A Woman's Impression of the Philippines

by Mary H. Fee

The room had a floor of boards, each one of which was at least two feet wide. They were rudely nailed and were separated by dirt-filled cracks, but were polished into a dark richness by long rubbing with petroleum and banana leaves. The furnishings consisted of a wardrobe, a table, a washstand, several chairs, and a Filipino four-poster bed with a mattress of plaited rattan such as we find in cane-seated chairs. A snow-white valence draped the bed. The mattress was covered with a petate, or native mat, and there were two pillows—a big, fat, bolstery one, and another, called abrazador, which is used for a leg-rest.

I bathed in the provincial bathroom. Manila, being the metropolis of the Philippines, has running water and the regular tub and shower baths in tiled rooms. The Capiz bathroom had a floor of bamboo strips which kept me constantly in agony lest somebody should stray beneath, and which even made me feel apologetic toward the pigs rooting below. There was a tinaja, or earthenware jar, holding about twenty gallons of water, and a dipper made of a polished cocoanut shell. I poured water over my body till the contents of the tinaja were exhausted and I was cool. Already I was beginning to look upon a bath from the native standpoint as a means of coolness, and incidentally of cleanliness.

When I got back to my room, my hostess and her sister came and sat with me while I unpacked my trunk and applied cold cream to my sunburnt skin. They were afraid that I should be triste because I was so far from home and alone, and they inquired if I wanted a woman servant to sleep in my room at night. I was quite unconscious that this was an effort to rehabilitate their conception of the creature feminine and the violated proprieties; and my indignant disclaimer of anything bordering on nervousness did not raise me in their estimation.

They left me finally in time to permit me to dress and gain the sala when the bugles sounded retreat. The atmosphere was golden-moted—swimming in the incomparable amber of a tropical evening. The river slipped along, giving the sense of rest and peace which water in shadow always imparts, and as the long-drawn-out notes were caught and flung back by the echo from the mountains, the flag fluttered down as if reluctant to leave so gentle a scene. When the “Angelus” rang just afterwards, it was as if some benignant fairy had waved her wand over the land to hold it at its sweetest moment. The criss-crossing crowds on the plaza paused for a reverent moment; the people in the room stood up, and when the bell stopped ringing, said briskly to me and to one another, “Good evening.” Then the members of the family approached its oldest representative and kissed his hand. It was all very pretty and very effective.

Afterwards we went out for a walk—at least they invited me to go for a walk, though it was a party to which we were bound. Filipinos, being devout Catholics, have a fashion of naming their children after the saints, and, instead of celebrating the children’s birthdays, celebrate the saints’ days. As there is a saint for every day in the year, and some to spare, and it is a point of pride with every one of any social pretension whatever to be at home to his friends on his patron saint’s day, and to do that which we vulgarly term “set ’em up” most liberally, there is more social diversion going on in a small Filipino town than would be found in one of corresponding size in America. At these functions the crowd is apt to be thickest from four till eight, the official calling hours in the Philippines.

Starting out, therefore, at half-past six, we found the parlors of the house well thronged. At the head of the stairs was a sort of anteroom filled with men smoking. This antesala, as they call it, gave on the sala, or drawing-room proper, which was a large apartment lighted by a hanging chandelier of cut glass, holding about a dozen petroleum lamps. Two rows of chairs, facing each other, were occupied by ladies in silken skirts of brilliant hues, and in camisas and pañuelos of delicate embroidered or hand-painted piña. We made a solemn entry, and passed up the aisle doing a sort of Roger de Coverley figure in turning first to one side and then to the other to shake hands. No names were mentioned. Our hostess said, by way of general announcement, “La maestra,” and having started me up the maze left me to unwind myself. So I zigzagged along with a hand-shake and a decorous “Buenas noches” to everybody till I found myself at the end of the line at an open window. Here one of those little oblong tables, across which the Filipinos are fond of talking, separated me from a lady, unquestionably of the white races, who received the distinction of personal mention. She was “la Gobernadora,” and her husband, a fat Chino mestizo, was immediately brought forward and introduced as “el Gobernador.” He was a man of education and polish, having spent fourteen years in school in Spain, where he married his wife. After having welcomed me properly, he betook himself to the room at the head of the stairs where the men were congregated. A fat native priest in a greasy old cassock seemed the centre of jollity there, and he alternately joked with the men and stopped to extend his hand to the children who went up and kissed it.

I did my best to converse intelligently with the Gobernadora and the other ladies who were within conversational distance. A band came up outside and played “Just One Girl,” and presently one of the ladies of the house invited the Governor’s wife and me to partake of sweets. We went out to the dining-room, where a table was laid with snow-white cloth, and prettily decorated with flowers and with crystal dishes containing goodies.

There were, first of all, meringues, which we call French kisses, the favorite sweet here. There was also flaon, which we would call baked custard. In the absence of ovens they do not bake it, but they boil it in a mould like an ice-cream brick. They line the mould with caramel, and the custard comes out golden brown, smooth as satin, and delicately flavored with the caramel. Then there was nata, which is like boiled custard unboiled, and there were all sorts of crystallized fruits—pineapple, lemon, orange, and citron, together with that peculiar one they call santol. There were also the transparent, jelly-like seeds of the nipa palm, boiled in syrup till they looked like magnified balls of sago or tapioca.

I partook of these rich delicacies, though my soul was hungering for a piece of broiled steak, and I accepted a glass of muscatel, which is the accepted ladies’ wine here. My hostesses were eager that I should try all kinds of foods, and a refusal to accept met with a protest, “Otra clase, otra clase.” Then the Gobernadora and I went back to the sala, and another group took our places at the refreshment table.

I was much interested in the babies, who were strutting about in their finest raiment and were unquestionably annoyed at its restrictions. Filipino babies are sharp-eyed, black-polled, attractive little creatures. Whether of high or low degree, their ordinary dress is adapted to the climate, and consists usually of a single low-necked garment, which drapes itself picturesquely across the shoulders like the cloaks of Louis the Fourteenth’s time seen on the stage.