In Africa: Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country

by John T. McCutcheon

It was long before daylight when the Yuen Sang, at half-speed, arrived at Corregidor. The captain wished to report his number to the signal station, and we had to wait until light had come before the ship could enter. So the engines were stopped and for an hour we drifted on under the ship's momentum. The silencing of the engines on a ship is always ominous, and just now, with the dim bulk of Corregidor looming grimly before us, it seemed as if there was something particularly sinister about our stealthy approach.

From five o'clock onward we stood on the bridge, our voices unconsciously hushed as we spoke. Here was where the Baltimore had dropped a Greek fire life preserver and for a long time it had bobbed about on the tumbling sea, weird and terrifying to those who didn't know what it was. There was where the soot in the McCulloch's funnel had suddenly blazed up like the chimney of a blast furnace. And over there on the lower edge of the black bulk of the island was where a little signal light had flared up and then died out, leaving every man on our ships tense with expectant dread, and all about us here had reigned a silence so penetrating that it in itself was harder to bear than the thunder and flash of guns.

And still we drifted on, nearer and nearer to Boca Chica, the northern passage into Manila Bay. Dawn and light came slowly. In poetry the dawn of the tropics may come up like thunder and the transition of darkness to light may be startling and sudden, but in my own experience the tropic dawn comes slowly and pervadingly. First a faint grayness, gradually growing brighter until the sun shoots up joyous and golden in its glory, painting the skies with flaming banners and penciling the tips and edges of clouds with the fires of morning. When we lazily drifted in toward Corregidor from the China Sea that morning, it was light enough to see distinctly for nearly an hour before the sun rose.

Presently a fluttering string of signal flags appeared on the top of the island, and a moment later our engines resumed their throbbing and we headed boldly into Boca Chica. Here on the left was Mariveles Bay, the scene of the famous German ship, Irene, incident, which electrified the world.

Every point that rose before my eyes was pregnant with historic memories and suggestions. I was thrilled and yet I half-dreaded my return to Manila, for fear that the peace and commercialism of the present days would be disappointing to one who knew it when each day was filled with trouble and threats of trouble; when the city lay always as if under an impending cloud and when the borders of the bay rang with the thunder of guns and the sputter of musketry.

As the Yuen Sang steamed across the twenty-five miles of the bay it seemed as if it were only yesterday that I had been there. The waters were glassy and smooth, just as the bay used to be every morning of the long blockade, when the air was still and the broad glistening water was tranquil and at rest.

The surprises came in Manila. Great changes had taken place in the harbor, new breakwaters were where there had been none before, new buildings were up, and still more were building. Big electric cars rushed along where formerly the snail-like horse cars crept painfully by. The city was unbelievably clean and the main streets were full of busy life.

I visited the old houses where we had once lived in economical splendor, with servants and carriages and expenses that were microscopic as compared to those of the present day. Upon all sides were the visible evidences that some day Manila will be the finest city of the Orient if the time ever comes when capital may feel assured that our occupation has some prospect of permanence.

In my old days I used to know a beautiful Mestiza girl in Manila. She was very pretty and very nice. I used to draw pictures of her and struggle bravely with the Spanish language. And she was kind and patient with my efforts to learn. Her name was Victoria and she kept a little shop where she and her ancestors for generations before had sold silk jusi and piña cloth. I visited her often there and sometimes went out to her home, a beautiful big Spanish house in Calle Zarigoza.

I determined to find her and went over to her shop. Fatal mistake! Ten years and the tropics work many changes in the soft-eyed daughters south of the fifteenth degree of latitude.