“Have you ever met anyone who does?”
“No,” I said, “at any rate not one American who does not loathe the place, except one woman, the wife of a missionary, who says she likes it, but then she spends all the disagreeable season in Japan.”
“That’s so,” he said. “And I guess if I come back it’s going to be on the religious stunt, with no work and lots of va-cation.”
The guests at the ball were all sorts and conditions of men, rather what C—— calls a “heterogeneous mass,” but most of the Americans were there too, and several new people whom I learned were officers and their wives from Camp Josman, over in Guimaras. One little woman particularly took my fancy, with her pale, pretty face and masses of fair hair, and a really lovely pink silk ball-dress. She looked so fresh and charming, but I felt quite anxious about her nice dress, as my own black skirt was a source of trouble on such dirty boards, where, I am sorry to say, some of the guests did not hesitate to expectorate when they felt inclined for this national pastime.
The floor, as I say, was simply rough, unpolished, dusty, dark-wood planks, and all the American men, except our friend and two others, wore day suits and boots, while many of the women had on walking shoes, which did not improve things.
The natives were all got up in blinding colours—little, dark, square-faced women in the harsh aniline dyes of thirty years ago—and some of them had on very handsome diamonds. C—— and I and Mr M—— were the only English people present. I believe the others, as well as many of the Americans, all thought the official ball not sufficiently select, which seemed to me a very amusing point of view in a place like Iloilo—or anywhere else for the matter of that.
After watching the ball-room for a little while, we thought we would like some fresh air, so we moved out on to the balcony, where the air was fairly cool, and where the band was stationed on a platform of two steps in height. This was the Constabulary, native brass, which sounds very well out of doors in a procession, but is rather deafening in a room. On the platform were two or three music-stands at which a few men lounged, but the rest of the twenty-five sat and blew (all brass and two flutes) wherever they pleased, most of them festooned gracefully about the steps of the stand; some lying almost full length on one elbow; and some huddled up with their chins on their knees, looking exactly like performing monkeys. One man with strips of black sticking-plaster on his flat, brown face, lay on the steps of the stand, gazing at the ceiling, and playing his cornet in one hand.
There were benches all round the balcony, and on one of these we sat, in company with a lot of other guests, while some energetic and perspiring dancers came out and extended the ball to the balcony, dancing solemnly up and down in front of the band. When some people moved away from the bench nearest the platform, half a dozen bandsmen instantly took possession of their vacant places and sat there, leaning back and blowing away at greater ease. They seemed to be playing instinctively while thinking of other things. One small boy on the bench by us was fast asleep, with his fingers still moving up and down on the stops, which so interested Mr M—— that he got up and put his ear down to the fellow’s trumpet, but declared he could hear no sound coming out of it at all. The other bandsmen watched him do this with impassive, expressionless faces, if they looked at him at all. This was during the second Rigodon, which we could see going on in the long Court Room, and when the last figure was reached, a bandsman suddenly sprang up from a recumbent position on the steps and tootled the first few bars of “Hiawatha,” which they all struck into with a swing, and some of the sleepers opened one dull eye, while the man with the black sticking-plaster on his face was suddenly galvanised into walking up and down to the tune—a sort of dancing walk—in front of the bandstand.
While we sat by the band, we were joined by another American friend, also a “prominent citizen,” with whom I had a long and interesting shout about the Philippines in general, and Mr Taft in particular, which was most entertaining, for this friend was as ardent a pro-Filipino as the other had been anti-Taft and anti-everything. This man was very enthusiastic about Mr Taft’s scheme, as he called it, and when I said, “What scheme?” he replied: