After a two hours’ run, during which the Hilda wheezed and puffed like a fat old woman in a tight frock, we reached Tampakan, and anchored as near the shore as was practicable, blowing our whistle to attract the attention of the villagers. In a few moments several praus and bancas were poled out to the ship by a motley array of half-clad Moros, big, brown, lithe fellows, each with a turban or fez topping off his black hair, and all armed with a goodly array of sharp knives. Over the side of the launch they swarmed, talking excitedly with our interpreter, the chief vigilante of Bongao, and reminding one strongly of their piratical forebears. Many of these very men had been pirates in Spanish days, and not one of them but was a descendant of some marauder of the high seas.
The three hundred yards that we had to be poled to shore from the Hilda was through water not more than three feet deep, and over a bed of pink and white coral, which could be plainly seen through the crystal clearness. At low tide one can walk out over this submarine beach, but the Moros say that the rocks, seaweed, and coral lose much of their beauty when not seen through a lens of water. At the time of our visit it was such high tide that even with the native praus and the little rowboat from the launch, we were unable to make a good landing, so the men jumped ashore in imminent danger of a wetting, while we women were carried, one by one, through the surf.
A villainous looking gentleman, whose costume consisted of skin-tight Moro trousers and an American bath towel, was introduced by our host as the head man of the town, and he shook hands all around, quite solemnly and conscientiously, as if it had been a religious rite imported to Tawi Tawi by these strange white people.
Meanwhile the entire male population of the place gathered about us, and we found them in very truth a murderous looking lot, armed to the teeth with barongs and krises and campilans, while none of us had any visible means of self-protection. There were a few pocket revolvers, however, hidden under the officers’ blouses, and well hidden, the Governor having warned us to take no arms of any description to Tampakan, for while money would have been no temptation to these people, they would not have hesitated long to kill one for a Krag rifle or a Colt revolver.
After the head man had religiously shaken every newcomer’s hand, our officers began bargaining with him and with his people for their knives, and the crowd of men around us grew every moment greater, with not a woman in sight. There were men in complete Moro costume, handsome and picturesque; others ruining their appearance by the addition of a hideous balbriggan undershirt, sandwiched between tight trousers with innumerable buttons and a brilliantly coloured turban; while still others, in little else than a fez and breech-clout, seemed not a whit abashed. The children were either quite naked, or wrapped in sarongs, faded by the sun and weather to a dull harmony of their once too brilliant reds and greens.
Finally on the outskirts of the crowd I caught a glimpse of three Moro women, and forced my way to them, shaking hands and smiling as affably as possible. They shook hands in return, rather awkwardly, but answered smile with smile, talking excitedly in their native tongue, and seeming surprised that I could speak only a word or two of Malay, without doubt a more agreeable language than that harsh and unintelligible one in which the white officers were bargaining for barongs and krises.
Over the stone fortification a short distance away I had a glimpse of tree tops and the steep, slanting roofs of nipa houses, while at the gate stood still another group of women, most of them dressed from the waist to the knees only. Motioning my three friends to follow, I approached these women, whereupon they took fright and hid behind the nearest house. That is, all but one old crone, too feeble to run, who tremblingly awaited her fate until, reassured by the manner of those I had talked to outside the wall, she lifted up her voice in voluble Malay, evidently telling the others that the strange creature neither bit nor scratched, whereat they all came back, first slowly by ones and twos, and then more rapidly, until they stood around me in a ring at least twenty deep.
As women have a language of their own the world over, we understood each other quickly; and how friendly they were, and how delighted with my clothes and all the little accessories, the hat, the veil, the belt, the collar. Next they were amazed at my teeth, and pointed to their own blackened ones, and then to mine, pushing forward little girls under ten to show that only children should have white teeth, while I, despite my extreme age, still sported such evidences of youth. Was it possible I considered myself a child? Or was I younger than I looked? Next my skin was marvelled at, and they took my hands in theirs and shouted with good-natured laughter at the difference in colour between us, for despite two and a half years of tropic tan, my skin, compared with theirs, was very light.
Before I realized what they were doing, they had unbuttoned the cuff of my shirt-waist and pushed the sleeve a little way up my arm, evidently anxious to see if I were white all over, while at the same moment a small girl of twelve, married or of marriageable age, as one could tell from her stained teeth, knelt down on the ground at my feet and was apparently examining my shoes.
Suddenly she gave a startled cry, and before I could prevent her, lifted my skirt and petticoat to the ankle, revealing a small expanse of black lisle thread stocking. For a moment there was an intense silence, followed by a low murmur of astonishment, which soon grew into a veritable roar of displeasure, and the women no longer beamed approvingly, but gathered together on one side, regarding me with great disfavour.