He Also Kept A Few Chickens And Would Often Send Me A Present
Of Some Eggs, Which Were Very Acceptable.
In return I would give him
an old shirt or two, which he was very proud of.
By the time I left,
these shirts were almost the colour of his skin, and he evidently did
not wish to follow my advice as to washing them. His house was a very
large one for a Negrito's, and far better built than any others that
I saw. When the maize which grew round my hut was ripe, the Filipino
owner got several men and women up from Florida Blanca to help him
to harvest it, and many of them slept underneath my hut. At nights I
would generally have quite a crowd round me watching me skin my birds,
and although I did not understand a word of their Pampanga dialect,
their exclamations of surprise and delight when a bird was finished
were quite complimentary. Poor Vic had to endure a running fire of
questions as to what I was going to do with my birds and butterflies,
but to judge by the way he lectured on me, he no doubt enjoyed it,
and possibly told them some wonderful yarns about "My English," as
he called me. One day a man at work in the maize had a bad attack of
"calenturas" (malarial fever). I gave him some quinine and Epsom salts
and this treatment evidently had a good effect, as the next day I was,
besieged by a regular crowd of Filipinos of both sexes, who wished to
consult me as to their various ills, and Vic was called in to act as
interpreter. A good many of them, both men and women, took off nearly
all their clothes to show me bruises and sores that they had, and I
was in despair as to what treatment to recommend. At last when one
old woman had parted with most of her little clothing to show me some
sores, I told Vic to tell her that she had better get a good wash in
the river (as she was the reverse of clean). This prescription raised
a laugh, but the old lady was furious, and my medical advice was not
again asked for. After the maize was cut, the owner started to sow
a fresh crop without even taking out the old stalks, which had been
cut off a few inches from the ground. This was the way he did it. He
made holes in the ground with a hoe in one hand, and in the other
hand he held a roasted cob of corn, which he kept chewing from time
to time. His wife followed him, dropping a grain into each hole and
filling in the soil with her feet. It would have made a good picture
under the heading of "Agriculture in the Tropics"! Vic told me that
they got four crops a year, so one can hardly wonder at their taking
things easily.
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