Some of us spent all the morning loafing about and talking on the balcony, enjoying the deep shade and the fresh breeze blowing straight in from the open sea. One of the men of the party had contrived to catch the anting-anting lizard of the house, such as I described to you as having a call like a cuckoo and being considered very lucky by the Filipinos. He had tethered the creature by a piece of cotton tied round its body, so as to keep it for me to see when I arrived, and it was much larger than I had expected—about a foot long—and not unlike the desert lizards one sees dried in the bazaars in Upper Egypt, only the skin of the “Philippine cuckoo” is all a pattern of green and red. The poor thing was tame enough, but very shy, and inclined to get behind furniture or skirts, so when I had had a good look at it, they let it go again, when it vanished into the thick fringe of nipa that protected the sides of the balcony. This nipa, when one sees it close at hand, is a sort of palm leaf folded in two, lengthways, and tied to frames of bamboo, but it makes very nice, cool houses, and is absolutely waterproof.
One of the trees that shadowed the house was an Ylang-Ylang, from which the scent of that name is extracted; a tall, naked, light brown, smooth stem, with thin branches spreading out at the top, and leaves like an acacia. The perfume is in the small green blossom, which is not at all unlike that of a lime, and with infinite difficulty one or two of these were pulled down by means of a fishing-rod, and given to me to dry and put in my linen-cupboard in the native fashion. They dried up in a very few hours, but kept their delicious scent, and when I came home, I put them amongst my handkerchiefs, which are sweetly perfumed with them already.
Native Houses.
Some of the men spent a riotous morning in a fresh-water swimming bath in a grove near the house. There is a spring of perfect water, which is brought in pipes past the house and out in long bamboo pipes on stands in the shallow water, where ships come and take it in to supply steamers, or to sell over in Iloilo. The flow of water is very great, enough to supply a city, and the main pipe is so contrived that by pulling out a plug one fills the swimming bath, which is a wonderful luxury.
We heard the others splashing and shouting in the swimming bath all the morning, and when lunch time came, they appeared radiant and starving, and I have not seen men do such justice to their food since I came to the Philippines.
After lunch we all settled down in various chosen nooks for a siesta, and our servant Sotero, who is a native of Nagaba, came and asked permission to go away for the afternoon, which surprised our friends very much, for they said they had never heard of a Filipino servant taking anything but “French leave.”
I have not yet been able to acquire the habit of sleeping in the middle of the day, which is perhaps one of the reasons why I never feel well out here. So I sat about, and looked at some picture papers, and felt very tired—I could cheerfully have gone round to the sleeping forms and done them some injury simply because they could sleep!
About four C—— awoke, so we went a little walk amongst the rocks close to the house, and thought we were exploring the whole island!