From the huts we went on till we came out upon wide, open mud-flats, where there were a great many salt pits, which fill with water when the tide rises, for the sea water stretches right up to this place and farther. The pits were surrounded by pumps, after the fashion of the shadoofs on the Nile, and wells and all sorts of curious contrivances of bamboo, with long rows of pipes for drying the salt—it is marvellous what these people will do with bamboo. It was nearly dark by this time, and the mud-flats looked very weird and melancholy, the strange frames and poles appearing ghostly in the dusk.
We came out upon the river bank again and walked to the place where we had left the boats. On the way I picked some sprays of small pink blossoms which grow on big ragged bushes with thorns, and look like May, and smell like sweet currant. They look very pretty in a vase in the sala, and are the only flower I have yet brought home or had given to me, that has lasted for so long as twenty-four hours.
C—— has been having more trouble with the Customs, and this time over a boat he had to get from Hong Kong, as such a thing is not made and not to be had here. It is an ordinary boat for going out to the ships, and cost 40 pesos, but when C——, on being asked to value it, mentioned this sum to the Customs authorities, they exclaimed “Impossible!”
Unfortunately it happened that he could not produce a bill for the boat, as he had got it through an agent in Hong Kong, who charges it to his account with the Firm in Manila, and he had not even a bill of lading, as a friend had brought it from Hong Kong for him. The Customs flatly refused to take his word about the price, and sent for some local sages to value the boat. One of these worthies gave it as his opinion, off-hand, that it was absurd to say you could buy a boat like that for less than 60 pesos. Another said, “Probably ninety.” A third, “Sixty at the lowest.”
So the authorities, like Solomon, struck the happy medium, and charged C—— the duty (30 per cent.) on 80 pesos!!
And there is no redress, for the Firm’s accounts will not be settled till the end of the month, or even later, by which time the dues on the boat will have been paid long ago, and when once a receipt is given by the Government, no power but a special Act of Congress can get one cent of it refunded. Oh, and we know this to our cost! For, during all these months, we have not ceased from appealing, reappealing, and worrying tooth and nail about the extra £40 we had to pay for our wedding presents. I wish to goodness we had a “pull.” We should get it back in a week.
The tariffs here seem to be put on in an incomprehensible way. In a civilised old country it might help trade if there were an import tax against things the people could produce themselves, but the system here works out quite differently, for while a desire is being inculcated for things which the natives cannot and never will be able to produce, those articles are taxed at the same rate as they are in the most highly developed country full of manufactories. You will think I have become a regular blue-stocking when you read these long discourses! But you need not have any fears on that score, for I am only trying to describe to you the conditions under which we struggle for existence in one of the most fertile countries in the world, and these questions are of such vital and burning interest that I hear them discussed by the most unlikely and domesticated ladies!
What the newspapers call “Religious Circles” have been in a great state of excitement lately, as the Pope has sent a Cardinal Delegate to the Philippines to rouse the Orthodox to a sense of their peril from the Iglesia Independiente, the Aglipayanos. When I was in Manila, this prelate was there, an Irishman of the name of Agius. I saw him and his suite at the Governor’s reception, and people told me he was a very charming person. Now he is touring about the Philippines, and this week arrived here on a visit to the Bishop of Panay—an American, whose name I forget.
There were great ceremonies and processions, arches and welcomes on the arrival of the Cardinal. But the Aglipayanos did not let the occasion pass without comment, for they turned out in full force with counter-processions and, it must be confessed, with far larger crowds of followers.
The day before yesterday the Cardinal arrived in great state. He drove off to Jaro, and the road out to that town swarmed with priests, and little carriages dashing about full of mysterious, greasy-looking hangers-on in black coats and bowlers, the like of which no human eye has ever before seen this side of Suez.