The Day
Following My Arrival Was A Sunday, And The Church, A Large Building
Of Stone And Galvanized Iron, Was Almost Opposite The American's
House.
I watched the people going to early mass (the Filipinos are
devout Roman Catholics).
All the women wore gauzy veils thrown over
their heads, white or black were the prevailing colours and sometimes
red. I thought they looked very nice in them. I had asked Camilo to
boil me some water, but he begged off very politely, as he had to
go and put on his cassock and surplice to attend the service in the
church, where he sang all alone. When he returned, I asked him to
sing to me what he had sung in the church, and he at once complied,
singing the "Gloria Patri" in a very clear and sweet voice. After mass
was over, the church bell began to toll and an empty lighted bier
came out of the church. It was preceded by three acolytes bearing
a long cross and two large lighted candlesticks, and followed by a
crowd of people. They were no doubt going to call at a house for the
corpse. Shortly afterwards an old Filipino priest came out and got
into one of the quaint covered buffalo wagons with solid wooden wheels
(already mentioned), and drove slowly round by the road. It was hot
and sultry, and thunder was pealing far away in the mountains. Under
a clump of trees (of a kind of yellow flowering acacia), which grew
just outside the large old wooden doors of the church, there was
a group of village youths and loafers, and two or three men went
past with their fighting cocks under their arms, Sunday afternoon
out here being the great day for cock-fighting.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 61 of 217
Words from 16635 to 16931
of 59060
