“Pompey and Nettie, here they lie;
Born to live, they had to die.
The wheels of fate ran over one,
The other was by grief undone.”
Most of the large army of dogs that make a Manila night hideous are of that mongrel order, which is always looking for something to eat, but now and then one sees a good many of the so-called Chinese “chow”-dogs about the streets, and with their black tongues, long hair, and peculiar bushy tails that curl sharply up over their backs, they are quite as interesting, as unaffectionate. Over in China they make very good eating up to the age of three months, and from this fact derive the “chow” part of their name. Although they are very susceptible to changes of locality and climate, we are now making negotiations to have one brought over to take the place of the dear departed eulogized above. And later, I may even try the experiment of having one for Sunday dinner—if he doesn’t make a good pet.
The doughnuts which I brought home from the Brewer have proved very interesting to my cook, and I have been obliged to count them each day for purposes of security. He now watches me closely as I make away with one or two for breakfast, to see just what effect these marvellous looking “fried holes” have on my intellect. I notice he looks to see if there are any crumbs left, from which he might gather an inkling as to the composition of these curios; but so far there haven’t been any crumbs. As he is cooking for us now, instead of the Chinese gentleman that we originally had, this curiosity is but natural, and some day he will probably try to furnish us with the native-made article. In fact he has already tried the experiment of concocting a mince-pie after the general appearance of one of the earlier donations made by a captain in the Bay, and the result was worthy of description. As I arranged to measure the original pie after each meal, before locking it up in our safe, in order to protect it from disappearing, my faithful cook could only guess as to its composition by sundry glances from afar. But being of an inventive mind he conceived the idea of chopping up some well-done roast beef, mixing with it some sugar and raisins, roofing it over with a thatch of pastry, and serving it for dessert. And then as we came to the course in question he stood in the doorway waiting for our verdict. His effort was worthy of all praise, but his pie was damnable, and pieces of it went sailing out the windows.
July 28th.
On the 20th instant a steamer arrived from Hong Kong, and had the honor of being the first vessel to come in from that port in thirty days. She was supposed to have three American mails aboard, but it turned out that they were down to arrive by the vessel coming in six days later. I came to the office the other morning, and looking toward my desk, found it almost invisible. It looked as if somebody in the neighborhood were the editor of a paper, and as if all the spring poets in the universe had sent their manuscripts for inspection. The desk groaned beneath the bulky chaos of three mails from the United States, delayed in transmission by the black plague, and fumigated together down the bay. But no sooner had we gotten through the first course of an epistolary feast than the captain of a large four-masted ship shuffled into the room and deposited a huge pot of steaming baked beans, just fresh from his steward’s galley-stove, on the table. What with beans, letters, magazines, and comic papers, it might be said our day was a red-letter one.
The other day my colleague and I took dinner off aboard the Nagato Maru, a smart steamer just in from Japan, and captained by an American who knows what it is to set a good table. It seems that the China-Japan war has actually broken out in all its glory, and as there is a vague rumor that a Chinese war-ship is waiting outside to capture this very same steamer, she is going to stay here for awhile.
The Japanese have sunk several Chinese transport ships already, and one of the unfortunate craft used to come here to Manila. In other directions the Chinese are said to have beaten the Japs badly on land, but over in this slow old moth-eaten place the daily papers will publish cablegrams from Spain by the page, that give out nothing but official stuff and Government appointments; and when it comes to something of real interest, like a war, they will either be without any news whatever, or tell the whole story wrong side out in a single line, that may or may not be true. And so you are probably getting better news of this whole affair, twelve thousand miles away, than we are, who are almost on the field of action.