The Great White Tribe in Filipinia Part 4

The fountain on the corner, where the brown, barefooted girls with bamboo water-tubes would gather at the noon hour and at supper-time, was shaded in the heat of the day by a mimosa-tree. The _Calle de la Paz y Buen Viaje_ (Street of Peace and a Good Journey), flanked by sentinel-like bonga-trees and hedged in by a bamboo fence, stretches away through the banana-groves toward the fantastic mountains. A puffing carabao comes down the long street, dragging the heavy stalks of newly-cut bamboo. The pig that has been rooting in the gra.s.s, looks up, and, seeing what is coming, bolts with staccato grunts unceremoniously through the bamboo fence.

In the little drygoods-store across the street, Felicidad, the dusky-eyed proprietress, has gone to sleep while waiting for a customer. She has discarded her _chinelas_ and her _pina_ yoke. Her brown arms resting on the table pillow her unconscious head. Her listless fingers clasp a half-smoked cigarette.

The stock of _La Aurora_ is a comprehensive one, including printed cotton goods from China, red and green belts with nickel fastenings, uncomfortable-looking Spanish shoes, a bottle of quinine sulphate tablets, an a.s.sortment of perfumery and jewelry, rosaries and crucifixes, towels and handkerchiefs, and dainty _pina_ fabrics. The arrival of the _Americano_ is the signal for the neighbors and the neighbors' children, having nothing in particular to do, to flock around. The Filipino curiosity again!

On the next corner, where the wooden Atlas braces up the balcony, the _Chino_ store is sheltered from the sun by curtains of alternate blue and white. Here _Chino_ Santiago, in his cool pajamas, audits the accounts with the a.s.sistance of the wooden counting frame, while _Chino_ Jose, his partner, with his paintbrush stuck behind his ear, is following the ledger with his long, curved finger-nail. Both _Chinos_, being Catholics, have taken native wives, material considerations having influenced the choice; but _Maestro_ Pepin says that, nevertheless, they are unpopular because they work too hard and cause the fluctuations in the prices. By pursuing a consistent system of abstractions from the rice-bags, by an innocent adulteration of the _tinto_ wine, these two _comerciantes_ have acquired considerable wealth.

The bland proprietor will greet you with a smile, and offer you the customary cigarette. And if the prices quoted are unsatisfactory, they are at least elastic and are easily adjusted for a personal friend. Along the shelf the opium-scented line of drygoods is available, while portraits of the saints and _Neustra Senorita del Rosario_, whose conical skirt conceals the little children of the Church, hang from the wall. Suspended from the ceiling are innumerable hanging lamps with green tin shades. A line of fancy handkerchiefs, with Dewey's portrait and the Stars and Stripes embroidered in the corners, is displayed on wires stretched overhead across the store. Bolo blades, chocolate-boilers, rice-pots, water-jars, and crazy looking-gla.s.ses are disposed around, while in the gla.s.s case almost anything from a bone collar-b.u.t.ton to a musical clock is likely to be found. Santiago would be glad to have you open an account here and, unlike the Filipino, he will never trouble you about your bill.

The market street is lined with _nipa_ booths, where _senoritas_ play at keeping shop, presiding over the army of unattractive articles exposed for sale. Upon a rack the cans of salmon are drawn up in a battalion, a detachment of ex-whisky bottles filled with kerosene or _tanduay_, bringing up the rear. Certain stock articles may be invariably found at these _tiendas_,--boxes of matches, b.a.l.l.s of cotton thread, bananas, _buya_, eggs and cigarettes, and the inevitable br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s of _tuba_, stained a dark-red color from the frequent applications of the betel-chewing mouth.

Although the stream of commerce flows in a small way where the almighty _'suca duco_ is the medium of exchange, gossip is circulated freely; for without the telegraph or telephone, news travels fast in Filipinia. The withered hag, her scanty raiment scarcely covering her bony limbs, squatting upon the counter in the midst of _guinimos_, bananas, and dried fish, and spitting a red pool of betel-juice, will chatter the day long with the _senora_ in the booth across the street. The purchaser should not feel delicate at seeing her bare feet in contact with the spiced bread that he means to buy, nor at the swarms of flies around the reeking mound of _guinimos_ sc.r.a.ped up in dirty wooden bowls, and left in the direct rays of the sun.

Dogs, pigs, chickens, and children tumble in the dust. Dejected Filipino ponies, tethered to the shacks, are waiting for their masters to exhaust the _tuba_ market. Down the lane a panting carabao, with a whole family clinging to its back, is slowly coming into town. Another, covered with the dust of travel, laden with bananas, hemp, and _copra_ from a distant _barrio_, is being driven by a fellow in a _nipa_ hat, straddling the heavy load. A mountain girl, bareheaded, carrying a parasol, comes loping in to the _mercado_ on a skinny pony saddled with a red, upholstered _silla_, with a rattan back and foot-rest, cinched with twisted hemp.

At night the market-place is lighted up by tiny rush lights, burning cocoanut-oil or _petrolia_. Here, on a pleasant evening, to the lazy strumming of guitars, the village population promenades, young men in white holding each other's hands, and blowing out a cloud of cigarette smoke; _senoritas_, in their cheap red dresses, shuffling hopelessly along the road. One of the local characters is entertaining a street-corner audience with a droll song, while the town-crier, with his escort of munic.i.p.al police, announces by the beating of a drum that a _bandilla_ from the _presidente_ is about to be p.r.o.nounced.

Here you will find the Filipino in his natural and most playful mood, as easily delighted as a child. A crowd was always gathered round the _tuba_ depot at the head of the _mercado_, where the agile climbers brought the beverage in wooden buckets from the tops of _copra_-trees. A comical old fellow, Pedro Pocpotoc (a name derived from chicken language), used to live here, and on moonlight nights, planting his fat feet on the window-sill, like a droll caricature of Nero, he would sing Visayan songs to the accompaniment of a cheap violin. A talkative old baker lived a short way down the street with his three daughters. They were always busy pounding rice in wooden mortars with long poles, thus making rice-flour, which they baked in clean banana-leaves and sweetened with brown sugar molded in the sh.e.l.ls of cocoanuts.

Sometimes a Moro boat would drop into the bay, and the strange-looking savages in their tight-fitting, gaudy clothes would file through town with spices, bark, and cloth for sale. From Bohol came the curious thatched _bancas_, with their gra.s.s sails and bamboo outriggers, with cargoes of pottery, woven hats, _bohoka_, and rattan. On the _fiesta_ days, Subanos from the mountains brought in strips of dried tobacco, ready to be rolled up into long cigars, _camotes_, coffee-berries, chocolate, and eggs, and squatted at the entrance to the c.o.c.kpit in an improvised _mercado_ with the people from the sh.o.r.e, who offered clams and _guinimos_ for sale.

And once a month the town would be awakened by the siren whistle of the little hemp-boat from Cebu. This whistle was the signal for the small boys to extract the reluctant carabao from the cool, sticky wallow, and yoke him to the creaking bamboo cart. Then from the storehouses the fragrant _picos_ of hemp would be piled on, and the longsuffering beast of burden, aided and abetted by a rope run through his nose, would haul the load down to the beach. While naked laborers were toiling with the cargo, carrying it upon their shoulders through the surf, the Spanish captain and the mate, with rakishly-tilted Tam o'Shanter caps, would light their cigarettes, stroll over to Ramon's warehouse where the hemp was being weighed, and, seated on sour-smelling sacks of _copra_, chat with old Ramon, partaking later of a dinner of _balenciona_, chicken and red-peppers, cheese and guava.

Much of the village life centers around the river. Here in the early morning come the girls and women wrapped in robes of red and yellow stripes, and with their hair unbound. In family parties the whole village takes a morning bath, the young men poising their athletic bodies on an overhanging bank and plunging down into the cool depths below, the children splas.h.i.+ng in the shallow water, and the women breast-deep in the stream, was.h.i.+ng their long hair.

Here also, during the morning hours, the women take their was.h.i.+ng. Tying the _chemise_ below the arms, they squat down near the sh.o.r.e and beat the wet ma.s.s with a wooden paddle on a rock. Meanwhile the children build extensive palaces of pebbles on the bank; the carabaos, up to their noses in the river, dream in the refres.h.i.+ng shade of overhanging trees. The air is vocal with the liquid notes of birds, and fragrant with the heavy scent of flowers. A leaf-green lizard creeps down on a horizontal trunk. The broad leaves of _abaca_ rustle in the breeze; the graceful stalks of bamboo crackle like tin tubes. Around the bend the water ripples at the ford. At evening you will see the tired men from the mountains, bending under heavy loads of hemp, wade through the shallows to the cavern shelter of the banyan-tree. Through the dense mango-grove comes the faint sound of bells. The _puk-puk_ bird hoots from the jungle, and the black crows settle in the lofty trees.

The covered bridge that spans the river near the mouth is a great thoroughfare. Neither the arch nor pier is used in its construction; it is anch.o.r.ed to the sh.o.r.e by cables. It is not a very rigid bridge, and sways considerably when one is crossing it. Even the surefooted ponies step a little gingerly over the loose beams that form the floor. A curious procession is continually pa.s.sing,--families moving their worldly goods on carabaos, the dogs and children following; _hombres_ on ponies, grasping the stirrups with their toes; a padre with his gown caught up above his knees, riding away to some confession; mountain people traveling in single file, and girls with trays of merchandise upon their heads.

Down where the _nipa_ jungle thickens, fis.h.i.+ng _bancas_ are drawn up on the sh.o.r.e; and near by in a cocoanut-grove the old boatmaker lives. The hull of the outlandish boat that he is carving is a solid log. When finished, with its black paint, _nipa_ gunwale, bamboo outriggers, and rat-lines made of parasitic vines, it will put out from port with a big gamec.o.c.k as a mascot, rowed with clumsy paddles to the rhythm of a drum, its helpless gra.s.s sails flopping while the sailors whistle for the wind. These boats, although they can not tack, have one advantage--they can never sink. They carry bamboo poles for poling over coral bottoms. In a fair breeze they attain considerable speed; but there is danger in a heavy sea of swamping. When drawn up on sh.o.r.e they look like big mosquitoes, as the body in proportion to the rigging seems quite insignificant.

The little fis.h.i.+ng village is composed of leaning shacks blown out of plumb by heavy winds. Along the beach on bamboo racks the nets are hanging out to dry. At night the little fleet puts out for Punta Gorda, where a ruined watch-tower--a protection against Moro pirates--stands half hidden among creeping vines. The nets are floated upon husks of cocoanut, and set in the wild light of burning rushes. While the men are working in the tossing sea, or venturing almost beyond sight of land, the women, lighting torches, wade out to the coral reef and seine for smaller fish among the rocks. Early the following morning, while the sea is gray, the fishermen will toss their catch upon the sand. The devil-fish are the most popular at the impromptu market, where the prices vary according to the run of luck.

The town was laid out by the Spaniards in the days when Padre Pedro was the autocrat and representative of Spanish law. The ruins of the former mission and the public gardens are now overgrown with gra.s.s. Sea-breezes sweep the rambling convent with its double walls, tiled courtyard, and its Spanish well. The new church, never to be finished, but with pompous front, ill.u.s.trates the relaxing power of Rome. Goats, carabaos, and ponies graze on the neglected plaza shaded with widespreading camphor-trees. The two school buildings bearing the forgotten Spanish arms are on the road to ruin and decay; no signs of life in the disreputable _municipio_; the _presidente_ probably is deep in his _siesta_, and the solitary guard of the _carcel_ is busily engaged in conversation with the single prisoner.

The only remains of Spanish grandeur in the village are the two ramshackle coaches that are used for hea.r.s.es at state funerals. Most of the larger houses are, however, in repair, although the canvas ceilings and the board part.i.tions seem to be in need of paint. These houses occupy the center of the town. They are of frame construction, painted blue and white. The floors are made of rosewood and mahogany; the windows fitted with translucent sh.e.l.l. Storehouses occupy the first floor, while the living rooms are reached by a broad flight of stairs. A bridge connects the dining-room with the kitchen, where the greasy cook, often a Moro slave, works at a smoky fire of cocoanut-husks on an earth bottom, situated in an annex to the rear.

A walk through the main street leads past a row of native houses, built on poles and shaded by banana-trees. You are continually stepping over mats spread out and covered with pounded corn, while pigs and chickens are shooed off by the excitation of a piece of _nipa_, fastened to a string and operated from an upper window of the house. A small _tienda_ opens from each house, with frequently no more than a few betel-nuts on sale. The front is decorated with the faded strips of cloth or paper lamps left over from the last _fiesta_, while the skeleton of a lamented monkey fixed above the door acts as a charm to keep away bad luck. A parrakeet swings in the window on a bamboo perch, and in another window hangs an orchid growing from the dried husk of a cocoanut. Under the house the loom is situated, where the women weave fine cloth from _pina_ and banana fibers--and the wooden mortar used for pounding rice. After the harvest season it is one of the Visayan customs to inaugurate rice-pounding bees. Relays of young men, stripped for work, surround the mortar, and, to the accompaniment of guitars, deliver blows in quick succession and with gradually increasing speed, according to the measure of the music.

In the cool shade of the _ylang-ylang_ tree a native barber is intent upon his customer. The customer sits on his haunches while the operation is performed. When it is finished, all the hair above the ears and neck will be shaved close, while that in front will be as long as ever. The beard will not need shaving, as the Filipino chin at best is hardly more aculeated than a strawberry. The hair, however, even of the smallest boys grows for some distance down the cheeks. The Filipino, when he does shave, takes it very seriously, and attacks the bristles individually rather than collectively.

You will not remain long in a Filipino town without the chance of witnessing a native funeral. A service of the first cla.s.s costs about three hundred _pesos_; but for twenty _pesos_ Padre Pedro will conduct a funeral of less magnificence. The padre, going to the house of mourning where the band, the singers, and the candle-bearers are a.s.sembled, engineers the pageant to the church. The dim interior will be illuminated by flickering candles burned in memory of the departed soul. Before the altar solemn ma.s.s is held, intensified by the deep tolling of a bell. Led by three acolytes in red and white, with silver crosses, the procession moves on to the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. The padre sheltered by a white umbrella, reads the Latin prayers aloud. A small boy swings the smoking censer, and the singers undertake a melancholy dirge. The withered body, with the hands crossed on the breast, clothed all in black, is borne aloft upon a bamboo litter, mounted with a black box painted with the skull and bones, and decked with candles. Women in black veils with candles follow, mumbling prayers, the words of which they do not understand.

The cemetery is surrounded by a coral wall, commanded by a gate that bears a Latin epigram. The graves, as indicated by the mounds of dirt, are never very deep, and while a few are guarded by a wooden cross, forlornly decorated by a withered bunch of flowers, most of the graves receive no care at all. There may be one or two vaults overgrown with gra.s.s and in a bad state of repair. Around the big cross in the center is a ghastly heap of human bones and grinning skulls--grinning because somebody else now occupies their former grisly beds, the rent on which has long ago expired.

To the Visayan mind, death is a matter of bad luck. It is advisable to hinder it with _anting-antings_ and medallions; but when it comes, the Filipino fatalist will take it philosophically. To the boys and girls a family death is the sensation of the year. It means to them nine days of celebration, when old women gather at the house, and, beating on the floor with hands and feet, put up a hopeless wail, while dogs without howl dismally and sympathetically. And at the end of the nine days, the soul then being out of purgatory, they will have a feast. A pig and a goat will be killed, not to speak of chickens--and the meat will be served up with calabash and rice; and visitors will come and look on while the people eat at the first table; and the second table and the third are finished, and the viands still hold out. But these are placed upon the table down below, where _hoi polloi_ and the lame, blind, and halt sit down and eat. And back of all this superficiality lies the great superst.i.tious dread by means of which the Church of Rome holds such authority.

I got to know the little village very well--to join the people in their foolish celebrations and their wedding feasts. I was among them when the town was swept by cholera; when, in their ignorance, they built a dozen little shrines--just _nipa_ shelters for the Holy Virgin, decorated with red cloth and colored gra.s.s--and held processions carrying the wooden saints and burning candles.

Then the locusts came, and settled on the rice-fields--a great cloud of them, with whirring wings. They rattled on the _nipa_ roofs like rain. The children took tin pans and drums and gave the enemy a noisy welcome. But the rains fell in the night, and the next morning all the ground was strewn with locusts trying heavily to fly. The ancient drum of the town-crier ushered in the day of work, and those who took this opportunity to pay their taxes gathered at the _municipio_--about a hundred ugly-looking men. They were equipped with working bolos, with their blades as sharp as scythes for cutting gra.s.s, and, looking at them, you were forcibly reminded of another day, another army with a similar accouterment. Even the _presidente_ went barefooted as he gave directions for the work. Some were dispatched for _nipa_ and bamboo, while others mowed the gra.s.s around the church. Another squad hauled heavy timbers, singing as they pulled in unison.

On Sunday mornings a young carabao was killed. The meat hacked off with little reference to anatomy was hung up in the public stall among the swarms of flies. Old women came and handled every piece, and haggled a good deal about the price. Each finally selected one, and swinging it from a short piece of cane, carried it home in triumph. Morning ma.s.s was held at the big _simbahan_, where the doleful music of the band suggested lost souls wailing on the borders of Cocytus or the Stygian creek. Young _caballeros_ dressed in white, the _concijales_ with their silver-headed canes and baggy trousers, and the "_taos_"

in diaphanous and flimsy s.h.i.+rts that they had not yet learned to tuck inside, stood by to watch the _senoritas_ on their way to church. The girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as ma.s.s was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed into the bliss of informality.

I learned, when I last went to _La Aurora_, that Felicidad was going to be married; that the banns had been announced last Sunday in the church. The groom to be, Benito,--or Bonito as we called him on account of his good looks,--had recently returned from college in Cebu, bringing a string of fighting c.o.c.ks, a _fonografo_, and a piebald racing pony. "When he sent me the white ribbon," said Felicidad, "I was surprised, but mamma said that I was old enough to marry him--I was fourteen--and that the matter had been all arranged. And so I wore the ribbon in my hair, and also wrote my name _Felicidad_ beneath his on the card that he had sent. And after that, when we went walking, the _duena_ was unnecessary."

She confessed navely to a serenade under her balcony, of which I seem to have retained a hazy memory. And so the usual pig and goat were roasted, and the neighbors' boys came in to help. The bride, with orange-blossoms in her hair, the daintiest kid slippers on her feet, and dressed in a white mist of _pina_, rode away in the new pony cart, the only one in town. The groom was dressed in baggy trousers, with a pink s.h.i.+rt and an azure tie. Most of the presents came from _Chino_ Santiago's store; but the best one was a beautiful piano from Cebu.

After the service in the church, a feast was held upstairs in the bride's house. Ramon, the justice of the peace, the padre, _Maestro_ Pepin, all the _concijales_, and the _presidente_ were invited, and the groom owned up that he had spent his last cent on the refreshments that were pa.s.sed around. It is the custom in the poorer families for the prospective groom to bond himself out for a certain length of time to the bride's father, or even to purchase her with articles of merchandise. A combination of commercial interests was the result, however, of the marriage of Bonito and Felicidad.

Chapter IX.

The "Brownies" of the Philippines.

How would you like it, not to have a Fourth of July celebration, or a Christmas stocking, or a turkey on Thanksgiving-day? The little children of the Philippines would be afraid of one of our firecrackers--they would think it was another kind of "boom-boom"

that killed men. A life-sized turkey in the Philippines would be a curiosity, the chickens and the horses and the people are so small. The little boys and girls do not wear stockings, even around Christmas-time, and Santa Claus would look in vain for any chimneys over there. The candy, if the ants did not get at it first, would melt and run down to the toes and heels of Christmas stockings long before the little claimants were awake. Of course, they do not have plum-puddings, pumpkin-pies, and apples. All the season round, bananas take the place of apples, cherries, strawberries, and peaches; and boiled rice is the only kind of pumpkin-pie they have.

The fathers and mothers of the little Brownie boys and girls are very ignorant. Most of them can not even write their names, and if you asked them when the family birthdays came they would have to go and ask the padre. Once, when I was living at the convent, a girl-mother, who had walked in from a town ten miles away, came up to register the birth of a new baby in the padre's book. She stood before the priest embarra.s.sed, digging her brown toes into a big crack in the floor. "At what time was the baby born?" was asked. "I do not know,"

she answered, "but it was about the time the chickens were awake."

It is a lucky baby that can get goat's milk to drink. Their mothers, living for the most part on dried fish and rice, are never strong enough to give them a good start in life. It is a common sight to see the tiny litter decorated with bright bits of paper and a half-dozen lighted candles, with its little, waxen image of a child, waiting without the church door till the padre comes to say the funeral services.

In that far-distant country but a small number of children ever have worn pretty clothes--only a tiny s.h.i.+rt; and they are perfectly contented, as the weather never gets uncomfortably cold. Their mothers or their older sisters carry them by placing them astride the hip, where they must cling tight with their little, fat, bare legs. They are soon old enough to run around and play; not on the gra.s.s among the trees, but in the dust out in the street. Their houses, built of _nipa_ and bamboo, do not set back on a green lawn, but stand as near to the hot, dusty street as possible. To get inside the houses, which are built on posts, the babies have to scramble up a bamboo ladder, where they might fall off and break their necks. At this age they have learned to stuff themselves with rice until their little bodies look as though they were about to burst. A stick of sugar-cane will taste as good to them as our best peppermint or lemon candy. All the boys learn to ride as soon as they learn how to walk. Saddles and bridles are unnecessary, as they ride bareback, and guide the wiry Filipino ponies with a halter made of rope. The carabao is a great friend of Filipino boys and girls. He lets them pull themselves up by his tail, and ride him into town--as many as can make room on his back, allowing them to guide him by a rope run through his nose.

I do not think that many of the children can remember ever having learned to swim. The mothers, when they take their was.h.i.+ng to the river, do not leave the little ones behind; and you can see their glistening brown bodies almost any morning at the riverside among the _nipa_, the young mothers beating clothes upon a rock, the carabaos up to their noses in the water, chewing their cuds and dreaming happy dreams. The boys can swim and dive like water-rats, and often remain in the river all day long.

The girls, when about five years old look very bright. Their hair is trimmed only in front (a good deal like a pony's), and their laughing eyes are very brown and mischievous. Most of them only wear a single ornament for a dress--a "Mother Hubbard" of cheap cotton print which they can buy for two _pesetas_ at the _Chino_ store. The boys all wear long trousers, and, at church or school, white linen coats, with military collars, which they call "_Americanas_," The girls do not wear hats. They save their "Dutchy" little bonnets, with the red and yellow paper flowers, for the _fiesta_ days. They wear white veils on Sundays when they go to ma.s.s. The boys' hats often have long brims like those that we wear on the farm. They also have felt Tam o'Shanter caps, which they affect with quite a rakish tilt.

Playthings are scarce in Filipinia. The boys and girls would be delighted with a cheap toy cart or drum. The dolls are made of cotton cloth, with painted cheeks, and beads for eyes, dressed up in sc.r.a.ps of colored _pina_ cloth in imitation of fine _senoritas_. Kite-time and the peg-top season come as in America. The Filipino kites are built like b.u.t.terflies or birds, and sometimes carry a long beak which is of use in case of war. Kite-fighting is a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt in the islands, where the native boys are expert in the art of making and manipulating kites. Among the other games they play is one that an American would recognize as "tip-cat," and another which would be more difficult to recognize as football. This is played with a light ball or woven framework of rattan. The ball is batted from one player to another by the heel. The national pet is neither dog nor cat; it is a chicken and the grown-up people think almost as much of this unique pet as the children do.

Music comes natural to the Filipinos. Their instruments are violins, guitars, and flutes. The boys make flutes of young bamboo-stalks which are very accurate, and give out a peculiar mellow tone.

_Fiesta_-days and Sundays are the great events in Filipinia. On Sunday morning the young girls, in their white veils and clean dresses, go to ma.s.s, and, making the sign of the cross before the church, kneel down upon the bare tiles while the service is performed. The church to them is the magnificent abode of saints and angels. The wax images and altar paintings are the only things they have in art except the cheap prints of the saints and Virgin, which they hang conspicuously in their homes. _Pascua_, or Christmas week, is a great holiday, but it is very different from the Christmas that we know. The children going to the convent school are taught to sing the Spanish Christmas carols, and on Christmas eve they go outdoors and sing them on the streets in the bright starlight. Their voices, although untrained, are very delicate and sweet. The native music, which they often sing, like all the music of the southern isles, is very melancholy, often rising to a hopeless wail. On the last day of school the padre will distribute raisins, nuts, and figs, which are the only Christmas presents that the boys and girls receive. At the parochial schools they are taught to do their studying aloud, and always to commit the text to memory. If memory should fail them in a crisis, they would be extremely liable to have their ears pulled by the priest, or to be made to kneel upon the floor with outstretched arms, thus making the recitation somewhat of a tragedy; but there are also prizes for the meritorious. One book includes the whole curriculum--religion, table manners, grammar, "numbers," and geography--arranged in catechisms of convenient length. The boys are separated from the girls in school and church, and I have very seldom seen them play together in their homes. During the long vacation they must spend most of their time at work out in the rice-fields under the hot sun. So they would rather go to school than have vacation.

With the new schools and the American schoolteachers a great opportunity has come to the young people of the Philippines. New books with beautiful ill.u.s.trations have been introduced, new songs, and a new way of studying. It would amuse you if you were to hear them read. "I do not see the pretty bird" they would p.r.o.nounce, "Ee doa noat say day freety brud." The roll-call also sounds a good deal different from that in our own schools, where we have our Williams, Johns, and Henrys; but the Filipino names are very pretty (mostly names of Spanish saints), Juan, Mariano, Maximo, Benito, and Torribio for boys; Carnation, Bernarda, and Adela for the girls. The boys especially are very bright, and they are learning rapidly, not only grammar and arithmetic, but how to play baseball and tag and other games that make the child-life of America so pleasant.

Chapter X.