Читать книгу A Woman's Impression of the Philippines - Mary H. Fee - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Voyaging over the Tropical Seas—We Touch at Guam, or Guahan, One of the Ladrone Islands—Our First Sight of the Philippines—Manila, “A Mass of Towers, Domes, and White-painted Iron Roofs Peeping Out of Green”—Dispersion of the Passengers.

From Honolulu to Guam we crept straight across in the equatorial current, blistering hot by day, a white heat haze dimming the horizon, and an oily sea, not blue, but purple, running in swells so long and gentle that one could perceive them only by watching the rail change its angle. Once we saw a whale spout; several times sharks followed us, attracted by the morning’s output of garbage; and at intervals flying fish sallied out in sprays of silver. Once or twice we passed through schools of skate, which, when they came under our lee, had a curiously dazzling and phosphorescent appearance. One of the civil engineers aboard called them phosphorescent skate, but I had my doubts, for I noticed that bits of paper cast overboard would assume the same opalescent tints when three or four feet down in the water.

We had also the full moon, leaving a great shining pathway in our wake at night, and flooding us with unreal splendor. The pale stars swung up and down as the Buford slipped over each wave, and little ripples of breeze cooled the weather side of the ship. By this time we were a thoroughly assorted company. The afterdeck was yielded to flirtatious married ladies whose husbands were awaiting them in Manila, while we sobersides and the family groups gathered under the awnings. We sang no more; but the indefatigable cornetist on the troop deck still entertained his fellows, while occasionally a second steward stole out with a mandolin, and struggled with the intermezzo from “Cavalleria.” We did not run out of talk, however, and the days went by all too swiftly.

Of Guam I can only say that it struck me as the most desolate spot I had ever seen. It stays in my memory as a long peninsula, or spit of land, running out into the sea, with a ten or twelve-foot bank above, fringed with ragged cocoanut trees. Back of this the land rose gradually into low hills. There was a road leading to the town some eight miles inland, and four-mule ambulances dashed up and down this. We had to anchor three miles off shore on account of coral reefs. We had commissary stores to land, and our navigator captain lost his temper, because the only available lighter in Guam was smashed by a falling bundle of pig iron the first thing. For a while the outlook for fresh provisions in Guam was a sorry one, for our captain vowed by all his saints that he would up anchor and away at four o’clock. The glass indicated a change of weather, and he was unwilling to risk his ship in the labyrinth of coral reefs that encircles the island. Fortunately a German tramp whaler dropped into harbor at this point for water, and some boats were obtained from her—though I could never see why, for we had plenty of our own. The unloading process went on briskly, and toward noon the U.S. gunboat Yorktown came in to pay a call; thus there were actually three vessels at one time in the harbor of Guam.

The Volcano of Mayón

Said to be the only perfect cone in the world.

Such a repletion of visitors had never been known there. The four-mule wagons seemed crazed with excitement. The enthusiasm even spread to the natives, who hung about in dug-outs, offering to sell us cocoanuts, pineapples, and green corn. Our captain kept his word, for at four o’clock we swung about and left Guam behind us. Our passenger list was richer by several political prisoners who had been in exile and were returning to their native land—whether for trial or for freedom, I have no knowledge.

Some five or six days later, it was rumored that we should pick up the light on the southeast coast of Luzon about midnight, and most of us stayed up to see it. We also indulged in the celebration without which few passenger ships can complete a long voyage. We had a paper and it was read, after which ceremonial the ship’s officers invited us to partake of sandwiches and lemonade in the dining-room. The refreshments were considerably better than the paper, which was neither wise nor witty, but abounded in those commonplace personalities to which the imagination of amateur editors usually soars.

About 2 A.m., when yawns were growing harder and harder to conceal, the light made its appearance. I counted three flashes and went below.

Next morning, we were hugging the coast of Albay abreast the volcano of Mayon, said to be the most perfect volcanic cone in the world. It seems to rise straight from the sea; with its perfectly sloping sides and a summit wreathed in delicate vapors, it is worthy of the pride with which it is regarded by the Filipinos.

Then we entered the Strait of San Bernardino, between Luzon and Samar, and passed for a day through a region of isles. The sea was glassy save when a school of porpoises tore it apart in their pursuit of the flying fish. On its deep sapphire the islands seemed to float, sometimes a mere pinnacle of rock, sometimes a cone-shaped peak timbered down to the beach where the surf fell over. Toward evening, when the breeze freshened slightly, we seemed almost to brush the sides of some of these islets, and they invited us with sparkling pools and coves, with beaches over which the sea wimpled, and with grassy hillsides running out into promontories above cliffs of volcanic rock. Thatched villages nestled in the clefts of the larger islands, or a fleet of paraos might be drawn up in a curving bay. And, yonder in the golden west, shimmering, dancing, in rosy-tinted splendor, more islands beckoned us to the final glory of a matchless day—clouds heaped on clouds, outlined in thin threads of gold, and drawing, in broad shafts of smoky flame, the vapors of an opal sea. At that time I had not seen the famous Inland Sea of Japan, but I have since passed through it twice, and feel that in beauty the Strait of San Bernardino has little to yield to her far-famed neighbor.

Next day we crept up the coast of Batangas, and when I came on deck the second morning they told me that the island on our left was Corregidor, and that Manila was three hours’ sail ahead. It was of no use going into a trance and coming up in imagination with Dewey, because he did not come our way. The entrance to Manila Bay is rather narrow, and Corregidor lies a little to one side in it like a stone blocking a doorway. The passage on the left entering the bay is called Boca Chica, or Little Mouth; that to the right is called Boca Grande, or Big Mouth. Dewey entered by the Boca Chica, and we were in Boca Grande.

View of Corregidor

By and by a cluster of roofs, church towers, docks, and arsenals took form against the sea. A little later we could discern the hulks of the Spanish fleet scattered in the water, and several of our own fighting craft at anchor. This was Cavite. There, too, around a great curve of eight or nine miles, lay Manila, a mass of towers, domes, and white-painted iron roofs peeping out of green. Behind loomed the background of mountains, without which no Filipino landscape is ever complete.

By eleven o’clock we had dropped anchor and the long voyage was over. Counting our ten days in Honolulu, we lacked but three of the forty days and forty nights in which the Lord fasted in the wilds. It would be injustice to the Buford’s well-filled larder, however, to intimate that we fasted. Our food was good, barring the ice cream, which the chef had a weakness for flavoring with rose water.

The first launch that came out after the doctor’s brought a messenger from the Educational Department with orders to us teachers to remain aboard till next day, when a special launch would be sent for us. So all day we watched our friends go down over the side, and waved farewells to them, and made engagements to meet on the Luneta. The launches and lighters and cascos swarmed round us, the cargo derricks groaned and screeched, the soldiers gathered up knapsack and canteen and marched solemnly down the ladder. Vessels steamed past us or anchored near us, while we hung over the rail, gazing at Manila, so near and yet so far. After dinner we betook ourselves to the empty afterdeck and stared down the long promenade—alas! resembling the piazza of a very empty hotel!—and peopled it with the ghosts of those who late had sat there. They had gone out of our lives after a few brief days of idleness, but they would take up, as we should, the work of building a nation in a strange land and out of a reluctant people. Some were fated to die of wounds, and some were stricken with the pestilence. Most of them are still living, moving from army post to army post. Some are still toiling in the remotenesses of mountain villages; others are dashing about Manila in the midst of its feverish society. Some have gone to swell the American colonies in Asiatic coast towns. A few have shaken the dust of the Philippines forever from their feet, and are seeking fame in the home land and wooing fortune in the traffic of great cities or in peaceful rural life. Some, perhaps, may read these lines, and, reading, pause to give a tender thought to the land which most Americans revile while they are in it, but which they sentimentally regret when they have left it.

Eight long years have slipped by since that night, and in that time a passing-bell has tolled for the Philippines which we found then. Who shall say for many a year whether the change be for better or for worse? But the change has come, and for the sake of a glamour which overlay the quaint and moribund civilization of the Philippines of that day I have chronicled in this volume my singularly unadventurous experiences.

The afterdeck was empty, and the promenade was the haunt of ghosts, but across the circle of gloom we could see a long oval of arc lights with thousands of little glow-worms beneath, which we knew were not glow-worms at all, but carriage lamps dashing round the band stand; and as if he divined our sentimental musings, the second steward took heart and not only played but sang his favorite air from “Cavalleria.”