Yesterdays in the Philippines

by Joseph Earle Stevens

Is it a wonder that I forgot the lottery drawing?

Somehow there are currents of trouble in the air, and some of the old residents say they wouldn’t be surprised to see the outbreak of a revolution among the natives. Peculiar night-fires have been seen now for some time, burning high up on the mountain-sides and suddenly going out. There seems to be some anti-American sentiment among the powers that be, and only last week matters came to a crisis by the Government putting an embargo on the business of one of the largest houses here, in which an American is a partner. Smuggled silk was discovered coming ashore at night, supposedly from the Esmeralda, and as that steamer was consigned to the firm in question, the authorities demanded payment of a fine of $30,000. Our friends refused, the officials closed the doors of their counting-room, our consul cabled to Japan for war-ships again, the Governor-General read the telegram, hasty summons were given to the parties concerned, heated arguments followed, and the matter was finally smoothed over on the surface.

But there seems to be a distinct feeling against us, and we have been instructed from home to prepare to leave—making arrangements to turn our business into the hands of an English firm, who will act as agents after our departure.

September 20th.

The cable has come, and we hope by next month to leave this land of intrigue and iniquity. It has treated me well, but complications are daily appearing in the business world, and if we get away without suddenly being dragged into some civil dispute it will be delightful.

I am glad to have been here these two years nearly, but it is time to thicken up one’s blood again in cooler climes, and I feel these fair islands are no place for the permanent residence of an American. We seem to be like fish out of water here in the Far East, and as few in numbers. The Englishman and the German are everywhere, and why shouldn’t they be? Their home-roosts are too small for them to perch upon, and they are born with the instinct to fly from their nests to some foreign land. But, America is so big that we ought not to feel called upon to swelter in the tropics amid the fevers and the ferns, and I, for one, am content to “keep off the grass” of these distant foreign colonies.

Paseo de la Luneta, where the Band Played, the Breezes Blew, and Manila Aired Herself Each Afternoon.

See page [18].

The Englishman or German comes out here on a five-years’ contract, and generally runs up a debit balance the first year that keeps him busy economizing the other four. At the end of his first season, he wishes he were at home. At the end of the second, he has exhausted all the novelties of the new situation. At the close of the third, he has settled down to humdrum life. At the end of the fourth, he has become completely divorced from home habits and modern ideals. And at the close of the fifth, he goes home a true Filipino, though thinking all the while he is glad to get away. He says he is never coming back, but wiser heads know better. He has heard about America, and goes home via the States, to see Niagara and New York. But his first laundry-bill in San Francisco so scatters those depreciated silver “Mexicans,” which have lost half their value in being turned into gold, that he takes the fast express to the Atlantic coast, and leaves our shores by the first steamer. At home, his friends have all got married or had appendicitis, and the bustle of London, the raw rain-storms of the cold weather and the conventionality of life all bring up memories of the Philippines, which now seem to lie off there in the China Sea surrounded by a halo. And so, before a year is out, he renews his contract, and at the end of a twelvemonth goes sailing back Manilaward to take up the careless life where he left it, and grow old in the Escolta or the Luneta. In London he paid his penny and took the ’bus, he lived in a dingy room, and packed his own bag. But in Manila, with no more outlay, he owns his horse and carriage, he lives in a spacious bungalow with many rooms, and he lets his servants wait on him by inches. How do I know? Oh, because we’ve talked it all over, now that our turn for departure comes next.