A Yankee in the Far East Part 11

Since starting my series of travel letters, word has come to me that some of my readers are disappointed that I s.h.i.+ed at a description of seasickness--an eminently looked-for and expected dissertation--and instead went off on a tangent about false teeth, which was not in the regular line of letters of travel; and I also learn that the hope is entertained that I will not close this series without describing a storm at sea, the which is a regular, fit, and greatly-to-be-desired adjunct to such a series of letters as I am writing.

I have written on former occasions a description of St. Peter's Church at Rome, taken a running jump at the Pyramids, and once, just once, I wrote a rhapsody--about the Hawaiian Islands--most beautiful spot on earth. But I've always promised myself that I'd leave a sto-o-rm at sea alone.

But when an exacting public drives, a hack must needs travel, and if I must come through with a storm at sea, right here and now is the time and place to do it, as we are in the midst of a typhoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Word has come to me that some of my readers are disappointed that I s.h.i.+ed at a description of sea sickness, but instead went off on a tangent about false teeth]

Now a typhoon is conceded to be the most colossal kind of a storm, and right here in the China Sea, between Hong Kong and Manila, is the place where they grow the biggest typhoons--this is headquarters for typhoons--and we are now in the midst of the biggest of its kind. So while I have the data right at hand where I can pick it fresh from the hat--get all the local coloring--I'll do the regular and conventional thing, albeit under protest. Ah me! ah my! ah mo! ah me! I say, and then some more. I wish you might be with me now and hear the billows roar. A storm has struck this good old s.h.i.+p, the waves are mountain high, the billows rise, and rise, and rise, and mount up to the sky, while gullies in the vasty deep the valiant s.h.i.+p must try. Down, down she goes, and still down, down, into the depths of h.e.l.l, and then she strives to rise again on ocean's mighty swell. She climbs, and climbs, and climbs, and climbs--almost she makes the top--the billow breaks--comes cras.h.i.+ng down--the s.h.i.+p is in the sop. Ten thousand tons of briny sea come cras.h.i.+ng on her deck; another blow like that I fear the gallant s.h.i.+p will wreck. Forked lightning splits the inky sky, with blinding flash on flash, while thunder-bolts shoot up the s.h.i.+p with awful deafening crash. Up through the billows, up she comes, she whoofs, and groans, and creaks--a mightier billow still in store the s.h.i.+p's destruction seeks. She rides the crest, then plunges down to greater depths below; the greedy sea laughs in its glee, then thunderous billows throw o'er bow and p.o.o.p of fated sloop--they stab her through and through, they wash the captain overboard, likewise his mate and crew. The bos'n and the cook are gone, also the nine-lived cat--on all the s.h.i.+p no soul is spared, no, not one lonesome rat. The s.h.i.+p is lost! Where is the scribe--the boy, oh where is he? Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea.

MORAL: Genius should be coaxed, not driven.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea]

XVI

THE ISLANDS "DISCOVERED" BY DEWEY

I arrived in Manila--not seasick--I never was seasick in my life (I've mentioned that before, haven't I?)--but anyone who read my last letter with that degree of attention necessary to get the meat out of letters of travel will have gathered that there was a bit of a blow coming over from Hong Kong, and that it was a rough crossing.

Those of my readers who regret that the bowsprit and I reached Manila are no friends of mine, and any invidious remarks they may make about my last letter are of no consequence to me.

The Philippine Islands are a tropical group. There are about 3,000 of them. They lie between five degrees and twenty degrees north lat.i.tude, and one hundred and seventeen degrees and one hundred and twenty-seven degrees east longitude, and they contain 120,000 square miles of land.

The Pacific Ocean washes their eastern boundaries and the China sea the western. The largest islands are Luzon and Mindano--Luzon with about 40,000 square miles and Mindano with 36,000. About 400 of the islands are inhabited.

They are quite a big chunk of land, as big as New England, New York, and New Jersey. Winter never comes; three crops of corn can be raised on the same piece of ground in a year, and six crops of corn fodder.

While they are mountainous, they are not so mountainous as j.a.pan, and have broader valleys of rich, fertile land. They are pretty nearly as large as j.a.pan, without its new possessions of Formosa and Korea, the difference in area being about 170,000 square miles in j.a.pan against 120,000 in the Philippines. They are just a little shy of having 9,000,000 inhabitants, who are chocolate brown in color, have straight hair, and in stature are about the size of the j.a.panese.

Admiral George Dewey of the American navy discovered these islands May 1, 1898. No one except the natives knew anything about them until that momentous date in history.

We were at that time at war with Spain, a decrepit old nation which hadn't progressed beyond torturing bulls for pastime, when Admiral George, walking his fleet out for a const.i.tutional one morning before breakfast, out here in the China Sea, saw something flying the Spanish flag.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered these islands May 1st, 1898]

George had got word that we were at war with Spain, and anything flying the Spanish flag was fair game for the doughty George, so he shot it up.

He lowered a boat and rowed off to pick up his game, and found the Philippine Islands.

None of my readers who were old enough at the time to remember anything will fail to recall how the United States went mad with joy over the discovery.

Here this old earth had plugged along until A. D. 1898 and it was supposed that all lands had been discovered except the North and South Poles, and it was pretty well believed if they were ever discovered it wouldn't go very far toward reducing the high cost of living--it was pretty thoroughly believed that it wasn't a good farming country around either of those poles--but to discover, dropped right out of the blue, a veritable Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey, as big as New England, New York, and New Jersey--our nation went mad, delirious with joy. You all recall it.

When George came sailing home from that wonderful cruise we were for making him President of the United States, and I guess we might have done it if he had known whether he was a Democrat or Republican.

As soon as his flags.h.i.+p was seen in the offing on his return, we went off in a small boat to meet him, clambered on deck, and the first question we popped at him was, "George, are you a Democrat or a Republican?"

George said he didn't know--he thought he was a Democrat. Then on second thought he said he _was_ a Democrat.

But things were in such shape at that time that the slightest suspicion of doubt in a candidate's mind as to whether he was a Democrat or Republican spoiled his chances for the Presidency.

Well, I guess!

Why, a fellow out for the Presidency in those times would wear a great big feather plume stuck in his hat and you could hardly see the plume for the prominent words, "I Am a Democrat," displayed on it.

He might buy a new hat, but the same plume would be stuck in it. And _vice versa_ some other chap seeking the Presidency--while he couldn't wear a plume in his hat saying "I Am a Republican" (the fellow with the plume had that device copyrighted), he would have something else just as effective--a newspaper, or a tariff bill, or a sombrero, or something with which he would proclaim from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, "I Am a Republican."

While it was tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum which you were, a term of years of that blatant, persistent advertising declaration was necessary to cop out the Presidency.

George had been so busy discovering new lands that he wasn't hep to this, so when we shot that question at him, he said he didn't know. He knew he was a patriot, and all c.o.o.ns looked alike to George, so that was what he said.

Shucks! With that answer George didn't have any more show for the Presidency than a rabbit.

While we couldn't give him the Presidency, we gave him the most popular outburst of a country's grat.i.tude--the most hilarious, spontaneous, delirious paean of praise ever awarded any discoverer of new lands--Christopher Columbus was a piker.

We bought George a house--he shook the sea, married a wife and settled down and lived happily ever after.

We were so grateful to Spain for locating the islands for George that we paid her $20,000,000, because she needed the money.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I hit a prominent official in Was.h.i.+ngton for a free pa.s.s on a transport to the Philippines]

I got so excited over the new find that I packed my grip, hit a prominent official in Was.h.i.+ngton for a free pa.s.s on a transport to the Philippines--on the grounds of my being an ultra patriotic American--and made a bee line for the Pacific coast. When I got to San Francisco I learned that the next transport for the Philippines wouldn't leave for a week. There was a liner leaving for the Orient that day, so I forfeited my pa.s.s and bought a ticket on the liner--I was in a hurry to see these islands. When I got here, shortly after George had discovered them, the Filipinos tried to stuff me with a story about a fellow by the name of Magellan having discovered the islands way back in 1521--blamed if they didn't try to knock out George's patent with a claim of priority.

I looked the islands over from Luzon to Mindano--had a "lovely" time.

I told the Filipinos I didn't take any stock in that alleged Magellan discovery. On their own story about it that discovery was nearly four hundred years old, and, even if it were true, it was moth-eaten, rust-worn, and had no cutting edge.

If they had been discovered nearly four hundred years ago it was high time that there should be some evidence of that discovery to prove it--they hadn't made any use of the discovery.

Manila was the toughest city in the Orient. Dirty, cholera and plague-ridden, out at the elbows and down at the heel, and that general description would apply all over the islands.

But the Filipinos set some store by that Magellan myth. The shock of a real discovery set them off and stirred them up, and they set up a republic, alla samee melican man, and proclaimed Aguinaldo President.

Aguinaldo was running around in the woods somewhere, current historians didn't seem to know just where, and wasn't having any marked success with his Presidency; and, after some argument, was persuaded to quit the Presidency and go to farming.

XVII

WHITE FILIPINOS, AGUINALDO, AND THE BUSY MOTH