A Woman's Impression Of The Philippines Part 7

Not very long after that election we began our first work with self-governing societies. The school had been long enough established to have an advanced cla.s.s capable of speaking English, and our Division Superintendent suggested that I give them a little practical experience in the "machinery of politics." I a.s.sented with outward respect, and then retired to smile, for the "machinery of politics" is the last thing in which the Filipino has need of instruction from us. He is a born politician, and we compare to him in that respect as babes to a philosopher. But I recognized that my pupils did need the experience of a self-governing society, and practice in parliamentary usages, and so we organized our society from the three most advanced cla.s.ses in the school.

In the beginning I organized the society, acting as temporary chairman. I called for an election by informal ballot of short-term officers to serve until a time of regular elections could be set. Our first ballot polled seventy-three votes, although there were only fifty-five persons in the room. I threw that out and called for a roll call vote. In due time a regular election took place, and officers for three months were elected. As the vote was open, the aristocratic element came off best, as was to be expected. The children of one prominent family, together with some of their friends, held every office. Practically the result was not bad. The officers, four out of five of whom were girls, represented considerable ability. The girls were elected chiefly out of the _galanteria_ of certain of the boy aristocrats, who had very little conception of what a self-governing society means, but who wished to pay their fair innamoratas a compliment.

Our society was a p.r.o.nounced success. The pupils took to parliamentary practice very much as they would to a new game. Visitors thronged our Friday afternoon meetings. We teachers had to put in six or eight hours every week, drilling the pupils on duty, helping to get up music, and meeting with committees. A teacher was parliamentary "coach,"

and sat at the side of Madame President, giving her directions in an undertone. All the teachers were elected honorary members, and one was critic. Peace reigned and Joy flapped her wings.

About this time, however, the gentlemen who were running that province engaged in the real game which we were imitating, and became involved in a quarrel which threatened to strain the relations between Americans and Filipinos to the breaking point. Governor Taft came down in person to look into the affair. There was a banquet and there were speeches. The Filipino Governor prefaced his oratorical flight by the statement that three times only in his life had he trembled. Time has clouded my memory, but I think he said the first of these was when he took his Bachelor's degree from the University of Spain; the second was when he led his fair partner to the matrimonial altar; and the third was that present occasion when he stood up before that ill.u.s.trious a.s.sembly, seeking words in which to welcome the distinguished guest.

He did not look as if he were suffering from nervousness, and his words flowed with sufficient ease to indicate that he was not having much trouble in the search. Sitting at the far end of the festal board, contemplating my gla.s.s of _tinto_ (I am unable to say whether I drank _tinto_ because the champagne ran short or because, being feminine and educational, I was deemed unworthy of the best), I reflected somewhat cynically that if he was telling the strict truth, his childhood must have been singularly barren of the penalties which follow real childish joy, or else his was a remarkable personality.

But that is neither here nor there. The utterance wafted me a gentle amus.e.m.e.nt at the time. But from that time on, the boys of my literary society began to tremble--always twice anteriorly, and for the third time when they stood up before that intellectual and critical a.s.semblage. Every boy for weeks to come used that worn-out preface for his remarks. The pupils gave no signs either of amus.e.m.e.nt or scorn. Apparently they received it seriously as an eminently becoming preface of oratory, just as they do the "Do-minus vobisc.u.m" of the ma.s.s. But one day I spoke of it in one of the cla.s.ses--intentionally not in the society. When they saw our viewpoint, they shrieked with delight, and from that time on, the budding orators ceased to tremble.

At last we arrived at the point of an open session, and the event was what is described in society papers as one of the social events of the season. We had really a good programme, we transacted quite a little business in accordance with parliamentary usage: we elected the Governor, the Presidente, and several prominent citizens honorary members, and they acknowledged the compliment with appropriate remarks.

About a week after our open session I was about to retire one night, when I heard the sound of music and saw lights approaching. Transparencies were waving about in the warm air. As there was no cholera, and therefore no occasion for a San Roque procession, I hung out of the window, local fas.h.i.+on, to find out what it was all about. It was a newly organized parliamentary society parading. In less than a month three new societies had blossomed among the youths and old men of the town. American teachers were engaged as parliamentarians, although the societies were conducted in Spanish, not English. The societies all died a natural death in a little while; but of course, the school society being compulsory could not die, and so far as I know is still going on. Every public school of the secondary cla.s.s has its school societies, and they must form the ideals of the new generation.

One of the most irritating features of life in those early days, and one which offered a problem rather difficult for the Government to solve, was the matter of currency. The money in use was silver, with a small paper circulation of Banco Espagnol-Filipino notes. The notes were printed on a kind of pink blotting paper which looked as if it would be easy to counterfeit. The silver was what we called at first "Mex" and later "Dobie." There were some pieces coined especially for the Philippines, but in general "Mex" was made up of coins of Spain, Mexico, Islas Filipinas, Hong-Kong, Singapore, Canton, and Amoy--only the experts of the Government could tell where it all came from. With the public at large, any coin that looked as if it contained the fair average of silver was accepted. Every month the paymasters of the United States Army and Navy issued thousands of dollars in American silver and paper, but this disappeared in a twinkling, swallowed up by the local agents who were buying gold with which China paid her indemnity. Each incoming steamer brought loads of "Dobie" from the Asiatic coast, but our good dollars and quarters went out of sight like falling stars.

The silver coins consisted of pesos, medio-pesos, pesetas (twenty-cent pieces), media-pesetas (ten-cent pieces), and it seems to me that I have a hazy recollection of a silver five-cent piece, though I cannot be certain. The copper coins were as mongrel as the silver.

There were English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese coins from the neighboring coasts, but the greater part of the copper coins consisted of roughly pounded discs with ragged edges, which were made, they said, by the Igorrotes. The coins had no inscriptions, but went with the natives by the name of "dacolds"--the native word for "big,"

The Americans renamed the dacolds "claquers," and used either name at pleasure. It required eighty dacolds to equal one peso, forty to a half-peso, sixteen to a peseta, eight to a media-peseta. Theoretically a peso was a hundred cents, as a peseta was twenty cents, but there was no cent with which to make change. You accepted the dacold at its value of eighty to a peso, or you transacted no business. The Filipinos also had a way of figuring a medio-peso as _cuatro reales_, thus giving the _real_ a value of twelve and a half cents, though there was no coin called a _real_. Nevertheless, the _real_ figured in all business transactions.

At the time we landed in Manila "Mex" stood with gold at an even ratio of two pesos "Mex" for one dollar gold. I innocently allowed a bank to transfer a gold balance on a letter of credit to an account in local currency at that ratio. A few weeks later, when I wanted to change back and carry my account in gold, they wrote me courteously but firmly that I would have to buy back that account at the ratio of 2.27, and by the time that the transfer was finally effected, gold had jumped to 2.66. We had been told by a circular from the War Department, at the time our appointments were made, that we should be paid in gold. I drew just one cheque in U.S. currency after reaching the Islands. My second cheque was drawn in local currency at a ratio of 2.27, but, by the time it had reached me at Capiz, gold had gone to 2.46. We had to endure the evils of a fluctuating currency for over two years. On all money sent to the States we lost heavily. So far as our daily expenses were concerned we in the provinces had very little inconvenience to suffer on account of "Mex"; but in Manila all merchants fixed their prices in gold and took occasion to put them up mercilessly. I remember trying to buy some j.a.panese matting which could have been bought for twenty-five cents a yard in the States, but which was priced at seventy-five cents in Manila. The merchant wanted me to pay him in "Mex" at a ratio of 2.66, or at the rate of two pesos a yard for matting which he bought in j.a.pan at probably less than twenty sen a yard.

There was a tremendous protest against the fluctuating currency and the extortion which grew out of it, and we were all relieved when we learned that Congress had adopted the so-called "Conant" system of currency for the Islands. Mr. Conant was the expert who investigated conditions for the Government and devised the system.

The Conant system followed the old Spanish values for coins, the new coins being pesos, medio-pesos, pesetas, media-pesetas, nickels, and copper cents. There was also a copped half-cent, but neither Congress nor Mr. Conant read the Filipino aright. In two years we had taught him to sniff at any value less than a cent. The new system is held at a ratio of two to one by the Government's redeeming it in the Philippine treasury at a ratio of two pesos Conant to one dollar U.S. The importation of "Mex" is no longer permitted, and we rejoice in a stable currency once more.

We provincials followed the newspaper talk about the new system with no small interest. When our treasurer informed us that he had received a consignment of the new currency, and that our next salary cheques would be paid in "Conant," we were delighted. My cheque, by some accident, got in ahead of those of the other employees, and was the first presented for payment.

The beautifully made, bright new silver coins had an engaging appearance after the tarnished mongrel coins to which we were accustomed. When the Treasurer had counted out all my hard-earned money except ten pesos, he produced two bags of pennies, and announced that I should have to take that sum in small coin in order to get the pennies into circulation. They were of beautiful workmans.h.i.+p, yellow as gold and heavy as lead. I called in the aid of a small boy to help me lug home my three bags of coin.

I had been at home only a few minutes when in came the regular vender of eggs and chickens, who called at my house three times a week. He squatted on the floor and I sat in front of him in a rocking-chair, watching my little maid drop the eggs into water to test their freshness. After we had chaffered the usual time and had come to an agreement, I went into my room and brought out the bags of new coin. I had bought about seventy-five cents worth from him, and I first gave him three of the new silver pesetas, which he admired greatly. There were still fifteen cents due him; and when I reached my hand into the penny bag and hauled out a handful of gleaming copper, the maid said, "Jesus!" under her breath, and the man, "Dios mio!" He received his fifteen centavos with an attempt to conceal his satisfaction. The maid requested permission to look inside the bag, and when she had done so merely grinned up at me with a look that said, "My! You're rich, aren't you?"

It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and I went on busying myself about things at home. Pretty soon there came a deprecatory cough from the stairway--the local method of announcing a visitor. Outside of Manila knocking or ringing does not seem to appeal to the Filipinos. In the provinces the educated cla.s.ses come to the foot of the stairway and call "Permiso!" and the lower-cla.s.s people come to the head of the stairway and cough to attact attention. My chicken man had returned. Was it possible that he had heard aright when he had understood the Senora to say that twenty of the new gold pieces went to one peseta? The Senora explained that he had made no mistake. Then, said the old rascal, with bows and smirks, since the lady had so many of them--bags full of them--had he not seen with his own eyes?--would she have the kindness to take back those gleaming new pesetas, which were indeed beautiful, and give him gold in their stead? The lady a.s.sured him that the new money was the same metal used in the old "dacold" and that in time it would become as dark and ugly, but his Filipino habit of relying on his own eyes was in full command of him. The man thought that I had got hold of gold without knowing it, and supposed that he was getting the best of me. I changed one peseta into coppers for him, and had difficulty in getting him to leave the house. Ten minutes after he had left, a woman came in to sell me some more chickens. I told her that I had just bought, but she put such a price on chickens as had never before come under my ken. Ten cents was acceptable for a full-grown laying hen, the ordinary value of which was forty or fifty cents. I suspected her of having had some information from the old man, and, in order to find out, I gave her the price of the five chickens, which I agreed to take, in the old "Mex" media-pesetas. Then there was an explosion. She reached for her precious chickens and broke that bargain then and there. Her chickens would sell for ten cents gold, but for no media-peseta. I asked her how she knew I had gold, and she said that did not matter--I had some "diutang-a-dacolds" (little dacolds), and she was willing to sell hens for ten "diutang-a-dacolds" _gold_, but not for media-pesetas. So I counted her out fifty new coppers and we both rejoiced in our bargain. I told her that the media-peseta was worth ten dacolds, but she wanted the bright new money.

For the next two hours I was persecuted with truck-sellers. Ordinarily the fishermen were unwilling to stop and sell in the streets or in private houses, preferring to do all their business in the market, but that morning, I could have had the pick of half the catch. Finally came a woman who had had a straight tale from the first woman. Woman number two had nothing to sell, but, after a minute, she pulled out a jagged old media-peseta and said that she had heard that I said that a media-peseta was worth ten of the new gold pieces. If I was as good as my word, why not change her media-peseta for gold? I said that I would do it if she would give me the new media-peseta, but that I could not do it for the old. When she wanted to know where she could get a new media-peseta, and I told her the Treasurer would redeem old silver at the government ratio, she went off to get a new media-peseta, but it was plain that she distrusted me. The people flocked to my house all day trying to get me to buy something and to pay them in the new coins.

It was remarkable how easily and quickly one circulating medium disappeared and another took its place. At first there was some trouble about getting the poor people to recognize the copper on a basis of a hundred to a peso. They were willing enough to receive change on that basis, but, in giving it, tried to treat the new centavo as a dacold, eighty to the peso. I had to have one Chinese baker arrested for persistently giving short change to my _muchacha_, and the Treasurer had a long line of delinquents before him each morning admonis.h.i.+ng them that they could not play tricks with Uncle Sam's legal tender. But on the whole the change went off quickly and without much friction.

This morning I asked my maid, an elderly woman, if she remembered the old money we had four years ago. She struck her forehead with her hand, and thought a long time. Finally her face lit up. She remembered those Iggorote dacolds and a silver five-cent piece--"muy, muy chiquitin"

(very, very small). She said that the Tagalogs called the dacolds "Christinas" after the mother of the Queen-mother. But the difference between a stable and a fluctuating medium meant nothing to her, and probably many of her countrymen have almost forgotten that there was ever any other than Conant in the land.

CHAPTER XIII

Typhoons and Earthquakes

How Typhoons a.s.sert Themselves--Our First Typhoon--Six Weeks' Mail Brought by the _General Blanco_--Her Narrow Escape From Wreck:--A Weird Journey on a Still Smaller Steamer--Another Typhoon--Rescue of Captain B---- --Havoc Wrought by the Typhoon.

In the month of November two more American women teachers arrived at Capiz, one of whom joined me, and our society was still more increased by two army officers' wives, and the wives of the provincial Treasurer and the Supervisor. This made nine women in all, and we began to give dinners and card parties, and a.s.sume quite metropolitan airs.

Miss C---- and I, from our central positions on the plaza, saw and heard most of what was going on, and we heartily concurred in the gossip of the day that there was always something doing in Capiz. About the middle of the month there was a lively earthquake that shook up our old house most viciously; and just before Thanksgiving we met our first typhoon.

Typhoons have various ways of a.s.serting themselves, but there is one predominating form of which this particular typhoon happens to be an example. The beginning of all things is usually a casual remark dropped by a caller that the first typhoon signal is up. Then the weather thickens, and a fine drizzling rain sets in. It stops by and by, and you have no sort of opinion of typhoons. Then the rain begins again with a steady downpour, which makes you wonder if there will be any left for next year. Again it stops, almost leads you to think it intends to clear. Then a little vagrant sigh of wind wafts back the deluge. A few minutes later nature sighs again with more tears. Each gust is stronger than the one before it, and at the end of eight or ten hours the blasts are terrific, and the rain is driven like spikes before them. It may keep this up twelve hours or fifty-six. It may increase to an absolute hurricane, levelling all before it with great loss of life, or it may content itself with an exhibition of what it could do if it really desired.

At the end of the first day of our typhoon I went to bed wondering how long the ant-eaten supports of our house could hold out against the violent wrenchings and shakings it was getting. I had poor rest, for the howling of the wind, the noise of boards torn loose, and the clatter of wrenched galvanized iron roofing made sleep almost impossible. When I went out into the kitchen next morning, my heart sank into my boots. The nipa roof had been torn away piece by piece. The whole place was soaked, the stove was rusted, and rivulets were running outside and inside of the pipe. Romoldo clucked his glee in this devastation, and opined that the outlook for breakfast was poor. It was certainly no poorer than breakfast when it came.

I dressed myself for the weather and went to school in a mackintosh and rubber boots. The costume seemed to afford no small excitement to the Filipinos who beheld. They had hitherto considered mackintoshes and rubber boots as the exclusive property of men. Had I appeared in a pair of pantaloons, I should not have created more sensation. n.o.body came to school, of course, but I had to go through the form of reporting there twice anyway. We lunched on gingersnaps and water, and had a dinner composed chiefly of tinned things.

After dinner, to our immense surprise, we had callers in spite of the storm. Lieutenant and Mrs. C---- came over to ask us to Thanksgiving dinner, and a couple of men from the officers' mess dropped in. One of these, Captain R----, was in command of the launch kept at Capiz by the military Government. She was about sixty feet long, and having been built at Shanghai, rejoiced in a Chinese name--the _Yuen Hung_. But as something was the matter with her engines, which coughed and wheezed most disgracefully, the flippant Americans had rechristened her the _One Lung_, much to the chagrin of her skipper.

A barkentine, loaded with molave timber and carrying native pa.s.sengers, had been driven ash.o.r.e at the port that day, and the _One Lung_ had gone to the rescue and taken off the pa.s.sengers. Fortunately the little craft did not have to brave the full force of the sea, as the arms of the bay broke the fury. But even in the bay Captain R---- said the waves were frightful, and he thanked his stars that they had gotten back alive.

While we were still talking of the storm, there came a shout from the tribunal next door, and the noise and rattle of the four-horse escort wagon starting down to Libas. That could mean but one thing--States mail, the which, as we had seen none of it for six weeks, was particularly welcome. But we wondered what boat had come in in such a storm, and, the unexpected always happening, were not wholly unprepared to learn that that disreputable old tub the _General Blanco_ had made harbor safe and sound. It took till nearly midnight to get the mail up and distributed, but we stayed up for it. There were actually eight sacks of mail for our little colony, and we went over to the tribunal and watched the mail sacks opened, and seized on our share with avidity, while we alternately blessed and despised the skipper of the _Blanco_ for getting caught out in the tempest.

This was not the last feat the _Blanco_ was destined to achieve during my stay in Capiz. She had a habit of dropping into port in weather that it seemed no boat could live in. Once she came in about two P.M. in a tremendous sea, bringing a single American pa.s.senger--a girl of twenty-one, a Baptist missionary. As the _Blanco_ had no cabins, the captain was forced to lock his native pa.s.sengers in the engine room, where no doubt they contributed much to the enjoyment of the engineer and his aids. He had the deck chair of this girl carried up on his bridge and lashed, and she was lashed to the chair. There they two rode out the storm. The captain said that from eleven o'clock till two, when he made the shelter of Batan Bay, he expected his boat to be swamped any instant, and he expressed his unqualified admiration for the way in which this girl faced her possible doom. He concluded with a favorite Filipino e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "Abao las Americanas," which in this case may be freely translated as "What women the Americans are!"

The _Blanco_ is still skipping defiantly over the high seas between Iloilo and Capiz, though after all her hairbreadth escapes she came near ending herself in a typical way. She started out one night from Capiz for Iloilo, a heavenly calm night, bright moonlight, and a sea smooth as a floor. Two or three miles from the port, a large island called Olatayan lies off the coast--a single mountain rising out of the sea. Everybody on the _Blanco_, including the watch and the steersman, thought it a good night for sleep, and left the _General_ to steer her own course. The _General_ made straight for Olatayan, and ran her nose up on the beach. She stayed there two weeks, and was beaten up by bad weather, and a.s.sistance had to be sent to get her off. Then she had to be pretty well rebuilt, and repainted. At the time of all these happenings I was in Iloilo, whither I had gone for treatment of an abscess of the middle ear, and as I depended on the _Blanco_ for getting back, felt personally injured by her antics. I went several times to the office of her agents, one of the big English trading firms, to inquire how the wreck was getting along, and what the prospect was for a return to Capiz before Christmas. The man at the desk did not look characteristically English, and on my first appearance I addressed him tentatively in Spanish. He answered in that language, and we continued to use it. On one of the later visits this gentleman was not visible, but in his place a red-headed, freckled youth, with the map of Scotland outlined on his rugged countenance, presided over the collection of inkstands and ledgers. Naturally, I accosted him in English, whereupon the shape of my former interlocutor rose up from behind a screen and remarked, "By Jove, I thought you were Spanish, don't you know? and have been talking to you all this time in Spanish. What a sell!"

Failing the _Blanco_, I took pa.s.sage for Capiz on the _Fritz_, a craft one or two degrees smaller and rustier than the old _General_. Of all the weird experiences I ever had, that twenty-four hours was the weirdest. They cleared out a sort of pantry or lazaretto just back of the deck engine-house for me to use as a stateroom, and I slept on the pantry shelf. Some kind of steam pipes must have pa.s.sed under it, for it grew so hot that several times I had to vacate and get down on the floor. Then we met a little wind as we rounded the north coast, and I was sick. A family of Filipino aristocrats came on board at Estancia, and the ladies elected to share my retreat. They had several servants and one or two babies and other necessaries of life, and they left me only a corner of the pantry shelf, against which I propped my weary and seasick frame. We made Capiz just at dusk, and never was a wanderer more eager to see home. There on the bank were two of my friends, who said they were invited out to dinner and were to bring me if I arrived in time. So we went to that cheery American home with its spotless linen, its silver and china. For six weeks I had been living on Spanish "chow," and the contrast made me serenely happy. It was almost worth enduring--the six weeks of chow and the _Fritz_, I mean--to enjoy the change.

But to return to typhoons. We had several more that year, and I began to feel that typhoons were terribly exaggerated in books. But in 1903 we had an object lesson that I do not care to repeat. We went through all the usual preliminaries of typhoon signals, drizzle and gust. It was, I believe, the tenth of June. I stayed up late that night, working, and noticed that the gusts were increasing. Just at midnight I laid down my pen and started to go to bed, when there came a blast that shook the house like an earthquake and made me decide to wait a while. For the next three hours the storm raged in a very orgy of gladness. It slapped over nipa shacks with a single roar. It ripped up iron roofing and sent it hurtling about the air. The nipa of my roof was torn off bit by bit, and the rain came in torrents. I used my mackintosh to cover up the books, and put a heavy woollen blanket over the piano. Then I held an umbrella over the lamp to keep the rain from breaking the chimney, and sat huddling my pet monkey, which was crazed with fear. The houses on either side were taller than mine, and for this little hollow it seemed as if all the iron roofing of the town had steered a direct course. The pieces came down, borne by the shrieking wind, and landed with rattle and bang. My house swayed at every gust. It seemed that the cross-beams in the roof moved at least a foot each way. The little lanterns that burn in front of the houses were blown out by the wind, and when I peered out there was nothing but the inky darkness, the howling of the wind, the thras.h.i.+ng of the cocoanut trees, and the thud of falling nuts. From my side window I could see the native family next door to me all on their knees in front of an image of the Virgin, and once, in a lull, caught the sound of their prayers.

The storm reached its greatest violence by half past one and subsided by about three, at which time I went to bed and slept till morning. In spite of my fear I could not help laughing at my two Filipino girl servants. They slept undisturbed through the earlier gusts, but when the roof went and the water came in, they awoke--disgusted. The oldest one said, "Mucho aguacero" (a heavy shower) and cast about for a dry spot. She didn't find any at first, but she finally concluded that the corner where my bed stood was highest; lifting the valence, they disappeared.

Next morning Capiz presented a pitiful sight. Many of the great almond trees on the plaza were uprooted and the others dismembered. The little nipa houses were flat on the ground or drunkenly sprawling at every slant and angle. Even the best houses had suffered. The constabulary cuartel was absolutely wrecked. The Supervisor's kitchen was gone, and his wife mourned for her dishes, which were scattered up and down the length of the street. The home of the scout officer was jruined. He and his wife had taken shelter under a stone wall, and been drenched for three or four hours. The young mangoes had been strewn on the ground, and there was no hope of that crop. Many of the cocoanut trees were broken off, and where this was not the case, the nuts had been whipped off. The banana trees were entirely destroyed. Altogether it was a sorry sight, and we all got out and walked about and viewed the ruins, just as we do for a cyclone at home.

The storm had an aftermath in the rescue of an Englishman, Captain B----, a pearl fisher. He was anch.o.r.ed under the lee of a small island in the sea between Panay and Masbate. He was in a small lorcha, or sailing vessel, with no barometer, his gla.s.s having been left on a lorcha of larger tonnage, which was at another point. The heavy wind caught them without warning almost, and its impact soon pressed the lorcha over. Captain B---- found himself struggling in the water--able to swim, but drowning, as he expressed it, with the spindrift which was hurtling into his face. He kept one arm going, and partially protected his face with the other. Then in the inky dark he touched a human body. It was the leg of one of his crew, four of whom were clinging to one of the lorcha's boats. It kept turning over and over, and they had to go with it each time. Captain B---- hung to the prow, so his circuit was not so wide as that of the others, but his body--arms, legs, and chest--was literally ploughed by the rough usage. Once he let go and lost the prow as it came up, and the fright of this was enough to strengthen his hold. They were in the water clinging to this all the rest of the night, the next day, and the next night. One man died of exhaustion, and one went mad and let go. On the second morning they succeeded in bailing it out by means of an unders.h.i.+rt, which Captain B---- had been wearing, and which, though torn to ribbons across the front, was whole in the back. They remained in the boat all day, beaten on by the tropical sun, having been thirty hours in the water without food or drink.

Captain B---- said they were all a little mad. They saw the _Sam Shui_--the boat of the commanding officer of the Visayas--in the distance, but were too low to be sighted by her. They wore their finger ends down, tearing a plank off the side to use for an oar. Meanwhile the current carried them down closer to the Panay coast, and on the third day they were close enough to fall in with one of the big fis.h.i.+ng _paraos._ This carried them into Panay, a town five or six miles east of Capiz. Captain B---- had just strength to write a line or two and sign his name. This was brought down to Capiz, and the constabulary officer on duty there went out immediately with a launch and brought him in. He was in the military hospital a long time. His attending physician said that between salt water and sun he had been literally flayed, and the flesh torn into ribbons and gouged by the impact of the boat.

The storm did frightful havoc all through the Visayas, and many lives were lost and vessels wrecked. The _Blanco_ as usual made harbor all right, but another little Capiz boat, the _Josefina_, went ash.o.r.e, and her captain and several others were lost. The adventurous _One Lung_ was at Iloilo, and it was reported that she started out of the river without consulting her pilot, creating thereby general consternation among her sister craft.

We accustomed ourselves at last to typhoons and earthquakes, and, on the whole, decided that they were less fearful than tornadoes at home. Meanwhile we rather luxuriated in the sensations of romance inspired by living in a town surrounded by a hostile population and protected by soldiery. It was very, very new, and we made the best of it.

CHAPTER XIV

War Alarms and the Suffering Poor

A Surprise Party of Bolo-Men--Forty_ _Insurrectos_ _Arrive in Our Neighborhood--Anecdotes of Encounters with Insurgents--Anxiety Because of Treachery of the Natives--A False Alarm--Five Hundred Starving Persons--Great Lack of Inst.i.tutions for the Poor--Smallpox Patient in the School Building--The Newspaper a Creator of Hysteria.