A Woman's Impression of the Philippines

by Mary H. Fee

Typhoons and Earthquakes

How Typhoons Assert Themselves—Our First Typhoon—Six Weeks’ Mail Brought by the General Blanco—Her Narrow Escape From Wreck:—A Weird Journey on a Still Smaller Steamer—Another Typhoon—Rescue of Captain B—— —Havoc Wrought by the Typhoon.

In the month of November two more American women teachers arrived at Capiz, one of whom joined me, and our society was still more increased by two army officers’ wives, and the wives of the provincial Treasurer and the Supervisor. This made nine women in all, and we began to give dinners and card parties, and assume quite metropolitan airs.

Miss C—— and I, from our central positions on the plaza, saw and heard most of what was going on, and we heartily concurred in the gossip of the day that there was always something doing in Capiz. About the middle of the month there was a lively earthquake that shook up our old house most viciously; and just before Thanksgiving we met our first typhoon.

Typhoons have various ways of asserting themselves, but there is one predominating form of which this particular typhoon happens to be an example. The beginning of all things is usually a casual remark dropped by a caller that the first typhoon signal is up. Then the weather thickens, and a fine drizzling rain sets in. It stops by and by, and you have no sort of opinion of typhoons. Then the rain begins again with a steady downpour, which makes you wonder if there will be any left for next year. Again it stops, almost leads you to think it intends to clear. Then a little vagrant sigh of wind wafts back the deluge. A few minutes later nature sighs again with more tears. Each gust is stronger than the one before it, and at the end of eight or ten hours the blasts are terrific, and the rain is driven like spikes before them. It may keep this up twelve hours or fifty-six. It may increase to an absolute hurricane, levelling all before it with great loss of life, or it may content itself with an exhibition of what it could do if it really desired.

At the end of the first day of our typhoon I went to bed wondering how long the ant-eaten supports of our house could hold out against the violent wrenchings and shakings it was getting. I had poor rest, for the howling of the wind, the noise of boards torn loose, and the clatter of wrenched galvanized iron roofing made sleep almost impossible. When I went out into the kitchen next morning, my heart sank into my boots. The nipa roof had been torn away piece by piece. The whole place was soaked, the stove was rusted, and rivulets were running outside and inside of the pipe. Romoldo clucked his glee in this devastation, and opined that the outlook for breakfast was poor. It was certainly no poorer than breakfast when it came.

I dressed myself for the weather and went to school in a mackintosh and rubber boots. The costume seemed to afford no small excitement to the Filipinos who beheld. They had hitherto considered mackintoshes and rubber boots as the exclusive property of men. Had I appeared in a pair of pantaloons, I should not have created more sensation. Nobody came to school, of course, but I had to go through the form of reporting there twice anyway. We lunched on gingersnaps and water, and had a dinner composed chiefly of tinned things.

After dinner, to our immense surprise, we had callers in spite of the storm. Lieutenant and Mrs. C—— came over to ask us to Thanksgiving dinner, and a couple of men from the officers’ mess dropped in. One of these, Captain R——, was in command of the launch kept at Capiz by the military Government. She was about sixty feet long, and having been built at Shanghai, rejoiced in a Chinese name—the Yuen Hung. But as something was the matter with her engines, which coughed and wheezed most disgracefully, the flippant Americans had rechristened her the One Lung, much to the chagrin of her skipper.

A barkentine, loaded with molave timber and carrying native passengers, had been driven ashore at the port that day, and the One Lung had gone to the rescue and taken off the passengers. Fortunately the little craft did not have to brave the full force of the sea, as the arms of the bay broke the fury. But even in the bay Captain R—— said the waves were frightful, and he thanked his stars that they had gotten back alive.