Yet, detesting order of any kind, military discipline is repugnant to him, and, as in other countries where conscription is the law, all kinds of tricks are resorted to to avoid it. On looking over the deeds of an estate which I had purchased, I saw that two brothers, each named Catalino Raymundo, were the owners at one time of a portion of the land. I thought there must have been some mistake, but, on close inquiry, I found that they were so named to dodge the Spanish recruiting officers, who would not readily suppose there were two Catalino Raymundos born of the same parents. As one Catalino Raymundo had served in the army and the other was dead, no further secret was made in the matter, and I was assured that this practice was common among the poorest natives.
In November, 1887, a deserter from the new recruits was pursued to Langca, a ward of Meycauáyan, Bulacan Province, where nearly all the inhabitants rose up in his defence, the result being that the Lieutenant of Cuadrilleros was killed and two of his men were wounded. When the Civil Guard appeared on the spot, the whole ward was abandoned.
According to the Spanish army regulations, a soldier cannot be on sentinel duty for more than two hours at a time under any circumstances. Cases have been known of a native sentinel having been left at his post for a little over that regulation time, and to have become phrenetic, under the impression that the two hours had long since expired, and that he had been forgotten. In one case the man had to be disarmed by force, but in another instance the sentinel simply refused to give up his rifle and bayonet, and defied all who approached him. Finally, an officer went with the colours of the regiment in hand to exhort him to surrender his arms, adding that justice would attend his complaint. The sentinel, however, threatened to kill any one who should draw near, and the officer had no other recourse open to him but to order a European soldier to climb up behind the sentry-box and blow out the insubordinate nativeʼs brains.
In the seventies, a contingent of Philippine troops was sent to assist the French in Tonquin, where they rendered very valuable service. Indeed, some officers are of opinion that they did more to quell the Tuh Duc rising than the French troops themselves. When in the fray, they throw off their boots, and, barefooted, they rarely falter. Even over mud and swamp, a native is almost as sure-footed as a goat on the brink of a quarry. I have frequently been carried for miles in a hammock by four natives and relays, through morassy districts too dangerous to travel on horseback. They are great adepts at climbing wherever it is possible for a human being to scale a height; like monkeys, they hold as much with their feet as with their hands; they ride any horse barebacked without fear; they are utterly careless about jumping into the sea among the sharks, which sometimes they will intentionally attack with knives, and I never knew a native who could not swim. There are natives who dare dive for the caiman and rip it up. If they meet with an accident, they bear it with supreme resignation, simply exclaiming “desgracia pá”—it was a misfortune.
I can record with pleasure my happy recollection of many a light-hearted, genial, and patient native who accompanied me on my journeys in these Islands. Comparatively very few thorough-bred natives travel beyond their own islands, although there is a constant flow of half-castes to and from the adjacent colonies, Europe, etc.
The native is very slowly tempted to abandon the habits and traditional customs of his forefathers, and his ambitionless felicity may be envied by any true philosopher.
No one who has lived in the Colony for years could sketch the real moral portrait of such a remarkable combination of virtues and vices. The domesticated nativeʼs character is a succession of surprises. The experience of each year modifies oneʼs conclusions, and the most exact definition of such an inscrutable being is, after all, hypothetical. However, to a certain degree, the characteristic indolence of these Islanders is less dependent on themselves than on natural law, for the physical conditions surrounding them undoubtedly tend to arrest their vigour of motion, energy of life, and intellectual power.
The organic elements of the European differ widely from those of the Philippine native, and each, for his own durability, requires his own special environment. The half-breed partakes of both organisms, but has the natural environment of the one. Sometimes artificial means—the mode of life into which he is forced by his European parent—will counteract in a measure natural law, but, left to himself, the tendency will ever be towards an assimilation to the native. Original national characteristics disappear in an exotic climate, and, in the course of time, conform to the new laws of nature to which they are exposed.
It is an ascertained fact that the increase of energy introduced into the Philippine native by blood mixture from Europe lasts only to the second generation, whilst the effect remains for several generations when there is a similarity of natural surroundings in the two races crossed. Moreover, the peculiar physique of a Chinese or Japanese progenitor is preserved in succeeding generations, long after the Spanish descendant has merged into the conditions of his environment.
The Spanish Government strove in vain against natural law to counteract physical conditions by favouring mixed marriages,[8] but Nature overcomes manʼs law, and climatic influence forces its conditions on the half-breed. Indeed, were it not for new supplies of extraneous blood infusion, European characteristics would, in time, become indiscernible among the masses. Even on Europeans themselves, in defiance of their own volition, the new physical conditions and the influence of climate on their mental and physical organisms are perceptible after two or three decades of yearsʼ residence in the mid-tropics.