Across the Plaza were the two houses, both blazing with lights and flowers, the balconies full of men in white suits and women in their smartest dresses. In front of each house a band was playing, as if no other music were within a hundred miles, and the din was awful—the constabulary brass band, which was serenading the Papal Delegate, or his house, smashing and braying Sousa Marches; while the Aglipayano mandolines, guitars, and violins twiddled and thumped steadily at “Hiawatha” and other Filipino airs.
To anyone blessed with a glimmering of humour you may imagine that the whole show was a source of pure delight, and we lingered quite late, driving up and down in the hope that there might be a speech or a row or something. But apparently peace, if not goodwill, was the motto, as, when we at last had to return home, we left all hands as contented and jolly as if the other fellows did not exist at all, or lived in another continent.
You must imagine all this in heat such as you have never felt, all the priests, devotees, and bandsmen limp and dripping, and the faces of the Filipinos like wet mahogany. We are in a chronic state of discomfort, too, ourselves, which makes the sight of the black and purple robes, the berettas, and the outfit of the secretaries and hangers-on a very tangible addition to our own discomfort. I “guess” the “Dallergit” wishes the “call” had “come right along” in the cool season!
I told you about the little love-birds which had been presented to me, I think? “I had a dove, and the sweet dove died” ... but my first lovebird did not die of grieving, for I found him one morning with a gash in his throat which looked very like the work of a bad cat. When the wee bird was dead and buried, the other little scrap did not seem to mind much at first, but presently took to having fits, and soon expired too.
I miss them very much, for they were dear little creatures, and such companions to me, with their sweet little chirping noises. People tell me it is very difficult to keep birds at all out here, as the little ants that swarm everywhere get under their feathers and worry them to death in a few hours.
LETTER XXX.
PHILIPPINE SANITATION—DECORATION DAY
Iloilo, May 29, 1905.
I know you will be glad to hear that we are having a lull in the great heat, as the rain is beginning, or, at any rate, the Monsoon is blowing through rain, steadily from the S.-W., and the thermometer has gone down from 95° to 90°, which makes a vast difference to us, though it must still sound like great heat to you.