Many Evenings, When I Had Finished My Work, I Would Get Vic To Teach
Me The Pampanga, Dialect, And Wrote
Down a large vocabulary of words,
and when some years afterwards I compared them word for word with
other dialects
And languages throughout the Malay Archipelago,
I found that, with a few exceptions, there was not the slightest
affinity between them.
CHAPTER 6
A Chapter of Accidents.
A Severe Bout of Malaria in the Wilds - The "Seamy Side" of
Exploration - Unfortunate Shooting of the Chief's Dog - Filipino
Credulity - Stories of the Buquils and their Bearded Women -
Expedition Planned - Succession of CONTRETEMPS - Start for the Buquil
Country - Scenes on the Way - A Negrito Mother's Method of Giving
Drink to Her Baby - Exhausting Marches Amid Striking Scenery - The
Worst Over - A Bolt from the Blue - Negritos in a Fury - Violent
Scenes at a Negrito Council of War - They Decide on Reprisals -
Further Progress Barred in Consequence - Return to Florida Blanca.
As I mentioned before, this was the unhealthy season in the
Philippines, and Vic assured me that these lower mountains were even
more unhealthy than the flat country. I myself soon arrived at a
similar conclusion, as a regular epidemic of malaria now set in among
my pigmy friends, the Negritos, and the old chief told us that his
favourite son was dying with it; next my neighbour and his wife were
prostrated with it, and when they had slightly recovered, they left
their hut and returned to Florida Blanca. Vic himself was next laid up
with it, and seemed to think he was going to die. When I was at work
in the evening he would shiver and groan under a blanket by my side;
this, coming night after night, was rather depressing for me, all
alone as I was. At other times he would imagine we were hunting the
wary and elusive PITTA, and would start up crying, "AH! EL TINKALU,
it is there! POR DEOS, shoot, my English, shoot!" or he would imagine
we were after butterflies, and would cry out, "CARAMBA, MARIPOSA AZUL
MUY GRANDE, MUY BUENO, BUENO!" I was forced to do all the cooking for
both of us, though it was quite pathetic to see poor Vic's efforts to
come to my assistance, and his indignation that his "English" should
do such work for him. At one time I half expected that he would die,
but with careful nursing and doctoring I gradually brought him round.
During all the time that he was ill. I did but little collecting,
and no sooner was Vic on the road to recovery than I myself was seized
with it, and Vic repaid the compliment by nursing me in turn. It was
a most depressing illness, especially as I was living on the poorest
fare in a close and dirty hut. When you are ill in civilization, with
nurses and doctors and a good bed, you feel that you are in good hands,
and confidence does much to help recovery. But it is a different matter
being sick in the wilds, without any of these luxuries, and you wonder
what will happen if it gets serious. Then you long for home and its
luxuries, with a very great longing, and cordially detest the spot
you are in, with all those wretched birds and butterflies! It is Eke
a long nightmare, but as you get better you forget all this, and the
jaundiced feeling soon wears off, and you start off collecting again
as keen as ever. One day a small skinny brown dog somehow managed to
climb up the bamboo step into my hut during Vic's temporary absence,
and I suddenly awoke to find it helping itself to the contents of a
plate that Vic had placed by my side. I was far too ill to do more
than frighten it away. This happened a second time before I was strong
enough to move, but the third time I was well enough to seize my small
collecting gun (which was loaded with very small cartridges), and
when it was about thirty yards away I fired at it, simply intending to
frighten it, as at that distance these small cartridges would hardly
have killed a small bird. It stopped suddenly and, after spinning
round a few times yelping, it turned over on its back. Even then I
thought it was shamming, but on going up to it I found it was dead,
with only one No. 8 shot in its spleen. On Vic's return he was much
alarmed, as he said the dog belonged to the Negrito chief, who was
very fond of it, and would be very angry with me if he knew. So we
hid the body in the middle of a clump of bamboo about a quarter of
a mile away from the hut. But the following day the sky was thick
with a kind of turkey buzzard, which had evidently smelt the dog's
corpse from some distance, and they were soon quarrelling over the
remains. Vic worked himself up into a state of panic, saying that it
would be discovered by the Negritos, but a few days later I sent him
over to the Negrito chief's hut to get me some rice, and the chief
mentioned that his chief wife had lost her dog, which she was very
fond of, and that he thought that I must have killed it. Vic in reply
said that that could never be, as in the country that I came from
the people were so fond of dogs that they were very kind to them,
and treated them like their own fathers. The chief then said that a
pig must have killed it, and so the incident ended.
About this time Vic asked my permission to return to Florida Blanca
for a few days, as he had heard that his wife had run away with another
man, and he offered to send his brother to take his place. His brother
could also speak English a little, and was assistant schoolmaster to
the American.
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