A lot of little native boys were rushing and screaming about in a remote corner, their short shirts fluttering behind them, playing some mysterious, meaningless game, revolving round certain heaps of manure and dead dogs. The little chaps seemed happy enough, but they looked so uncanny, like little black and white imps in the moonlight.
In time, I daresay, all this desolate waste will be reclaimed and built over, for someone told me that the Harbour Company are filling it up with dredgings. In Manila I saw a vast mud-flat being reclaimed in the same way by harbour-dredging, and the flattened, finished part had lines drawn on it, which I was told were the ground plans of streets and houses. It seems so strange to go on building the towns out on the mud-flats in a climate like this, when there are acres and acres of native huts standing on sound land a few feet above the sea-level. I asked a man who has lived here many years why this was done, and he told me that it was because of the great cost of transport, owing to the high rate of wages, which would take away all profit if one had one’s shops and camarins far from the water’s edge. I said I thought it must be very unhealthy on the mud.
“Absolutely fatal,” he said. “But then, you see, it is a toss-up between a chance of fever on the mud and a certainty of starvation in the town.”
I enjoy the walks about very much, or rather, I am more interested and amused than exhilarated; but all the same I am looking forward so to having our trap and going for drives, and even though there are only two roads, still we shall be able to get out of the town. I keep thinking that it is spring at home—or rather, I try not to think of it! How one longs to see a bunch of daffodils or a snow-drop; to hear a blackbird sing; to see beautiful oaks and elms coming into leaf instead of these eternal green palms, and to feel fresh and invigorating air instead of this everlasting swelter and sun!
We have a queer old neighbour here, an ancient Spaniard, who lives on the ground-floor of a house, in two rooms which are, so C—— tells me, hung with pictures of Isabella and the King; medals on velvet, framed and glazed; and certificates and memorials, for he was once some official in the Royal Household of Spain.
He is a courtly and dignified old person, though about 4 feet 6 in height, and as broad as he is long. He is very poor, and when he can sell some piece of land, he is going back to Spain to die.
This personage came to call on me a few evenings ago, on account of having on a black evening suit, as he had been to a funeral. We stumbled along in Spanish, and would have done better if my guest had not persisted in trying to remember French so as to convince me that he really had been in Paris. However, we got on very well, and I showed him some of papa’s sketches of Spain, which enchanted the poor old thing. Over the Alhambra he waxed quite sentimental, with his head on one side and one podgy hand raised to heaven. Of course the fact of my having been in his native land made me quite charming, and compliments bloomed like spring-flowers in the gardens of the Vega.
He had told C—— that he wished to come and pay his respects, as he had heard that the señora had good custumbres, which is a Spanish word for good breeding and good manners—not that I mean the two can be separated, but that the expression conveys those two, in a sort of way. This fact he repeated to me again, with much decorative compliment, and many assurances that I did not look the least like an Englishwoman—and oh, no! not a bit like a Frenchwoman—and still less like an Italian! Anyone would know at once that I must be a Spaniard—and from the southern land, where the women are elegant as flowers, and their eyes speak of love.
At last he backed himself out, still showering compliments, and offering to teach me “la lengua Castellana.” His Spanish was beautiful to listen to, so round and full and correct, and he implored me, with his hands clasped, not to learn the language of “los Indianos,” as I told you the Spaniards call the Filipinos.
All the Spaniards here long and yearn for Spain, and everything Spanish, which is only natural, I suppose. They hate the Archipelago, as they call it, but confess that the prospect of continuing to earn a living here ties them by the leg.