As There Was No Face To The Clock, I Was Puzzled To
Know Whether To Set My Watch At The First Or Last Stroke, Or To Split
The Difference.
There were a great many funerals during my stay here in December,
there being a regular epidemic of cholera and malaria.
This was the
unhealthy season, and I was told that there were as many deaths in
Florida Blanca during the months of December and January as during
all the rest of the year put together.
One day I watched from my window a funeral procession on its way
from the church to the cemetery. The Padre was not there, and this
no doubt accounted for the acrobatic display given by the three men
in cassocks and surplices, who led the way, bearing a cross and two
candles. They started by playfully kicking each other, and this soon
developed into angry words, so that I expected a free fight. One
of them tucked his unbuttoned cassock round his neck, and egged the
other two on. The coffin followed on a lighted bier, and the string
of mourners followed meekly behind, no doubt looking upon this display
as nothing out of the common.
The interior of the church was very cold and bare, and there were no
seats. I learnt that the American and the Filipino Padre did not hit it
off together. There were one or two opposition schools in the village,
run by Filipinos, who did their utmost to prevent the children from
learning the language of the hated Americanos. The American did
not make himself any more popular by pulling down the old street
sign-boards bearing Spanish names, and substituting ugly card-board
placards marked in ink with fresh names, such as America Street,
McKinley Street, and Roosevelt Street; he had also named a street
after himself! Later on I learnt that this American schoolmaster
was a kind of spy in the American secret police, and that he had to
listen outside Filipino houses at night to overhear the conversation
of suspected insurgents. I was told this by Victoriano, my Filipino
servant in the mountains, who often accompanied the American in his
nightly rounds, and was the only man in the secret. This Victoriano,
whom I always called Vic for short, was the best servant that I
have had during my wanderings in any part of the world. He spoke
Spanish and knew a little English, as he had once been a servant
to an Englishman near Manila. With my small knowledge of Spanish,
and his smattering of English, we hit it off very well together. He
acted as gun-bearer, cook, laundry maid, housemaid, interpreter and
guide. Later on he told me that he had been an officer in the insurgent
Aguinaldo's army, and that he had been imprisoned by the Spaniards for
four years on the island of Mindanao for belonging to a revolutionary
society. He was a tall, thin fellow of only thirty-two years of age,
and yet his present wife in Florida Blanca was his sixth, all the
others being dead. I used to chaff him about having poisoned them,
which much amused him. After some days the American returned, and he
told me of a very good spot in which to collect up in the mountains,
so one morning I started off with Vic for a long stay in these mountain
forests. We left Florida Blanca before the sun had risen, my luggage
being carried in one of the curious buffalo wagons. We soon left
the dry rice-fields behind, and for some distance passed over a wide
uninteresting plain of tall grass, dotted about with a few trees. After
going some distance our two buffaloes were unyoked and allowed to soak
in a small pond. This process was repeated every time we came to any
water, and this, together with the slow progress of the buffaloes,
made the journey longer than I had anticipated. After crossing a
fair-sized river, we began a gradual ascent into the mountains. My
luggage was then carried for a short distance, and after travelling
through some bamboo thickets and crossing a rocky stream, I beheld my
future abode. It was a small grass-thatched hut, with a flooring of
split bamboo, raised four feet from the ground; up to this we had to
climb by means of a single bamboo step. About two-thirds of the hut
consisted of a flooring of bamboo, fairly open on all sides but one;
this part did as my bedroom, and to get to it I had to crawl through
a hole - one could hardly call it a door! It was quite dark inside,
but there was just room enough to lie down on the split bamboo
floor. All round the hut was a large clearing, planted with maize,
belonging to a Filipino, who from time to time lived in another small
hut about one hundred yards away. He also owned the one I was living
in, and for this I paid him the not very exorbitant sum of one peso
(two shillings) a month. Tall gaunt trees rose out of the corn on all
sides, and in the early morning they were full of bird-life - parrots,
parakeets, cockatoos, pigeons, woodpeckers, gapers and hornbills,
etc. A clear rocky stream flowed by the side of the hut, the sound of
whose rushing waters by night and day was like music to the ear in this
hot and thirsty land, whilst shaded as it was by bamboos and trees,
it was a delightful spot to bathe in every morning and evening. I was
well pleased with my surroundings, and looked forward to a successful
and interesting stay. I fared well though the food was rough, and I
subsisted chiefly on rice and papayas, together with pigeons, doves,
parrots, and the smaller hornbill, called here "talactic," all of which
fell to my gun. The surrounding country in these lower mountains was
a mixture of forest and open grass-country, the grass often growing
far over my head.
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