The preceding chapters give but a faint idea of the great wealth of plant-life in the Philippine Islands, of the richness and abundance of the fruits, the variety and usefulness of the trees, the multitude of growths that add to the comfort and convenience of human life. Yet, after all is said, every description of the plant-life there gives but an inadequate idea of the real luxuriance and beauty of the group, and its value from a botanical point of view. These rich and multitudinous islands, seated in the midst of a tropical sea, form, in reality, a botanist’s paradise, a region in which an ardent naturalist might browse for years, and still have new treasures to find.

I am no scientist. Indeed, I have often wished I were, when journeying through these lush tropical forests with their interminable variety of forms of plant-life; many of them of the greatest beauty, some odd and bizarre in appearance, numbers of them unknown to science; the whole presenting the appearance of a virgin wilderness, keeping its treasures intact for the one that can appreciate them. The Spaniard looks upon nature with a lazy eye, troubling himself little about anything that cannot be put to some immediate use. And he has jealously guarded the islands against alien footsteps, putting annoying obstacles in the way of all that sought to explore their interior. In consequence, the Philippines may be said to be in a large measure unexplored, waiting for the botanist to discover their treasures, the poet to sing their beauties, the practical man to develop their resources.

Energy and enterprise are sadly needed, and it will require the go-ahead American spirit to bring about the possibilities of those fertile tropical lands.

And the earth possesses no scenes more beautiful than those to be found in this verdant and blooming Archipelago,—from its northern to its southern verge, this magnificent rosary of glowing islands, that Nature has hung above the heaving bosom of the warm Pacific. Of them all, none is more beautiful than Luzon. the largest and the richest of the whole, with its vast variety of attractive scenery, mountain and plain, lake and stream, everywhere rich with glossy leafage, clustered growths of bamboo and palm, fields of yellow cane, and verdant coffee-groves. Everywhere is wealth of trees, clothing the mountains to their summits, and bordering the long green miles of ocean-shore.

On a smaller scale, but not less beautiful than lordly Luzon, are the many minor islands, such as Panay, Negros, CebÚ, SÁmar, and others of names that would be strange to foreign ears. Here there are no stretches of barren lands, no drought-stricken shores, as in some of the isles of the West, no flat and chalky fields like those of Barbadoes; and even the loveliest of the Antilles must yield the palm of beauty to these charming isles of the eastern ocean. Here an abundant rainfall, an equable climate, a rich soil, and the warm influences of the equatorial waters combine to yield a luxuriant beauty and variety of scenery that must be observed to be appreciated.

Tropical scenery cannot be pictured in words. It must be seen to be comprehended. One need not, too, go beyond the environs of Manila—that Venice of the East, with its labyrinth of canals and estuaries,—through which the tides of the broad bay daily ebb and flow,—and with its wealth of brilliant flowers and tropic verdure—to imagine oneself in a new world. Its surroundings are a dream of beauty.

Take any of the roads that run outward from the city. Say, starting from the Malecon promenade: one passes through stretches of country verdant with groves of graceful bamboos, lofty cocoanut palms, flowing-leaved plantains, and all the wonderful variety and luxuriance of tropical vegetation. Upon it the eye gazes unsated, the leaves and flowers alike being rich and gorgeous in tint and form. Often have I wandered, entranced, up the eddying Pasig, enraptured by the beauty of its scenery and the charm of its coloring, viewing, also from its leafy banks the splendors of sunset skies, grand and glowing to a degree seldom seen in temperate zones.

Further inland the mountain scenery never fails to charm, with the varied pictures presented by its forest-growth. A grotesqueness of form is often assumed by the trunks and limbs of tropical trees, and this, with the glossy green foliage, the rich hues and attractive shapes of the blossoms, the novel forms and colors of the fruits, the dash and sparkle of mountain streams, here and there breaking into lovely cascades, all co-ordinated to the eye, compose a spectacle of beauty seldom excelled.

Of all those plants, the tall and graceful bamboo ranks among the most beautiful. Everywhere it is found, growing in groups and clusters, scattered with great profusion and variety over hill and plain, along the streams, and around the native huts and villages. At the slightest breeze its fleecy tops and supple branches wave gracefully in the air, giving to the foliage the charm of perpetual motion. In addition, too, to its almost endless variety of uses, it has a mission beyond that of utility,—the mission of beauty, and it may justly be viewed as one of the choicest decorations of the island scenery.

The bamboo never grows monotonous. It presents forms and colors of wonderful attractiveness and variety, and so fully dealt with has it been by the brush of the painter and the pen of the poet, that it might well be given a fine-art gallery and a library of its own.

In the depths of the forest, and along the streams, beautiful orchids abound; here clustered on stately trees so dense of growth that the sun’s rays scarcely penetrate their foliage; there giving life and color to the ground, and of such odd and amazing forms, that one often seems looking rather upon flowering birds and insects than upon plants. Here and there one finds oneself amid the spreading roots of the balete tree (Ficus Indica), from whose broad buttresses rises the mighty trunk, of such girth and even rotundity, that the natives make cart-wheels from sections of it. Down from the boughs, sixty feet in air, hang the rope-like lianes, descending, like nature’s cordage, to the ground, while to the limbs cling orchids and other foreign growths, until the entire great tree seems a botanical world in itself.

I have passed hours wandering spellbound in the forest, or gazing with eyes of wonder and delight into its silent depths. Yes, little of the poet as I have in my make-up, I, too, have been taken prisoner by a beauty and a grandeur that I found it difficult to tear myself away from.

And these scenes are not merely local. Indeed, wherever one goes into the rural regions of the islands he finds the same amazing prodigality of tropic growth. There are thousands of square miles of dense forest within which the foot of the white man has rarely ever set; thousands perhaps upon which none but the natives have ever gazed; costly woods, whose value can be reckoned only in millions of dollars. Valuable herbs, medicinal plants, and hot springs abound; and the naturalist and the economic botanist alike are sadly needed to open up this luxuriant land to the world.

Under new control I expect to see, in the twentieth century, a new destiny for this noble group of islands. Whether the people be given their freedom under the protection and influence of the United States, or the islands become a direct appanage of that or of some other enterprising nation of the West, a turn in the tide of Philippine affairs can hardly fail to set in, and the possibilities of the land be developed to an extent undreamed of under the effete rule of Spain.

I expect to see an invasion of this island-realm by three classes of modern enterprise. The scientist is sure to find his way there, and tell the world of the new and the strange in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. With him will come the engineer, opening up roads right and left, laying a network of iron rails, where now only the buffalo-cart drags along, introducing the latest machinery for mining and farming-industries, and starting a hum of activity in every quarter of the long-slumbering land. With these also will enter the practical economist, in search, not of the new, but of the useful, prospecting the forests for plants of economic value, seeking for new mines of coal and iron, tracing the gold placer-beds up to their mother-veins, seeking everywhere for what the Philippines have to add to the useful productions of the world.

These will be the twentieth century pioneers of this promising Archipelago, the results of their labors being exploited by the merchant and the manufacturer. The seas shall teem with ships carrying the products of the islands to foreign shores, and bringing back full cargoes to supply the demands of the islanders, commerce steadily growing in amount as civilization awakens the natives to the perception of new wants.

Examples of a similar rejuvenation could easily be pointed out, and there is no conceivable reason why the Philippines should not be added to the list. These islands have been lavishly dealt with by nature; they have an industrious population; yet they have been allowed to remain for centuries in a semi-savage industrial condition; they still await the touch of the magic hand of modern enterprise to arouse them from their state of decadence, and swing them into the tide of human progress. Under this influence prosperity and activity must come to them, as it has come to other lands, and those long-neglected and abused islands be made to “bud and blossom like the rose.”

Certainty of conviction and opinion, too, leads me to affirm that, with sanitary arrangements in all the cities, with hygienic living, and American enterprise, philanthropy, and valor in the islands, and free educational facilities eventually,—all will manifestly increase the morale of the islanders and develop a just appreciation of the natural beauties of their bounteous realm; hence, what is now confusedly enjoyed and but vaguely beheld in nature, will, in a comparatively brief period, become simple, clear, sympathetic, and clearly formulated to their apprehension.

And all this, as well as many other allied benefits co-existent with a permanent American occupation, will come with personal education, personal elevation; and without lessening the labor-producing quality of the native, or the outward physical radiation that constitutes his health and vigor. Health, like knowledge, will come to him in ever-widening circles, and Nature, in full festival—as she is during the greater part of the Philippine year—will also appeal to him as she has never appealed before.

All this may be hazardous prophecy; it may appear optimistic, Æsthetic, and fanciful, but I have talked with many rude untutored natives, that, frankly, astonished me with the unwitting revelation of latent poetry, love of imagery, and spiritual longings in their nature.

Knowing all this, and also the adaptability of the cultured native, hence the rosy view of the possible development of the Philippine Islands’ native population.

The vivid contrasts, the checkered scenery, and the pulchritudinous beauty of the islands would ravish the soul of the impressionistic painter, and inspire his brush to masterpieces. There forest and plain, sky and sea, unroll in unexpected beauty or marvelous grandeur at every turn; until, after visiting the interior or skirting the shores of many islands, one has a kind of kaleidoscopic memory, yet none the less brilliant, perfectly formed, and orderly—each in harmonious sequence—of long lines of shadowy hills, majestic mountain-ranges, with forest-clad slopes verging toward the sea; pretty rambling creeks and gurgling rivulets, cliff-bound coasts, cultivated plain and rugged hill; here and there shaded dells with mountain torrents roaring, unseen; a glorious sunset, or a splendid sunrise present in the memory-pictures of mountain, sea, and plain.