Building. As a consequence, we had to rely largely on street carromatas. We had a force of small boys, clad in what Mr. Kipling calls “inadequate” shirts, whose business it was to go forth in response to the command, “Busca carromata,” and to return not till accompanied by the two-wheeled nightmare and the Lilliputian pony.
On the morning on which we drew our travel-pay checks, one of the Radcliffe girls was most eager to get down town before the bank closed. The shops of Manila had been altogether too alluring for the very small balance which remained in her purse after our ten days at Honolulu. The efforts of the small boys were apparently fruitless, so she resorted to the expedient of trying to gather up a carromata from some one leaving his at the Exposition Building. Every time a carromata drove up, she thrust her cherubic countenance out of the window and inquired of its occupant whether he was going to retain his conveyance or to dismiss it. Most of the visitors signified their intentions of never letting go a carromata when once they had it; and failure had rather dimmed the bravery of her inquiry, when one young man replied that he wished to retain his carromata, but that he was returning immediately to the city and would be happy to assist her and to take her wherever she wanted to go.
The Radcliffe girl closed with this handsome offer at once, accepting it in the chummy spirit which is supposed to be generated in the atmosphere of higher culture. A more worldly-wise woman might have suspected him, not only on grounds of general masculine selfishness, but on the fact that he had no business to transact at our hostelry. He did not enter its doors, but remained sitting in the carromata till she joined him. The girl had her mind on salary, however, and had no time to question motives. The banks had closed, but her guardian angel drove her to a newspaper office, where he introduced her, vouched for her, and induced the bookkeeper to cash her check. He then expressed a desire for a recognition of his services in the form of introductions to some of the teachers at the Exposition Building. The young woman was rather taken aback, for she had put all his civility down to disinterested masculine chivalry; but she reflected that she ought to pay the price of her own rashness. She was, however, a girl of resources. She agreed to let him call that afternoon and to introduce him to some of her new friends.
Then she came home and outlined the situation to an aged woman who was chaperoning her daughter, to a widow with two children, and to an old maid in whom the desire for masculine conquest had died for want of fuel to keep the flame alive. When the young man appeared, he found this austere and unbeautiful phalanx awaiting him. When the introductions were over and conversation was proceeding as smoothly as the caller’s discomfiture would permit it to do, the artful collegian excused herself on the ground of a previous engagement. She went away blithely, leaving him in the hands of the three. Nor was he seen or heard of on those premises again. Doubtless he still thinks bitterly of the effects of higher education on the feminine temperament. It was duplicity—duplicity not to be expected of a girl who could stick her head out of a window and hail the chance passer-by as innocently as she did.
From Manila to Capiz
I Am Appointed to a School at Capiz, on Panay Island—We Anchor at the Lovely Harbor of Romblon—The Beauty of the Night Trip to Iloilo—We Halt There for a Few Days—Examples Showing That the Philippines Are a “Mañana” Country—Kindness of Some Nurses to the Teachers—An Uncomfortable Journey from Iloilo to Charming Capiz.
In due time our appointments were made, and great was the wrath that swelled about the Exposition Building! The curly-haired maiden who had fallen in love with a waiter on the Thomas wept openly on his shoulder, to the envy of staring males. A very tall young woman who was the possessor of an M.A. degree in mathematics from the University of California, and who was supposed to know more about conic sections than any woman ought to know, was sent up among the Macabebes, who may in ten generations arrive at an elementary idea of what is meant by conic sections. Whether she was embittered by the thought of her scintillations growing dull from disuse or of scintillating head axes, I know not, but she made little less than a tragedy of the matter. The amount of wire-pulling that had been going on for stations in Manila was something enormous, and the disappointment was proportionate.
I had stated that I had no choice of stations, was willing to go anywhere, and did not particularly desire to have another woman assigned with me. I had my doubts about the advisability of binding myself to live with some one whom I had known so short a time; and subsequent experience and the observation of many a quarrel grown out of the enforced companionship of two women who never had any tastes in common have convinced me that my judgment was sound. I was informed that my station would be Capiz, a town on the northern shore of Panay, once a rich and aristocratic pueblo, but now a town existing in the flavor of decayed gentility. I was eager to go, and time seemed fairly to drag until the seventh day of September, on which date the boat of the Compañia Maritima would depart for Iloilo, the first stage of our journey.
September the seventh was hot and steamy. We had endless trouble getting ourselves and our baggage to the Bridge of Spain, where the Francisco Reyes was lying. Great familiarity has since quite worn away the nervousness which we then felt on perceiving that our watches pointed to half an hour after starting time while we were yet adorning the front steps of the Exposition Building. Local boats never leave on time. From six hours to three days is a fair overtime allowance for them.
We finally arrived at the steamer in much agony and perspiration. The old saying about bustle and confusion was applicable to the Francisco Reyes if one leaves out “bustle.” There were no immediate signs of departure, but there were evidences of the eleven o’clock meal. The muchachos were setting the table under an awning on the after-deck. A hard-shell roll with a pallid centre, which tastes like “salt-rising” bread and which is locally known as bescocho, was at each plate together with the German silver knives and spoons. The inevitable cheese was on hand, strongly barricaded in a crystal dish; and when I saw the tins of guava jelly and the bunch of bananas hanging from a stanchion, I had that dinner all mapped out. I had no time, however, to speculate on its constituent elements, because my attention was attracted by the cloth with which the boy was polishing off dishes before he set them down. This rag was of a fine, sooty-black color, and had a suggestion of oil about it as if it had been on duty in the engine-room. The youth grew warm, and used it also to mop his perspiring countenance. I ceased to inspect at that point, and went forward.
The Bend in the River at Capiz
Several black and white kids of an inquisitive turn of mind were resting under my steamer chair, which had been sent on board the day before. They seemed to feel some injury at being dispossessed. I guessed at once that we carried no ice, and that the goats were a sea-faring conception of fresh meat. As their numbers diminished daily, and as we enjoyed at least twice a day a steaming platter of meat, garbanzos, peppers, onions, and tomato sauce, I have seen no reason to change my opinion.
Passengers continued to arrive until nearly two o’clock. There were one or two officers with their muchachos, and some twenty or more schoolteachers. Six were women, and we found ourselves allotted the best there was.
We got away about three o’clock, and, after fouling a line over a row of cascos and threatening their destruction, sailed down the Pasig and out into the Bay, We passed Corregidor about sunset, met a heavy sea and stiff wind outside, and I retired from society. This was Saturday night. On Sunday noon we cast anchor in the lovely harbor of Romblon, and, defying sickness, I came on deck to admire.
The harbor at Romblon resembles a lake guarded by mountains which are covered with cocoanut trees clear to their summits. At one end—the end toward the entrance, which no unfamiliar eye can detect—a
