A Woman's Journey through the Philippines / On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route

by Florence Kimball Russel

Each of the chiefs and all their followers were dressed in the picturesque Moro costume, which we had seen first in Misamis and Iligan, and all of them were frankly curious over the American women. They discussed us freely to our very faces, and kept changing their positions to get a better view of us, staring with amazement when the old datto was brought up and introduced. How curious of the Americans not to know that a woman should be taken to a datto, not a datto to a woman. And then, too, how odd that they should shake hands just like men, and not cover their faces at all, and what remarkable hair the child had, just the colour of hemp, and how very, very tall she was, though the interpreter insisted she was but nine years old.

Nor was this curiosity confined to the natives by any manner of means, for officers and soldiers alike crowded around us, and one non-commissioned officer took a snapshot of the group, explaining later to his captain, who took him to task for his boldness, that he had meant no harm, but just wanted the picture as a reminder of what American women really looked like, not having seen one before in two years. Needless to say he was forgiven, his interest being subjective rather than objective.

We were told in Tukuran that when the troops first went there deer were so plentiful that the pretty, shy animals could be seen at any time of day around the garrison, while at night they would come so close to the barracks as to annoy the men, barking not unlike dogs, and stumbling over kettles and pots by the door of the company kitchen. I do not know that they ever became so annoying that the men had to resort to the cat-discouraging bootjack or soda bottle, but I do know that those Tukuran soldiers had so much venison that they would eat canned corned beef or bacon in preference. Good hunting stories were of course numerous, and some of these so fired the Nimrod of the trip—our major-quartermaster—that he set off at daybreak one morning, gun in hand, accompanied by the crack shot among the soldiers of Tukuran, each prepared to slay his tens of thousands. But although the two men tramped the hills from sunrise until dark they saw no deer, and all because the search-light from the ship on the previous night had frightened them away from their accustomed haunts. At least so said the officers on shore, an explanation at which we Burnside people sniffed, though feasting on venison at the time. But before we reached Zamboanga, a Signal Corps man, whom we left behind at Tukuran to complete the establishment of the lines there, sent a message to the major over the cable we were then laying, to the effect that he had seen a herd of deer from the window of his telegraph office that very morning, and, being a cable-ship man, and so not in league with the Ananiases of Tukuran, the major must fain believe him, whereupon he made some remarks not worthy of record.

Before leaving Tukuran one of the officers belonging to the Signal Corps well-nigh lost his reputation for veracity, or sobriety, by coming back to the ship one day with a most amazing tale as to some fish he had seen promenading—promenading, forsooth!—on the beach. Everyone was hilariously skeptical. Some shook their heads with mock commiseration and hinted darkly that much learning had made him mad, while still others wondered audibly how any man, no matter how vinaceous his tendencies, could have seen fish walk so early in the day. Only one among us all believed him, and she was obliged to—legally.

“Were they exercising for their health?” queried a scoffer, with what he was pleased to consider fine irony. “Undoubtedly,” responded the hitherto veracious one, with unabated good humour, “though perhaps one might more truthfully say they were walking less to gain an appetite than to find the means wherewith to satisfy it.” He then described these piscatorial pedestrians as small, dark fish with little bead-like eyes in the top of their heads, and a blunt nose—he called it a nose, I am not guilty. Moreover, their ventral fins were largely developed, and by this means the fish hopped, or rather, hitched along the sand, after the manner of seals.

It was a preposterous tale, and nothing would do but that the cable-ship Munchausen should take a party ashore where all might witness the fish of Tukuran taking a constitutional on the beach, after the manner of the oysters in “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” Nothing daunted, the officer agreed to the proposition, and so confident was he that even Mrs. Munchausen became less apologetically sure of his infallibility. But on our arrival at the beach, not a fish was to be seen, and loud was the laughter at both Munchausens, and numerous the jokes at their expense.

However, the tide going out a little later discovered on the wet sand a multitude of small walking-fish, and thus spared a reputation, and at the same time saved to science a story that else might have been laughed out of existence. Text-books tell of India’s walking-fish, but I have been able to find nothing as to the walking-fish of the Philippines. In Luzon, during the rainy season, it is no uncommon sight to see natives casting their nets in the overflowed rice-fields, though perhaps but a few days before the ground there had been caked hard and dry from the sun. In this latter instance, it is more than probable that the fish do not walk back and forth, but bury themselves in the ground at the beginning of the hot season, remaining there until the first rains call them out in great numbers.

The Signal Corps found the trench at Tukuran a difficult problem in that it had to be dug down a very steep hill leading from the stone-enclosed fort to the beach, but by evening of the first day this was accomplished, and the shore end laid and buoyed. The next morning we left Tukuran, seeking better soundings than we had at first obtained, but finding the water nearly as deep in one place as another, it was decided to leave at sunrise on the following day and lay the cable as best we could.

All went well until late in the afternoon, when communication with Tukuran was suddenly interrupted, whereupon we hauled in several miles of cable, and coming upon the fault, cut it out and “spoke” Tukuran. By this time it was so late that the Signal Corps realized it would be impossible to sight the buoy at Flecha Point that night, though it was then but fifteen knots away, and so we lay to until morning.

As it was out of the question for the heavy cable to hang pendent from the stern of the ship all night at the mercy of the propeller; and as the three buoys were in use, there was one thing only to be done, and that was to fasten the cable to a small boat, with enough men to keep the craft bailed of water. It was a more hazardous proceeding than it sounds, for had a heavy squall come up, the boat, with nearly a ton of cable fastened to it, would surely have sunk. But notwithstanding this, one of the civilian cable experts, the able cable seaman, and three natives spent a most uncomfortable night afloat.