We dined early, and were hungry, which was delightful. The cook and Sotero managed wonderfully, so that we were just as comfortable as in our own delightful house. There was a firefly flitting all about the big room, looking so pretty; appearing and disappearing like a tiny fairy light.
Next morning, when I woke up, I heard only a few cocks crowing—nothing to speak of—and some twitterings of birds as well, and I think the latter pleased me as much as the whole trip! In the Philippines “the birds have no song and the flowers have no scent,” they say, which is a sweeping generalisation, but true for the most part.
We put on our bathing suits, had a cup of tea, and were out on the beach by six o’clock. The tide was far out again, with long stretches of shining wet, ribbed sand; the sea all fresh and blue, and glittering in the sunlight. But where we went was still in shade, for the sun had not yet come up behind the Guimaras hills, and the morning air was exquisite. We “ran races in our mirth” along the wet sands, till we got opposite the fish corral, where the water was deeper and the boat was tied up to a bamboo pole.
As we went along the beach, we saw people from the little huts we passed when we were here before, washing at a spring of water which flowed out from the rocks and down to the beach. They were some way off, though, and we were in the shade and they were in the still deeper shade under the cliffs, so we could not make them out very clearly, but we could see their coppered-coloured skins shining with water, and hear them laughing and talking.
We swam about the boat for a long time, and found the water quite warm in the shallows, even before the sun was up. I had brought C——’s panama, which I hung to the fish corral while I swam about in the shade, but when we went back to the house, I had to wear it, as the sun which was then on us is oppressively hot here as soon as it rises.
The fish corral, by-the-bye, is an ingenious trap, rather after the fashion of a maze, into which the fish enter but never have the sense to get out again.
When we got back to the house, we filled the swimming bath, which felt very cold after the sea, and it certainly washed off the salt water, but it was nearly as hard and harsh as the sea itself.
A Filipino Market-Place.