Moro continued: “From the sap of the nipa palm, we distill alcohol. From the hollow bamboo we make pipes for carrying water. We boil the tender new shoots of bamboo, and eat them like celery. We put a stopper into one joint of a hollowed bamboo, and use it for a bottle. The pliant bamboo root we make into whips. We make bridges, fences, window blinds, furniture, and carriages out of bamboo. We even make blow guns and shoot our arrows at birds, through the bamboo stalk.”
“There are one hundred kinds of bamboo, and a thousand uses for the plant,” added Filippa.
“I should imagine that the bamboo is the skeleton or the framework, and that the nipa is the skin of the Philippine structure,” I remarked.
“That is the doctor’s way of drawing a figure of speech,” laughed the Padre.
Chapter V
Cocoa and Coffee
The next morning Filippa’s mother refreshed us all with a cup of fragrant cocoa, so that we might begin the day in good spirits. As I was sipping it, the Padre remarked in good humor:
“Did you Americans seize the Philippines merely for a cup of cocoa?”