Showing Electric Tram.
A great deal of the way to the nursery we followed the route of a new electric tram, which is to be opened in the course of a few weeks, and is to connect all the suburbs with the main town. Manila is immensely proud of this tram, which is such a token of progress that it somehow or other makes up for the lack of paving and other primary symbols of civilisation. There is a railway here too, the only one in the Philippines, which goes about 150 miles inland to a place called Dugupan. There is constant talk of railways to be built all over the islands, the concessions for which are being granted, of course, to American speculators; but those who know the islands well say the railways will not benefit anyone, even the speculators, for what are wanted besides labourers are roads, just good traffic roads, kept in good repair. However, it sounds imposing to talk of so many millions of dollars to be spent on railways “to open up the Philippines,” and a great deal of philanthropic energy is, somehow, inferred.
The entrance to the nursery garden was up a narrow, sandy lane, where a lot of little, half-clad, brown children ran out after us and offered small, tousled bunches of faded flowers. Queer little souls, these Filipino children, with thin limbs and fluttering muslin garments.
On each side of the sandy lane was a field planted with rose bushes; in the garden itself nothing appeared but rows and rows of flower-pots containing green plants and ferns—the sort of plants and ferns one only sees in conservatories at home. The garden was laid out in formal earthen paths, bordered with tiles, but the gardener was anything but formal—a huge, fat, old native with Chinese eyes, got up airily in white bathing-drawers and a muslin camisa.
We went about, and my friend chose ferns and plants, some of which were lovely, and I very much wished I could have taken some home with me to Iloilo, but for the difficulty of transporting them by the Butuan. There was a charming old grey stone well in the garden, with steps leading up to it, some of them formed of beautiful old blue and green Chinese tiles, the whole shaded by big, drooping trees, which made that corner of the garden quite dark. Overhead, along the greater part of the paths, was a pergola of orchids, while all sorts of orchids grew from bundles of what looked like dried sticks tied to the posts. The sight of the orchids made me realise once again the temperature we live in, for I thought of how, on a summer’s day at home, one would find the outside air quite cold after an orchid house. It also occurred to me that it sounds all very fine to think of orchids in cheapness and profusion, but I have never yet seen an orchid that could compare as an object of beauty with a dog-rose out of a hedge.
On the way back we halted to hear some jolly tunes played by the band on the Luneta. Again there was the blue dusk; the orange and saffron horizon; and the moving crowds in white on the bright green grass plots round the bandstand. We stayed in the carriage, which moved slowly round with hundreds of others, all going in the same direction. I believe the only carriage that has the privilege of moving the other way is that of the Governor.
Going in and out of the crowd, everywhere, were two little American girls, seated astride on a bare-backed pony, with their hair floating loose behind, and tied with an immense bow of ribbon on one side of the forehead in American fashion; their thin little legs dangling side by side on each flank of the pony. They looked very happy and solemn, and the way they stuck on was simply wonderful.
Manila.