Iloilo, February 18, 1905.
You must excuse my writing still being rather bad, as my illness has left me so weak that I shall not be out of bed for some days longer, in fact I am beginning to be fearfully afraid that I may not be well enough to go to Manila on the 28th after all. However, I have ten days to get well in, which gives me hope, and my progress so far has been simply wonderful, which is due to the extraordinary luck I have had in finding such good doctors and such a charming and clever nurse.
I am much disappointed in having missed the visit of a U.S.A. man-of-war, the Rainbow, which is on a cruise through the Islands, and has come here for a couple of days. She is the flagship of the squadron the Americans keep in the China seas, and a very fine ship, I believe.
Last night her crew gave a sing-song in the theatre, to which I persuaded C—— to go, and was very glad I had done so, as he enjoyed it immensely, and says it was a very good sort of Christy Minstrel “show.” It ended with a small play, done by real “American Negroes,” as they are called. The Rainbow gave the same entertainment in Hong Kong, just before we arrived, and I heard then how good it was. This afternoon we have been invited to a reception to be held on board, but, of course, that also is out of the question for me, and C—— will be busy at the office till very late.
There is a great deal of work at the office now, as the chief business in this island is sugar, and this is the height of the “season,” when great loads of thousands of sacks go out every day to be put into steamers and sailing vessels off the estuary. They have a rough factory here where the cane is crushed, and the stuff exported is a thick, brown sort of sand (don’t make a joke about sand and sugar!), a great deal of which goes to Europe and America, but most to Hong Kong, where it is refined in great factories. The refined sugar that comes back from Hong Kong is what we buy here; and, though an English company has started a sugar refinery in Manila, they find that the conditions of trade in the Philippines are such that they can only just compete with the stuff refined elsewhere and imported subject to the export tax and the enormous duties.
I think I am very lucky in having such a nice room to be ill in. It is very large and shady, with three windows and two doors, and I look out on a bright garden belonging to the house opposite, and a green field and trees, which is charming. Through the trees are glimpses of the grey backs of the houses in the street parallel to this, and then a thick, high belt of palms, which hides the open sea.
This is the S.-W. side of the house. The back, to the N.-E., looks out across a rough garden of fresh, thick grass to half a mile or so of shallows, where the tide fluctuates, and beyond is the strip of blue river, which looks so narrow seen from here that the big steamers which go by seem to be sailing on dry land. Beyond, again, comes a fringe of bright green palms, and then the open sea—a stretch of darkest blue—and a bit of hilly, verdant Guimaras.
I think one of the great beauties of the views here is that the sky is never quite cloudless—there are always very white clouds somewhere in the dome of intense blue, which give relief and value to all the colours below.
On days when the Monsoon is not too high, we open the shutters looking towards the river, but these open wooden slats keep the houses quite cool, even when the shutters are closed. I wish there were something like the tatties of India; but no one out here has ever heard of such a thing. The open shutters are very nice though, and the view framed in the dark opening which faces us at table is like looking at a large, bright picture. Sometimes the tide is right up to the garden wall, the sky cloudy, and the water like slate. At other times, when it is far out, the shallows turn into mud-flats, with groups of native women wading about in their bright red clothes, looking for mysterious fish which Filipinos alone dare eat and live.