“Which is a very good thing,” she says, laughing all over her jolly fat brown face, “as he is only twenty-eight. Did you see him when we left Manila? He came to see me off.”
But unfortunately I had missed this individual amongst the seething crowds that pushed about the deck till we started, and were then bundled over the side and down a plank like so many sheep. I can’t think why on earth none of these places have a gangway for the steamers.
She has told me endless “yarns” about the Philippines and the Filipinos, the chief points of interest being emphasised by a bang of her fan on my knee, which conveys anything to me from her views on the Papal Supremacy to her opinion about the sanitation of this ship, the latter subject taxing even her powers of pantomime.
We have so far had the marvellous luck of coolness, a clouded sky, and wind. The wind, however, is a mixed boon, for it means waves—waves which would hardly count on the Round Pond, but make the Butuan roll heavily, and prove too much for the Filipino boys and youths, who are thick on the ship as swarming bees. They must be thankful to get rid—on the deck, by-the-bye—of the fearful, greasy meals which they stow away with horrible greediness. Knowing that the Filipinos eat lightly and sparingly, I remarked to my cabin mate, who came to sit next me at table, about the diet of these young countrymen of hers. She, herself, like the other native passengers, only eats very little—some chicken and a few vegetables, rice, and fruit. The gesture she made as she looked at the schoolboys was most expressive.
“Babuis!” she said, which is Visayan for pigs, and as bad as calling a Frenchman cochon. “Babuis! These Government Schools are ruining my people. I thank God that I have no son who will be taught to be insolent and unclean, and to eat like that.”
I asked her what she meant by “unclean,” and she said that the Filipinos wash a great deal, which I knew already, and are very careful in certain small details of cleanliness and sanitation, but that all the new schoolboys were little better than animals.
Opposite us at table sits a very good-looking American officer in khaki uniform, who is evidently not a keen advocate of equality, as he does not open his lips except to the captain, and even omits the little bow which the other passengers make on taking their seats at table. Moreover, he does not pass things, which is not a pretty example to the very polite Filipinos and Mestizos at the table. All the Filipinos I have ever seen have those beautiful gracious Spanish manners which may mean nothing beyond mere politeness, but they do help to grease the wheels of life a great deal. The contrast to the older people of these horrible, noisy, ill-bred young “yahoos” is heartrending,—the first-fruit of the American ideal, dressed in appalling variations on the European costume; cheeky, gluttonous, self-important—just what one would expect of a mongrel Malay who is told he is the social equal of white women.
As I write this to you I am sitting on the narrow deck, trying to get as far away as I can from the schoolboy crowd, whose portion of the deck is unspeakable, apart from the fact that they think I am an American, and spit on my chair whenever they get a chance of approaching within range of it.