rain-shutters are made; but these shells have no pearls in them, and are of very little value. Besides these oysters, we get all manner of shell-fish—crabs, cray-fish, clams, shrimps, as well as soles, sprats, whiting, and quantities of other fish. Indeed the supply of fish is wonderfully varied and always exquisitely fresh, except on Fridays, when the servants of all good Catholics clear the markets, or even secure the fish before they get into the markets at all. In stormy weather, too, we don’t get much fish, but, as a rule, the supply is a great boon, and one of our chief sources of sustenance. I was astonished to find in Manila that fish was very scarce and dear, and people there envied us the fish here, while those who only knew Manila refused even to believe that we could have such a supply at all!