January 7th.

My third Sunday in Manila is a cool breezy day, with fresh winds blowing down from the mountains. The weather has lately been as temperate as one could wish, and has corresponded to some of our soft spring conditions. From noon until three o’clock has usually seemed warm, but the mornings have made walking pleasant, the afternoons have given opportunities for tennis, and the evenings have hinted that an overcoat would not be amiss. One could hardly ask for any more comfortable place to live in than Manila as it stands to-day, and although sanitary appliances are most primitive, the city seems to be healthy and without noisome pestilence.

During the holiday season, just over, foreign business has been suspended and everyone socially inclined. Shopping has been in vogue, and on one of my expeditions for photographic materials I was introduced to the “Botica Inglesa,” or English chemist’s shop, which seems to be the largest variety-store in town. Here it is possible to buy anything from a glass of soda to a full-fledged lawn-mower, including all the intermediates that reach from tooth-brushes to photographic cameras.

And speaking of shopping brings mo to the “chit” system, which has been such a curse to the Far East. In making purchases, no one pays cash for anything, since the heavy Mexican dollars—which are the only currency of the islands—are too heavy to lug around in the thin suits made of white sheeting. One simply signs an “I.O.U.” for the amount of the bill in any shop that he may choose to patronize, and thinks no more about it till at the end of the month all the “chits” which bear his name are sent around for collection.

Result: one never feels as if he were spending anything until the first day of the incoming month ushers in a host of these big or little reminders. If your chits at one single shop run into large amounts, the collector generally brings along with him a coolie or a wheelbarrow with which to lug away the weight of dollars that you pour into his hands, and when two or three collectors come in together the office reminds one of a “money-’changer’s. Counterfeit money is so prevalent that one after the other of your callers bites the silver or drops it on the floor to detect lead, and to listen to the resulting sound is not to feel complimented by their opinion of your integrity. So it goes, many of the shop-keepers being swindled out of their dues by debtors who choose to skip off rather than to pay, and waking up at the end of the month to find their supposed profits existing only in the chits whose signers have skedaddled to Hong Kong or Singapore.

New Year’s Eve was celebrated with due hilarity and elaborate provisions. The club bill of fare was remarkable, and when it is realized there are no stoves in Manila, the wonder is that the cooking is so complex. A Manila stove is no more nor less than a good-sized earthen jar, shaped something like an old shoe. The vamp of the shoe represents the hearth; the opening in front, the place for putting in the small sticks of wood; and the enclosing upper, the rim on which rests the single big pot or kettle. In a well-regulated kitchen, there may be a dozen of these stoves, one for each course, and their cost being only a peseta, it is a simple matter to keep a few extra ones on hand in the bread-closet. And so, as one goes through the streets where native huts predominate, he sees a family meal being cooked in sections, and is forced to admire the complexity of the greasy dishes that are evolved from so simple a contrivance.

As the Manila cooking arrangements are rude, so I suspect are the pantry’s dish-washing opportunities. I really should hesitate to enter even our club-kitchen, for certain dim suggestions which are conveyed to the senses from spoons and forks, and certain plate surfaces that would calm troubled waters if hung from a ship’s side, all hint at unappetizing sights. All in all, the less one sees of native cooking, in transitu, the greater will one’s appetite be.

I had expected an early introduction to earthquakes, but none have occurred so far, and I am almost tempted to get reckless. Soon after my arrival I was inclined to put my chemical bottles in a box of sawdust, empty part of the water out of my pitcher, and pack my watch in cotton-wool in anticipation of some nocturnal disturbance. For the old stagers who saw the city fall to pieces back in the ’80’s deem it their duty to alarm the new arrival, and almost turn pale when a heavy dray rolls by over the cobblestones in the street near the club, or make ready to fly out-of-doors at the first suspicion of vibration.

A word or two more about the floors in Manila houses. I don’t suppose there is a soft-wood tree in the islands, and as a result one sees some very interesting hard-wood productions. The floors come under this category. Rough-hewn as they are—out of huge hand-sawed hard-wood planks—they are models. By certain processes of polishing with banana leaves and greasy rags, they are made to shine like genius itself, and give such a clean, cool air to the houses that one is compelled to regard them with admiration. In fact, there is a certain charm in Manila about many specimens of hand-work that one encounters everywhere. The stilted regularities—as our good professor used to say—of machine-made articles are frequently conspicuous by their absence, and instead one sees the inequalities, the lack of exact repetition, the informality of lines that are not just perpendicular or horizontal, all of which make up the charm of work that is handmade, that reflects the movements of a living arm and mind rather than those of a wheel or a lever.

The curious windows that are everywhere are likewise instructive. Like the blinds, they slide in grooves on the railings of the balconies, and serve to shut out the weather from the interior. They consist of frames containing a multitude of small lattice-work squares, into which are placed thin, flat, translucent sea-shells which admit light, but are not look-throughable. We have all heard of shell-roads, but never of shell-windows, and one misses the presence of glass until he has got accustomed to a Manila house, whose sliding sides are one vast window that is rarely closed.

Manila streets, outside of the city proper, are smooth, hard, and well shaded by the arching bamboos. They are already proving attractive to the bicycle, which, though very expensive out here at the antipodes, is growing in favor, especially among the wealthier half-castes, or mestizos.

Tram-car service is slow, but pretty generally good. The car is a thing by itself, as is the one lean pony that pulls it. It takes one man to drive and one to work the whip, and if the wind blows too hard, service is generally suspended. The conductor carries a small valise suspended from his neck, and whistles through his lips “up-hill” to stop, and “down-hill” as the starting-sign. The usual notice, “Smoking allowed on the three rear seats only,” is absent, for everyone smokes, even to the conductor, who generally drops the ash off a 15-for-a-cent cigarette into your lap as he hands you a receipt for your dos centavos. The chief rule of the road says:

“This car has seats for twelve persons, and places for eight on each platform. Passengers are requested to stand in equal numbers only on both platforms, to prevent derailment.”

And so if there are four “fares” on the front and six on the back platform, somebody has to stumble forward to equalize the weight. No one is allowed to stand inside, and if the car contains its quota of passengers, the driver hangs out the sign, “Lleno” (full), and doesn’t stop even for the Archbishop. It is just as well, perhaps, to sit at the front end of the car if you are afraid of small-pox, for the other morning a Philippine mamma brushed into a seat holding a scantily clothed babe well covered with evidences of that disease. One sympathizes with the single pony that does the pulling as he sees thirty people besides the car in his load, and it is no uncommon thing on a slight rise or sharp turn for all hands to get off and help the vehicle over the difficulty. The driver holds the whip by the wrong end and lets the heavy one come down with double force on the terribly tough hide of the motive power. Aside from tram-cars some of these little beasts, however, are possessed of great speed, and with a reckless cochero in charge, it is no uncommon sight to see three or four turnouts come tearing down the street abreast, full tilt, clearing the road, killing dogs and roosters, and making one’s hair stand on end.

Speaking of roosters, they are the native dog in the Philippines. The inhabitants pet and coddle them, smooth down their plumage, clean their combs, or pull out their tail-feathers to make them fight, to their heart’s content, and it is a fact that these cackling glass-eaters really seem to show affection for their proprietors, in as great measure as they exhibit hatred for their brothers. Every native has his fighting-cock, which is reared with the greatest care until he has shown sufficient prowess to entitle him to an entrance into the cock-pit. In case of fire, the rooster is the first thing rescued and removed to a place of safety, for babies—common luxuries in the Philippines—are a secondary consideration and more easily duplicated than the feathered biped. It is almost impossible to walk along any street in the suburban part of the town without seeing dozens of natives trudging along with roosters under their arms, which are being talked to and petted to distraction. At every other little roadside hut, an impromptu battle will be going on between two birds of equal or unequal merit, the two proprietors holding their respective roosters by the tails in order that they may not come into too close quarters. The cock-pits, where gatherings are held on Thursdays and Sundays, are large enclosures covered with a roof of thatch sewed onto a framework of bamboo; they are open on all sides, and banked up with tiers of rude seats that surround a sawdust ring in the centre. Outside the gates to the flimsy structure sit a motley crowd of women, young and old, selling eatables whose dark, greasy texture beggars description, while here and there in the open spaces a couple of natives will be giving their respective roosters a sort of preliminary trial with each other. As the show goes on inside, shouts and applause resound at every opportunity, and at the close of the performance a multitude of two-wheeled gigs carry off the victors with their spoils, while the losers trudge home through the dust on foot.

Other familiar street-scenes consist of Chinese barbers, who carry around a chair, a pair of scissors, and a razor wherever they go, and stop to give you a shave or hair-cut at any part of the block; or Chinese ear-cleaners, who scoop out of those organs some of the unprintable epithets hurled by one native at another. Cascades of slops not uncommonly descend into the street as one walks along beneath a slightly overhanging second story of some of the houses, and one is impressed, if not wet, by this favorite method of laying the street-dust.

Besides the daily afternoon music on the Luneta, a full-fledged Italian opera troupe has come to town and has begun to give performances in the Teatro Zorilla. “Carmen” and “The Cavalleria Rusticana” are on the bill for this week, and many other of the old standbys are going to have their turn later.

In respect to music, side-tracked though it is, Manila seems to be more favored than her sister capitals in the Far East, and everyone appears to be able to play on something. Such of the native houses as are too frail to support pianos shelter harps, violins, and other stringed instruments, while some of the more expensive structures contain the whole selection. Of an evening—in the suburbs—it is no uncommon thing to hear the strains of a well-played Spanish march issuing from under the thatch of a rickety hut, or to find an impromptu concert going on in the little tram-car which is bringing home a handful of native youth with their guitars or mandolins. Every district has its band, some of the instruments in which are often made out of empty kerosene-cans, and the nights resound with tunes from all quarters. In fact, the Philippine band is one of the chief articles of export from Manila, and groups of natives with their cheap instruments are shipped off to Japan, India, and the Spice Islands, to carry harmony into the midst of communities where music is uncultivated. All in all, it is extremely curious that out of all the peoples of the Far East the Filipinos are the only ones possessing a natural talent for music, and that the islands to-day stand out unique from among all the surrounding territory as being the home of a musical race, who do not make the night as hideous with weird beatings of tom-toms as they do poetic with soft waltzes coaxed from gruff trombones.

January 18th.

Manila is pretty well, thanks. The weather has been cool and comfortable. Showers have come every day or two to lay the dust, and one could not want a more salubrious condition of things. The sunsets from the Luneta have been more than pyrotechnic, and I now believe that nowhere do you see such displays of color as in the Orient, Land of the Sunrise. During these three weeks of my stay, so far there have been five holidays, and we have had ample time to take afternoon walks up the beach, or play tennis at the club, or indulge in moonlight rows on the Pasig.

A week ago on the island just opposite the club, where lies a good-sized village, containing an old church, there was a religious festival, which lasted all the week. This was the Fiesta of Pandacan, and all the natives for miles around came pouring down by our veranda, in bancas and barges, on their way across the river. Every night during the week, bands of music played on one side of the stream and on the other side, and then crossed to their respective opposites, playing in transitu, and then setting up shop on shore again. Then there were fireworks, bombs, and rockets galore, so that the early night was alive with noise and sparks. On the evening of the grand wind-up we crossed over to see the sights, in one of the usual hollowed-out tree-trunk ferryboats. Crowds of gayly dressed natives surged around the plaza, near the old church, while everywhere along the edges squatted old men and women, cooking all sorts of greasy “chow” on those peculiar Philippine stoves described in the last chapter. Everybody smoked, as well as the pots and kettles, and the air was therefore foggy. The little, low-thatched houses were jauntily decorated with lanterns and streamers, and at all the open fronts leaned out rows of grinning natives.

Here and there were small “tiendas,” or little booths, where cheap American toys, collar-buttons, pictures, and little figures of the Saviour were sold, and great was the hubbub. The houses, as well as the people, are very low of stature, and as we walked along the narrow, almost cunning streets, our shoulders level with the eaves of many of the shanties, and above the heads of many of the people, we felt indeed like giants. Many were the pianos in those native huts, and peculiar mixtures of strikingly decent playing fell upon the ear from all sides.

The whole circus wound up with a grand pyrotechnical illumination of the old church from base to tower, and a score of loud explosions, caused by the setting off of many dozen bombs at the same time, made up in noise what the religious celebration lacked in spirituality. Then all the bands came back and played their lungs out as they crossed the river, and all the people rushed for bancas, and came chattering home. Thus did this pretty little religious show consume, in noise and sparks, the contributions of a very long time.

The grand opera company which is here is doing remarkably well, and “Faust” was given the other evening to a crowded house. The theatre Zorilla is round, like a circus, and in the centre of the ring sit the holders of our regular orchestra seats, facing the stage, which chops off the segment of the circle opposite the main entrance. In a rim surrounding the central arena stretches the single row of boxes, a good deal like small open sheep-pens, separated from each other only by insignificant railings. Next comes the surrounding aisle, and in the broad outside section of the circle, rising up in steep tiers, are the seats for the natives and gallery gods, who invariably bring their lunch with them, to pass away the time during the long intermissions. The orchestra is a native one, led by an Italian conductor, and doesn’t tuck its shirt into its trousers. The musicians, who battle with the difficult score, grind out their music quite as successfully as some of our home performers, who would scorn the dark faces and flying shirt-tails of their Philippine brethren.

During the performance the management introduced a ballet, whose members were native Filipinas. It was too laughable. The faces and arms of the women who formed the corps seemed first to have been covered with mucilage, and then besprinkled with flour in order to bring the dark-brown complexion up to the softer half-tints of the Italian performers. The native lady, as a rule, is unacquainted with French shoes or high heels, slippers being the every-day equipment, and when these flowery beings came forward on to the stage, saw the huge audience, and tried to go through the mazes of the dance in European footgear, they felt entirely snarled up, even if they didn’t look more than half so. But this only served to keep the audience in a good humor, and everybody seemed to enjoy both the singing and the deviltry of Mephistopheles, whose part was well taken. The waits between the acts were long, and the drop-curtain was covered with barefaced advertisements of dealers in pills, hats, and carriages. But there were cool little cafÉs across the roadway running by the theatre, and one forgot the delay in the pleasure of being refreshed by Spanish chocolate and crisp buÑuelos.

In front of the main entrance to the theatre stood two firemen, with hose in hand, ready to play on anything as soon as the orchestra stopped or a lamp fell, but otherwise nothing was particularly strange. The whole structure was oil-lighted with rickety chandeliers, which shed a dangerous though brilliant glare down upon a large audience of most exquisitely dressed Spanish people, mestizos and foreigners. Pretty little flower-girls wandered about trying to dispose of their wares to the rather over-dressed dudes of the upper half-caste 400, and their mammas often followed them around to assist in making sales. If it begins to rain in the afternoon, before the performance, everybody understands that the show is to be postponed, provided clearing conditions do not follow, and those who hold tickets are, as a rule, grateful not to be obliged to risk their horses and their starched clothes to the treatment of a possible downpour.

The Luneta is still a close rival to the opera, and each afternoon a dozen of us will generally meet there to refresh ourselves with the music and the passing show. Toward sundown, in the afternoons, of late, the big guns in the batteries up along the walls of Old Manila, hard by, have been used in long-distance sea target-practice, and it has been interesting, on the way from the office to the promenade, to walk along the beach and see the cannon-balls zip over the water and slump into it miles from their destination. The same target serves every afternoon, and seems perfectly safe from being hit. I wish I could say as much for the fleet of American ships that are lying off the breakwater, at the anchorage.

February 8th.

It seems peculiar to see the moon standing directly overhead o’nights, and casting a shadow of one’s self that is without meaning. I never yet realized we had so little shape before, looking from above, as when I saw this new species of shadow the other night, and was really sorry that the angels never had a chance to look at us from a better point of view.

To be politic, and begin with the weather as usual, a cold snap lately has given everyone the “grippe.” The mercury actually stood at 74° all one day, and couldn’t be coaxed to go higher. Think of the suffering that such low temperature would occasion among a people who have no furnaces or open fireplaces. You may think I am facetious, but 74° in the Philippines means a great deal to people who are always accustomed to 95°.

The opera-talk continues, and “Fra Diavolo” was most successfully performed to a crowded house the other evening. “The Barber of Seville” was given Sunday night with equal Éclat, and the prima donna was a star of the first water, whose merits were recognized in the presentation of some huge flower-pieces, probably paid for by herself. But the opera has had a rival, and those who are not so musically inclined have spent most of their spare moments in discussing the great bull and tiger fight which took place Sunday afternoon.

It was a queer show, and not altogether edifying. The old bull-ring, squatting out in the rice-fields of Ermita suburb, was to be used for the last time, and the occasion was to be of unusual interest, since the flaming posters announced, in grown-up letters:

For days before the show came off, conversation in the cafÉs along the Escolta invariably turned to the subject of the coming exhibition, and it was evident that the managers fully intended both to reap a large harvest of heavy dollars and to wind up the career of the bull-ring association in a blaze of blood and glory.

The steaming Sunday afternoon found everybody directing his steps toward the wooden structure which consisted of a lot of rickety seats piled up around a circular arena. The reserved sections were covered with a light roof, to keep off the afternoon sun, but the bleaching-boards for those that held only “billetes de sol” were exposed to the blinding glare. The audience, a crowd of three thousand persons, with dark faces showing above suits of white sheeting, found the centre of the ring ornamented with a huge iron cage some two rods square, while off at the sides were smaller cages containing the “fieras,” or wild beasts.

The show opened amid breathless excitement, with an exhibition of panthers, and a man dressed in pink tights ate dinner in the big cage, after setting off a bunch of firecrackers under one of the “fieras,” who didn’t seem inclined to wake up enough to lick his chops and make-believe masticate somebody. The daring performer lived to digest his glass of water, with one cracker thrown in, and a deer was next introduced into the enclosure. The panther, at command of the keeper to get to business, seemed unwilling to attack his gentle foe, and on continued hissing from the big audience, the two animals were at length withdrawn.

Then great shouts of “El toro! El toro!” arose, as off at the small gate, at one side, appeared the bull, calmly walking forward, under the guidance of two natives, who didn’t wear any shoes. And renewed applause arose, as the small heavy cage containing the R.B. tiger was rolled up to a sliding-door of the central structure. The bull was shoved into the iron jail, the gate closed, a dozen or more bunches of firecrackers were set off in the small box holding the tiger, in order to waken him up, the slide connecting the two was withdrawn, and, with a deafening roar, the great Indian cat rushed forth and tried to swallow a man who was standing outside the bars waving a heated pitchfork. The bull stood quietly in one corner wagging his tail, and after blinking his eyes once or twice, proceeded to examine his antagonist, in a most friendly spirit. In fact, there seemed to be no hard feeling at all between the two beasts, and the tiger only wanted to get at the gentleman outside the cage, not at the bull. The audience howled, jeered at the tiger, bet on the bull, and criticised the man with the pitchfork as he gave the tiger several hard pokes in the ribs. This served to anger the beast so that he finally did make a dive at the bull, and promptly found himself tossed into the air. But as he came down, he hung on to the bull’s nose, and dug his claws into the tough hide. Curiously enough, the bull didn’t seem to mind that in the least, and the two stood perfectly still for some five minutes, locked in close quarters.

To make a long story short, there occurred four or five of these mild attacks, always incited by the man with the pitchfork, during which the bull stepped on the tiger, making him howl with pain, and the latter badly bit the former on the legs and nose. After the fourth round, both beasts seemed to be in want of a siesta. It was growing dark, and the dissatisfied audience cried for another bull and another tiger. The first animal was finally dragged away, after the tiger had retreated to his cage, and a fresh bull with more spirit was introduced. Now, however, the tiger was less game than ever, and no amount of firecrackers or pitchforkings could induce him to stir from the small cage. He seemed far too sensible, and literally appeared to be the possessor of an asbestos skin.

It had now got pretty dark, and the audience joined in the pandemonium of howls coming from the various cages. People began to light matches to see their programmes, and the circus-ring looked as if it were filled with fireflies. Then the programmes themselves were ignited for more light, and cries of “Give us back our money,” “What’s the matter with the tiger?” and others of a less printable order, arose. Men jumped into the ring, but the tiger refused to move for anybody. In the hope of stirring things up, a couple of panthers were again hastily wheeled up and pushed into the cage, where the bull was standing with an expression of wonder on his face. But the bull merely licked one panther on the nose and wagged his tail at the other, while the show was declared off on account of darkness. Then everybody filed out in disgust, and the man with the tiger, panthers, and pitchfork made arrangements to sail for foreign shores by the first steamer. Such was the last performance in the Plaza de Toros de Manila.

It was a pleasant contrast after the fight to adjourn to the Luneta. The day was Carnival Sunday, and all the young children of the community were rigged up in many sorts of inconceivable gowns. Clowns and ballet-dancers, devils and angels, all wandered up and down the smooth walk, and the crowd was immense. Numbers of the older people also took part, and many of the smart traps were occupied with grotesque figures. The artillery-band rendered some of its finest selections. The ships off in the bay were almost completely reflected in the calm water. The mountains rose blue, like velvet, in the distance, and a red glow in the Boca Chica told where the sun had gone down for us, only to rise on the distant snows of New England.