I visited the larger cities of America. They have splendid buildings and magnificent ideals. America is a home-land for the poor that are willing to work. I traveled across America, and saw the majestic cascade of Niagara. I was in New York, the great city, but there everything is new. I went to see some relics of Washington, that great man who, I fear, has not his equal in this century.
From Albany he had gone forward by the Hudson River, and was greatly impressed with its magnificent scenery, but thought that, in the way of commerce alone, the Pasig was busier. From New York he sailed on the steamer City of Rome, then esteemed a maritime masterpiece, and reached London, where he found lodgings with the organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral and settled himself for a season of work and study.
Part of this work became afterward an invaluable legacy to his countrymen and literature. In his youth he had heard of a wonderful book, of which only two or three copies existed in all the world, a book written in 1607[20] about the Philippine Islands and their people as they were then. A blunt, honest old Spaniard, Antonio de Morga, had written it, apparently with no purpose except to tell the truth, an impulse that in [[157]]itself for his times was enough to confer distinction. Other Spanish writers of that day had written to create desired impressions, to justify theories or to excuse the Spanish aggression, whereby the lies had dripped like oil from their pens. De Morga had as good a chance as anybody else to know the Islands; he had accompanied one of the earliest of the Spanish expeditions and for seven years had been a part of its exploits. One of the few copies of his book, “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,” was in the British Museum. Rizal formed the ambitious design to rescue it from oblivion and republish it, annotated and clarified.
With some difficulty he ran the barrage so strangely erected around this institution and found the precious volume to be all that had been said in praise of it. De Morga’s observations, evidently unbiased, established what Rizal had long surmised and then asserted, that the Filipinos had been historically wronged. The sea-coast folk, at least, the bulk of the nation, had not been more truly savages when Magellan came than the Spaniards themselves. From de Morga’s accounts it was easy to show that the Filipino’s spirit, activities, and general welfare had been in no way bettered by Spanish rule. Arts, industries, products in the Islands, and even energy, seemed to have been more observable among the people in de Morga’s day than at the close of the nineteenth century.
This was a matter of grave importance to the Islanders and so remained long after Rizal’s labors had ceased. The Spanish excused to the world their presence and their cruelties alike on the one ground that the Indio was a savage. Suppose him without [[158]]European restraint and European inspiration, they said; he would revert to his caves, his raw meat, and his bows and arrows. To learn that he was heir to these centuries of dignity and worth was not only disconcerting but raised a question to which there was no answer. If he was as civilized as the Spaniard, why had he not the Spaniard’s right to be free?
De Morga described at length the arts and industries that flourished in the Philippines long before a Spanish flag had fluttered above their waters; the excellence in weaving, in metalwork, agriculture, government, domestic arts, commerce, navigation; how the natives lived and worked, what good ships they built, what busy marts they had erected.[21] On this Rizal’s observations are shrewd and witty, but he sometimes allowed his joy over the vindication of his people and of his own theories about them to sweep him out of that coolly scientific attitude he usually maintained about such things. For this he may be forgiven. He was sensitive, he was proud; he had suffered for the unjust disparagement of his race; he was dealing with evidence that the Filipino stock was as good as any other, as much entitled to development in its own way.
While he was making these studies he found relaxation in athletics. He screwed together some of his regularly apportioned time to get into the fields and [[159]]play. He learned to box and to play cricket; he had long been an expert fencer.[22] At cricket he was so good that it seems a pity baseball came so late into his country; it is a game that would have exactly suited his tastes and inclinings. In the combination of alert mentality and swift physical action that baseball requires must be something peculiarly attractive to the Filipino, for do but observe the astonishing records he has made at it, exciting the admiration of the most experienced judges. Rizal had never forgotten the training in physical exercise he had received from his uncle; he still loved to fence, to ride, to run, to take long, swift walks. His faith was all in the mental health that is fortified by physical well-being; when all his mental enginery had been working full tilt he found ease in the open air, in quick motion and the trees and flowers. His body was as supple as a wrestler’s, and in support of his theories of reciprocal mental and physical soundness it is to be remarked that in all his life he seems never to have been seriously ill.
In London he found congenial company in the household of Dr. Antonio Regidor, a Filipino that had suffered exile in the Cavite frenzy of 1872. Dr. Regidor had three charming daughters. Rizal’s ideas of life and conduct may be gathered from the fact that when, after a time, he discovered that one of these young ladies was forming an attachment for him, instead of being elated he was much troubled in his mind and concluded that in such circumstances the best thing he could do was to take himself out of the young lady’s [[160]]sight. For once the paths of duty and expediency fell together. By this time he had completed his work at the museum and he now departed for Paris.
There, Juan Luna,[23] the Filipino painter, with whom Rizal had formed a close friendship while both were in Madrid, 1882 to 1885, had now made his home and Rizal seems to have rejoiced to renew his associations with his talented countryman. It is certain that the stupidity of race prejudice, which has so many other and blacker wrongs to answer for, has deprived this man of a certain part of his just reward. Yet he was a great painter, the winner of prizes in many European competitions, and an artist that Paris delighted to honor.[24] A contemporary and fellow Filipino, Hidalgo, was hardly less successful; so seldom are their achievements counted in any summary of the Malay that most unjustly America is still unaware of them. Rizal usually spent his Sundays in Luna’s studio, sometimes fencing, sometimes talking art, of which he was still, for all his troubles, distractions, and complex activities, the steadfast worshiper. [[161]]