The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 34

As sailors they are unsurpa.s.sed in the East. They navigate their schooners and lorchas with much skill, although the rigging and outfit is seldom kept in thorough good order unless they have a Spanish captain.

They serve both as sailors and firemen in the fine flotilla of coasting-steamers belonging to Manila, and they manned all the smaller vessels of the Spanish Navy in the Philippines.

Most of the British and foreign steamers in the far East carry four Manila men as quarter-masters. They are considered to be the most skilful helmsmen. Their ability as mechanics is remarkable. They bear out entirely Morga's description of them: "Of good talent for anything they undertake."

They will, without any European supervision, heave down wooden sailing-vessels up to about 1000 tons, and repair the keel, or strip, caulk, and re-copper the bottom. I have often seen this done. They build from the excellent hard wood of the country, brigantines, schooners, lorchas, also cascos, and other craft for inland navigation and shallow waters. These latter vessels are most ingeniously contrived, and admirably adapted to the conditions under which they are to be used, and although not decked, carry their cargoes dry, and in good order, in the wettest weather. They make the most graceful canoes, and paddle or punt them with remarkable dexterity.

In Manila and Cavite are to be found a fair number of native engine-fitters, turners, smiths and boiler-makers.

There must be some 400 steam sugar-mills in the islands (besides 6000 cattle-mills). The engine-drivers and firemen are all natives, and mostly Tagals.

There are also in the capital large numbers of native house-carpenters, quarrymen, stone-masons, and some brick-layers and brick-makers.

Curiously enough, foundry work is not much done by Tagals, although when Legaspi arrived in Luzon he not only found cannon mounted at Manila, but there was a cannon-foundry there, and another at Tondo.

There are foundries at the latter place to this day belonging to Chinese half-castes, but church bells are more to their way now than cannon. They, however, cast small bra.s.s mortars with handles like quart pots, which are used for firing salutes at the feasts of the church. But I think most of the workmen were then, and are now, Chinese.

They make their own gunpowder, and fireworks of all kinds. They are inordinately fond of these, and get up very creditable displays. They are careless in handling them, and I was eye-witness of an explosion of fireworks during a water fete, on the pa.s.sing in front of the governor's palace at Malacanan, when a number of people were killed. I never learned how many had perished, and the newspapers were forbidden to enlarge upon it.

Excellent carriages are built in Manila entirely by native labour, the carromatas, or two-wheeled vehicles used for travelling, being made in the suburbs, or in Malabon.

Carriage-building is an important trade, for an incredible number of vehicles of all sorts are used in Manila.

Of an evening, in the Luneta, some hundreds may be seen, and on one occasion, at the races of the Jockey Club in Santa Mesa, two thousand vehicles were reported to be present.

Painting and decorating is executed by Manila men in excellent style. This art was taught them by Alberoni, and other Italians. Their pupils have covered the walls of many buildings with frescoes in the Italian style, very fairly done. There is much scope for their art in decorating altars and shrines.

The Tagals also show some talent for sculpture, as any visitor to Manila can see for himself by inspecting the Jesuit Church, which is a marvel of patient artistic labour, having taken eleven years to construct. Some of the carving there, however, is so delicate and minutely detailed, that it appears more suitable for a show case in a museum than for the adornment of a place of wors.h.i.+p. Of course, every detail of design is due to the Jesuits themselves, amongst whom talented men of every profession can be found.

As a fisherman, the Tagal excels, and the broad expanse of Manila Bay, some 700 square miles in area, gives ample scope for his ingenuity. He practises every kind of fis.h.i.+ng Corrales de Pesca, or fish-stakes within the five-fathom line, casting nets and seines in the shallow water, huge sinking nets attached to bamboo shear-legs mounted on rafts in the estuaries, drift nets and line-fis.h.i.+ng in the deeper parts of the bay.

From Tondo, from Paranaque, Las Pinas, Bacoor, and Cavite Viejo, and from dozens of other villages, go hundreds of large canoes, crowded with men, and heaped up with nets, to fish near the San Nicolas Bank, or about Corregidor Island, and they often return with large catches. Some fish by night, with torch and spear; in fact, they seem to be quite at home at any kind of fis.h.i.+ng.

The nets and sails of the canoes, and the clothes of the fishermen, are all tanned by them with the bark of the camanchile tree.

The salting, drying, or smoking of the fish caught in the bay is quite an extensive business. The smoked sardines, or tinapa, are very tasty, as also the pickled mullet roes called Bagon de Lisa. But the small shrimps fermented in a jar, and brought to a particular stage of putrefaction, [21] much appreciated by the natives, will not suit European or American tastes.

The vast Bay of Manila holds fish and mammals of all sorts and sizes, from small fry to that huge but harmless monster of the deep, Rhinodon tipicus, with a mouth like the opening of a hansom cab, scooping in jelly-fish by the bushel.

The peje-rey, like a smelt, the lenguado, or sole, the lisa, or mullet, the bacoco, corbina, pampano, and others whose names I have forgotten, are excellent. The oysters are good, but very small. Prawns are excellent, large and cheap. Crabs are good, but large ones are not plentiful. Clawless lobsters are caught amongst the rocks of Corregidor and Mariveles. The largest turtle I have ever seen was caught off Malabon. It can be seen in the Jesuits' Museum, Manila.

Sharks of all sorts, enormous saw-fish, [22] hideous devil-fish, [23] and monstrous conger eels, as well as poisonous black and yellow sea-snakes, abound, so that the fisherman does not have everything his own way. Amongst these men are to be found some excellent divers. I have found them quite able to go down to the keel of a large s.h.i.+p and report whether any damage has been done. Where a sheet of copper has been torn off, they have nailed on a new sheet, getting in two or three nails every time they went down. I enquired from one of these men who had frequently dived for me, when a European diver with diving-gear could not be obtained, if he was not afraid of sharks? He answered, "No es hora del tiburon"--it is not the sharks' time--and I found he considered that he was very fairly safe from the sharks between ten and four. Before ten and after four was a dangerous time, as the sharks were on the look-out for a meal. I cannot say that I should like to trust to this, especially as I have seen sharks about at other times, and one afternoon, in the bay, had to keep off a hammerheaded-shark from coming near a British diver who was examining the rudder of a steamer, by firing at it from the stern. Some sharks are heavy and slow-moving creatures, but the hammer-headed kind are endowed with a surprising activity, and twist and turn like an eel.

My native diver informed me that he was much more afraid of the Manta than of any shark, and that once when he was diving for some purpose--I do not recollect when--at the bottom a shade fell on him, and, on looking up, he beheld an enormous manta right above him--in his words, "as big as a lighter." However, it pa.s.sed on, and he was able to regain the surface.

Perhaps the most remarkable talent possessed by the Tagal is his gift for instrumental music.

Each parish has its bra.s.s band supplied with European instruments, the musicians generally wearing a quasi-military uniform. If the village is a rich one, there is usually a string band as well. They play excellently, as do the military bands. Each infantry battalion had its band, whilst that of the Peninsular Artillery, of ninety performers, under a band-master holding the rank of lieutenant, was one of the finest bands I have ever heard. There were few countries where more music could be heard gratis than in the Philippines, and for private dances these bands could be hired at moderate rates.

The Tagal is also a good agriculturist. According to his lights, he cultivates paddy with great care. It is all raised in seed-plots, the soil of which is carefully prepared, and fenced about. The fields are ploughed and harrowed whilst covered with water, so that the surface is reduced to soft mud. When the ground is ready for planting, the whole population turns out, and, being supplied with the young shoots in bundles, of which tally is kept, proceed to plant each individual shoot of paddy by hand.

Ankle-deep in the soft mud of the paddy-fields stand long rows of bare-legged men, women and children, each in a stooping position, holding against the body with the left hand a large bundle of rice-plants, incessantly and rapidly seizing a shoot with the right hand, and plunging it into the black slime with the forefinger extended.

Hour after hour the patient toil goes on, and day after day, in all the glare of the burning sun, reflected and intensified from the surface of the black water, till the whole vast surface has been planted. The matandang-sa-naya, or village elder, then announces how many millions of rice shoots have been put in. The labour is most exhausting, from the stooping position, which is obligatory, and because the eyes become inflamed from the reflection of the sun on the black water. As the paddy is planted during the rainy season, it often happens that the work is done under a tropical downpour instead of a blazing sun.

When driving along a road through paddy-fields in October, it seems incredible that every blade of that luxuriant crop has been transplanted by hand. Yet the people who do this are branded as lazy. I think that they are quite ready to work for a sufficient inducement. Whenever I had works to execute I never experienced any difficulty in obtaining men. I made it a rule to pay every man with my own hands every Sat.u.r.day his full wages without deductions. On Monday morning, if I wanted 300 men, there would be 500 to pick and choose from. I should like to see some of their depreciators try an hour's work planting paddy, or poling a casco up stream.

The undulating nature of the ground renders it necessary to divide paddy land into small plots of irregular outline at varying levels, divided from each other by ridges of earth called pilapiles, so as to retain the rain or irrigation water, allowing it to descend slowly from level to level till it reaches its outlet at the lowest point. The Tagals fully justify their Turanian origin by the skill and care which they show in irrigation. About Manila, the sacate, or meadow-gra.s.s, which is the princ.i.p.al food of the thousands of ponies in the city, is cultivated on lands which are exactly at a level to be flooded by the spring-tides.

The mango-tree is carefully cultivated, and the fruit is, to some extent, forced by lighting fires of leaves and twigs under these trees every evening in the early part of the year to drive off insects, and give additional warmth.

In Batangas and La Luguna, and, to some extent, in Bulacan, the Tagals cultivate the sugar-cane successfully.

But where they really s.h.i.+ne, where all their care is lavished, where nothing is too much trouble, is in the cultivation of the buyo (Piper betel). This is a climbing plant, and is grown on sticks like hops. There were many plantations of this near Pineda, which I frequently visited. It is grown in small fields, enclosed by hedges or by rows of trees to keep off the wind.

The soil is carefully prepared, and all weeds removed. As the tendrils grow up, the sticks are placed for them. The plants are watered by hand, and leaf by leaf carefully examined every morning to remove all caterpillars or other insects. The plants are protected from the glare of the sun by mat-shades supported on bamboos.

The ripe leaves are gathered fresh every morning, and taken to market, where they find a ready sale at remunerative prices for chewing with the areca nut, and a pinch of slaked sh.e.l.l lime.

Whenever I have had Tagal hunters with me deer-shooting, I have been struck with their knowledge of the natural history of their locality. They thoroughly understood the habits of the game, and almost always foretold correctly the direction from which the deer would approach the guns.

They have names for every animal and bird, and for the different ages or conditions, or size of antlers, of the deer.

Even insects and reptiles are named by them; they could give details of their habits, and knew whether they were poisonous or dangerous.

They always showed themselves greatly interested in sport, and much appreciated a good shot. They spoke of a gun that killed well as a hot gun (baril mainit). If they were trusted with a gun they were very reluctant to spend a cartridge unless for a dead certainty. If two cartridges are given to a hunter, he will bring in two deer or pigs, otherwise he will apologise for wasting a cartridge, and explain how it happened.

Their usual way of taking game is to set strong nets of abaca in the woods in the form of a V, then the beaters and dogs drive the game towards the hunters, who are concealed near the apex, and who kill the deer or wild pigs with their lances whilst entangled in the nets.

I have found the Tagals very satisfactory as domestic servants, although not so hard-working as the Ilocanos. Some of them could clean gla.s.s or plate as well as an English butler, and could lay the table for a dinner party and ornament tastefully with flowers and ferns, folding the napkins like a Parisian waiter.

They could also write out the menu (their orthography having been previously corrected), and serve the dinner and wines in due sequence without requiring any directions during the meal.

Some of them remained in my service the whole time I was in the Philippines; one of them, Paulino Morillo, came to England with me in charge of my two sons, and afterwards made three voyages to Cuba with me. I gratefully acknowledge his faithful service. His portrait is appended.

I did not find them sufficiently punctual and regular as cooks, nor did they make their purchases in the market to as much advantage as the Chinese cooks, who never bid one against another to raise the price.

As clerks and store-keepers I found the Tagals honest, a.s.siduous, and well-behaved. As draughtsmen they were fairly skilful in drawing from hand sketches, and excelled in copying or tracing, but were quite untrustworthy in taking out quant.i.ties and computing. Some of them could write beautiful headings, or design ornamental t.i.tle-pages. I have by me some of their work that could not be done better even in Germany or France. But the more skilful they were the more irregular was their attendance, and the more they had learned the worse they behaved.

When doing business with the Tagals, I found that the elder men could be trusted. If I gave them credit, which was often the case, for one or two years, I could depend upon the money being paid when due, unless some calamity such as a flood or a conflagration had rendered it absolutely impossible for them to find the cash. In such a case (which seldom happened) they would advise me beforehand, and perhaps bring a portion of the money, giving a pagare, bearing interest, for the remainder, and never by any possibility denying the debt. I never made a bad debt amongst them, and gladly testify to their punctilious honesty. This idea of the sacredness of an obligation seems to prevail amongst many of the Malay races, even among the pagan savages, as I had occasion to observe when I visited the Tagbanuas in Palawan (Paragua). They certainly did not learn this from the Spaniards.

The More Instruction the less Honesty.

When dealing with the younger men who had been educated in Manila, in Hong Kong, or even in Europe, I found that this idea had been eradicated from them, and that no sufficient sense of honour had been implanted in its stead.

In fact, I may say that, whilst the unlettered agriculturist, with his old-fas.h.i.+oned dress, and quiet, dignified manner, inspired me with the respect due to an honest and worthy man, the feeling evolved from a discussion with the younger and educated men, dressed in European clothes, who had been pupils in the Ateneo Munic.i.p.al, or in Santo Tomas, was less favourable, and it became evident to me that, although they might be more instructed than their fathers, they were morally below them. Either their moral training had been deficient, or their natures are not improved by education. I usually preferred to do business with them on a cash basis.