The first settlement of white men in Panay was only a Spanish garrison, inside a fort built in the days when a few Spaniards in armour lurked under shelter from the poisoned arrows of the savage natives, while now and then a priest ventured out to see what a little talk and baptism would do towards making life more pleasant for everyone concerned.
When the island became more civilised, or settled, or subdued, or all three, a town called Jaro (pronounced Hahro) was founded about 3 miles up the river, and became the capital of Panay, but now the tide of commerce has swept down-river, and the chief town is Iloilo, all crammed down at the edge of the sea, with many of its suburbs nothing more nor less than sandy beach. It is a big town, with long, straggling streets, and the houses, all two stories high, with grey corrugated iron roofs, stand apart, separated by little bits of garden with palms and flowering trees, which makes it quite pretty, in spite of all the buildings being totally devoid of any architectural beauty whatsoever.
At present the N.-E. Monsoon is blowing, and everyone is anxious to point out to me how deliciously cool the weather is, and it is certainly not so overpowering as I had expected, but all the same I find it quite hot enough to be pleasant and a little over. Though there is no dew, the nights are refreshing—almost cold by contrast with the day, and the evenings charming, while the early mornings are simply delicious. Dawn begins at half-past five, and by six the sun is up, but the air is exquisite till about half-past eight, when it begins to get too hot for anything but shade and fans, if one has any choice. I think the average Fahrenheit now is 83°, but as life here is adapted to such temperature, you must not think that means anything like what 83° would be in England. Still, when all is said and done, it is very hot, and if this is what they call “winter,” I am only thankful that I have not plunged at once into “summer.” This “winter” goes on till March, and then the weather begins to get hotter and hotter till June, when the Monsoon shifts to the S.-W., and the rainy season begins.
Four months dry and cool; four months dry and hot; four months wet and hot—that is the climate over most of the Philippine Islands, but it varies in sequence in different places—areas is a better word—and on the Pacific seaboard the seasons are quite reversed, so that it is rainy there when it is dry here. By rain and dry, however, I gather that a great deal of drought or a long, steady rain is not meant, for all during the dry season there are heavy showers, and everything remains green, while in the wet season there are spells of fine weather. Now I think I have described to you all I can of Iloilo till I see more of the place, but I know how anxious you will be to have some idea of what it is like.
We are busy house-hunting, which is a tedious and toilsome business, as there is not such an institution as a house agency—you allow a rumour to get about that you want a house, and then people tell other people to tell you where an empty building, such as you say you want, is to be found. Then you go off and “find” the house—a matter, usually, of infinite difficulties and sometimes quite impossible, as the Filipino cab-drivers don’t know the names of the streets, or the numbers, or the names of the people. The best plan is, get into a rickety old trap and let the man drive about, while you lean out and ask for the house you started out to find, and end by seeing another one with se aquila (to let) written up, and stopping as near to it as the driver can pull up his pony, and getting out there instead.
Having thus “found” a house, you set to work to “find” the owner of it, who is probably at the club, or a cock-fight, or playing cards; and when he, or she, appears, you ask—and this is quite necessary—if the house is to let; for the board does not signify much, as they seldom take the trouble to remove one when once it has been put up. Most of the boards are obligingly going through the process of removing themselves, one nail at a time.
When the house really is to let, you ask the rent, and whatever the answer is you throw up your hands in horror, and declare it is muy caro (very dear), and that you will give half, calling assorted Saints to testify to all the drawbacks which make the house unfit for human habitation at any price.
Then a long argument ensues, for the people never really want to lose a tenant, as they know there is no lack of choice, for trade is very bad, and so many houses stand empty. All the same, the rates and taxes are appallingly high, and the rents are preposterous for this sort of town, and for the accommodation offered. Moreover you have a strangely lazy, supercilious, half-bred sort of people to deal with, who would rather keep a house empty and say they must have 100 dollars a month and starve, than take 50 for it and live on the fat of their land.
The money here is a dollar currency called Conant, which is worth 2s. 1d.—half the American dollar. This is the Philippine currency, and is named after its inventor, an American called Conant, and I wish he had invented a cheaper unit, for 10 Conant dollars, or pesos, as they are called, are nothing to spend, whereas the equivalent, an English guinea, is an important sum, and represents four times the spending value of 10 pesos. It is a silver currency, dollars and notes, and the coins have rather a pretty design of a man sitting looking at the sea, surrounded by most amusing inscriptions. For instance, the 5-cent, piece is: “Five Centavos,” and underneath is “Filipinas.” Why not “Five cents.” and “Philippines,” or else “Cinco centavos, Filipinas?” Why such mongrel? One can only suppose it is the notion of Equality coming out in some mysterious way by meeting the natives half-way in Spanish, which, by-the-bye, is not their native language, and only a few of them speak it at all.
The houses here, as I said before, are all two-storied, the upper part of wood, and the lower of stone or concrete. The floors are of long planks of hard, dark, native woods, which the servants polish with petroleum pads on their feet, sliding about till the surface is like brown glass. The walls are merely wooden partitions, painted white or green, and in the corners of the rooms appear the big tree trunks to which the house is lashed, sometimes just painted white like the walls, or encased in a wooden cover. The word “lashed,” I must tell you, is not a figure of speech, as the houses really are tied together with bejuco, rattan (a strong, fibrous vine), so as to allow sufficient play for earthquakes, which, it appears, are so frequent in these islands as to be in no way remarkable.