I can understand the conduct of the free and easy soldiers, for such equality is not inconsistent with American social theories; but what puzzles me is the use of these astounding pedagogues, who are honest, earnest, well-meaning folk, but their manners are those of ordinary European peasants. And as to the language they speak and profess, it is so unlike English that literally I find it difficult to catch their meaning when one of them speaks to me direct, and quite impossible when they talk to each other. Yet I could forgive them their dreadful lingo, if only they would not use the same knife indiscriminately to lap up yolk of egg, or help themselves to butter or salt. Of course these good people are fresh from America, and utterly ignorant of all things and people outside their native State (such ludicrous questions they ask!), but quite apart from that, and the hopeless blunders they must make on that account, it seems a pity that such rough diamonds should represent to these natives the manners and intellect of a great and ruling white nation.
But here comes the most curious phenomenon of all, for I am told that the United States does not pose as either “white” or “ruling” in these islands, preferring, instead, to proclaim Equality, which seems a very strange way to treat Malays, and I find myself quite curious to see how the theory works out. I only hope it won’t mean that we shall have unmanageable servants and impudence to put up with. Our friends in Manila told me ominously that housekeeping was “difficult,” and I begin to wonder if Equality has anything to do with it!
They are a funny little people, these Filipinos, the women averaging well under 5 feet, with pretty, slender figures and small hands and feet. The original race was a little, fuzzy-headed, black people, remnants of which are still to be found in the mountains and in the smaller islands, but the Filipino, as one sees him, is the result of Malay invasions. Up in the north, in Luzon, the Malays are a race or tribe called Tagalo, but all this part of the Archipelago is called Visaya, and the people Visayans. Of these broad outlines there are many subdivisions of type of course, in the way that physique is different even in different counties in so small a space as England; but the average Filipino is the same everywhere. The Filipinos (by which are meant the Tagalos and Visayans) are, as nearly as one can say, a short, thick-set people, with yellowy-brown skins, round, flat faces, very thick lips, which frequently jut out beyond the tip of the nose, and more bridge to the same said nose in proportion to the amount of foreign blood in the owner’s veins. It is not easy to lay down any very definite rule about their appearance though, as the race is so hopelessly mixed with Spanish, Chinese, European—every nation under the sun, that it is difficult to say what is a Filipino face. One feature they have in common, and that is magnificent, straight, jet-black hair, which the women turn back from the forehead, where it makes a roll so thick that it looks as if it must be done over a pad, while they twist the back high up, in shiny coils. The men look as if their thick mops were cut round a basin, and they have no beards and moustaches—I mean they can’t grow any, not that they don’t want them! As far as I have seen, they appear to be very lazy, and to talk a great deal. They are not a bit like the Chinese or Japanese in any way, unless they happen to have a strain of that blood in them, and even then the resemblance is only physical, for though the type may be varied, the universal character remains unalterable.
I forgot to tell you that at Cebú we “collected” C——’s dog, a dear old brown person, with one of the sweetest faces I ever saw, who answers to the name of Tuyay, which is the Visayan for Victoria. I really must leave off writing now, as it is long past time to “turn in,” though I feel as if I could write on for hours, there is so much to tell you.
A Filipino Girl, aged 10.
A Casco (Barge).