An Englishwoman in the Philippines

by Mrs. Campbell Dauncey

After the V.A.P. came a lot of Philippine Scouts, quite the opposite build to the American soldiers, as they were very small, square men, with brown, square faces, high shoulders, long bodies, and short legs. Sturdy-looking little people, and looking very trim and smart in their neat khaki uniforms. Their band followed them, and behind that came the Constabulary, more little square “brown brothers” in white gala suits, with their band.

A string of carriages came next, decorated, wheels and all, with Stars-and-Stripes flags and filled with all sorts of Americans, Filipinos, Mestizos, and Spaniards, men and women, a very gay crowd. Following them was the Fire Brigade, consisting of natives marching on each side of an old hand-pump, like a thing on a sailing ship, and carrying a most amusing banner, painted with a picture of a house on fire, where a man in the middle distance worked a hose with a Niagara pouring out of it, while in the foreground a huge woman holding a giant baby sat on a packing case amongst a lot of very small furniture.

Next came a Filipino Base-ball Team, in khaki knickerbockers and black shirts, with ATLETICA in large white letters across their chests, after the fashion of that base-ball team we once saw play in the gardens of the Borghese.

The great feature of the procession was a large car decorated with a quantity of American flags and portraits of Washington, surmounted by a big pasteboard column, striped red and white, on the top of which lay a scroll of paper, held down by a gigantic gilt ink-pot with a mammoth quill stuck in it, and on the scroll was written CONSTITUTION in big letters.

All the men in the Port Works went past, some carrying hammers, and some bearing, between five or six of them, immense long boring-rods for blasting. They were Filipinos, of course; in fact, with the exception of the American soldiers and a dozen or so of the occupants of the carriages, the whole procession was Filipino—all quite pleased and childlike to march about with banners to Sousa’s stirring tunes. I don’t suppose one in twenty of the “little brown brothers” had the vaguest idea what their big white brothers were so rejoicing about; or if they had ever heard of Townshend and the Stamp Duties they would think the commemoration of the removal of a yoke of foreign bad government and taxation was something to do with their own everlasting struggle for independence. Besides this comical side to the rejoicings, there was the absurd anomaly that a great part of the funds for this celebration had been contributed by the British commercial houses!

Well, it was an interminable string of people. The Normal Schools of Jaro, La Paz, Molo, etc., each under their own banner, a long file of boys and then girls in all sorts of outfits and colours, but the girls all wearing the Filipino camisa, and many of them carrying the branches of artificial and gilt flowers, which they use in religious processions. It was particularly noticeable that there was no priest of any sort in the procession, nor were the priestly colleges or the Convent Schools represented in any way.

We got quite tired of watching them at last, especially as the whole thing kept on getting muddled up and having to stop for long, weary halts. We came to the conclusion at last that as there was no crowd in the street or at the end of it; there must be a tiger round the corner. But a very literal Scotch friend said: “There are no tigers in the Philippines.”

A dance was given by the Spanish Club last night, and there is to be another to-night, at the invitation of the Presidente of the town, at his official residence, the Gobierno. I am not well enough to go to both, for I have not been out of the house for weeks, and even now it is rash to stand at all till my feet are healed, but I felt I must go to one of these functions, so I have chosen to-night, which is, according to Iloilo notions of etiquette, far the less exclusive of the two, so it will be much the more amusing.

I have been writing this, lying in my long chair in the sala, while C—— went out to the Plaza to see if he could hear any speeches or anything funny. He has just come back, and tells me there was a platform erected in the Plaza, where speeches had been rolled off, but he had been too late to hear any of them. A great pity, as I daresay they may have been amusing, because one of the speakers was a rabid pro-Filipino and the other (both Americans) a keen pro-American. I will finish this letter to-morrow, so as to be able to tell you all about the ball.