In our walk we came to a walled-in graveyard, with an open grille in the great doorway, through which one could see a little chapel and green trees, looking very dark green in the moonlight. On the opposite side, across the rough, sandy road, was a high, broken wall of concrete, with a big iron gate, and apparently nothing but the sea beyond it. We wondered what the gate could lead to, and thought there must be some garden on the shore; but when we went up the one or two crumbling steps, we found ourselves at once on the beach, and at our feet a quantity of ruined graves, some half-opened, some newly-covered, all jumbled up in the moonlight, and strewn with rank grass, sand, and pebbles. It seemed so weird and uncanny, the great, strong wall shutting in nothing; and the tall gates leading to nothing; and we afterwards learnt that this was the Chinese graveyard, which is always being destroyed by storms, and the wall had suffered in the bombardment. I don’t suppose the Chinese use it much, as they always get their bodies sent back to China if they can, in huge, gaily-painted coffins, for burial in their native soil.
I forget if I told you about the trouble we have been having with our cook—the voluble person I described to you when he was new and interesting. Now I know that type of Filipino so well! As time went on the cook’s easy flow of talk became less interesting, especially as it took the place of cooking, and I got tired of always telling him to do his best, for he was one of those half-clever people who always do things just not as well as they could do them. Whenever I reproved him, too, I found a stranger in the kitchen next day, who told me that he had been sent to take the place of my cook, who was ill “with his leg.”
Always his leg. Though no human ingenuity could find out what he was supposed to have the matter with his leg. I was inclined to think it was a “sulk leg,” but C—— observed darkly that he had heard before of fellows getting “drink legs.” On these occasions the cook’s wife was generally to be found—a pleasant-faced little woman, in a bright, clean dress, and wearing long, gold earrings—squatting on her heels, outside the hall-door, smoking a huge cigar. The moment I appeared she always repeated the information about the leg, with apologies, and vanished.
When the cook had recovered from his indisposition, he would take up his place in the kitchen, affable and fluent as ever, and no remarks would be made by anybody, for I put up with him as long as I could on account of his generally being sober—a rare and precious virtue. At last, however, when I was ill he surpassed himself in crime, sending in uneatable food to poor neglected C——, and giving me the same soup and rissoles every day, twice a day, for a fortnight, till I could not even bear the smell of them.
When C—— remonstrated, the cook instantly became impudent, and as impudence is where C—— draws the forbearing line with Filipinos, he gave the cook one good kick that sent him sprawling out on to the Azotea. C—— observed that if the cook summoned him for assault, he would half kill him next time, but our friend did not resort to Law. He gathered himself up and went off, and was no more seen again, though he sent the usual stop-gap to do his work next day. However, we had no intention of letting him farm our kitchen, so we asked the stop-gap, who was an excellent cook, if he would like to stay on permanently, and he said he would, and there he is “to this very day,” as they say in books.
The change has made a great difference in my housekeeping, both socially and materially. By socially I mean that I now have a quiet, silent, intelligent man to deal with instead of a chattering, cunning monkey; and by materially, that this man caters for us infinitely better for a peso, including firewood, than the other gem did for a peso and a half a day. He is willing to learn—real learning, not jabbering “mi sabe, mi sabe,” and then sending in the things all wrong—so I have got out my English cookery-book and explained many of our ways of preparing various foods, which he has grasped with intelligence and admirable results.
We are in great tribulation about ice, as a deadlock has occurred by which we are without any in this hot season—a most serious and horrible discomfort. From the beginning we, like everyone else, got our daily ten pounds of ice from the Government factory—the military supply—which came round every morning in the cart driven by the Stage Cowboy whom I think I described to you. When this cart pulled up and the handsome driver sang out “Hielo” (Ice!), servants flew out from all the houses and presented a ticket, each man secured his nice cold lump and rushed upstairs again to put it in the ice-chest.
But a month or more ago an American with a “pull” (political influence) got the municipal contract to supply this town with ice, to be worked in connection with the electric lighting of the streets, also placed in his control, on which the Government withdrew their supply so as not to interfere with private enterprise.
So far, so good. But the “’cute” financier had got an old electric plant, which works so badly that the arc-lights are extinguished and the streets are pitch dark at night. The ice has given out altogether. The financier, still being paid out of the rates, has gone off to Manila, and there is no redress anywhere, for he has a relative high up in office, is received everywhere, and—in fact he has a “pull.”
The Government won’t renew their supply of ice except to the Americans and the clubs. A few other people who have influence have managed to get a lump now and then, but for the greater part we struggle on, at 90° in the shade, with tepid water to drink, food decaying before the evening, and butter—even tinned train-oil butter—a thing of the past.