Recent experiences of the United States excite attention to the fashions of the tropics. In Florida our soldiers who invaded Cuba were in a degree and sense acclimated for the temperature of the island that has been for so long "so near, and yet so far," so wet and yet so hot. But the troops of the Philippine expedition were not prepared by the chilly blasts from the mountains of California for the exceedingly soft airs of Hawaii, though Honolulu was a pleasant introductory school to Manila. Our new possession two thousand miles from the continent, has been preparing for the destiny realized for two generations, and the American ladies who dwell in the islands of perpetual summer in the Pacific, have not submitted wholly to the dominion of the climate and composed themselves to languish in loose and gauzy garments when on the streets. But the Honolulu women, in general, who largely are in the possession of luxuriant proportions, are enveloped in the blandishments of Mother Hubbards, and do not even tie strings about themselves to show where they would have spectators to infer their waists ought to be. They go about flowing and fluttering in freedom, and have all the advantages due the total abandonment of corsets, and suffer none of the horrors of tight lacing recorded in medical publications. The Mother Hubbard gown is not without its attractions, but we can hardly say they are too obvious, and slender figures are lost in voluminous folds that are billowy in the various ways and means of embracing the evolutions of beauty. And the native singers seem fully justified in throwing the full force of their lungs and the rapture of their souls into the favorite chorus, "The Honolulu Girls Are Good Enough for Me." The refrains of the Hawaiian songs are full of a flavor of pathos, and there is the cry of sorrows, that seem to be in the very air, but belong to other ages. The Honolulu females of all races have flung away side saddles with their corsets, and bestride horses and mules with the confidence in the rectitude of their intentions that so besets and befits the riders of bicycles. People would stare with disapproval in Honolulu to see a woman riding with both legs on the same side of a horse, and those wandering abroad in the voluminous folds of two spacious garments disapprove the unusual and unseemly spectacle.
It is as hot in some parts of Texas, Arizona and California as in any of the islands of the seas of the South, but we had not been educated in the art of clothing armies for service in the torrid zone, until the Philippine expedition was undertaken, and we were making ready for challenging the Spaniards in their Cuban fastnesses, when it speedily was in evidence that we wanted something more than blue cloth and blankets. The Spanish white and blue stuff and straw hats were to our eyes unsightly and distasteful, and we began with a variety of goods. Our army hats were found good, but we tried nearly all things before holding onto anything as sufficient for trousers and coats. The officers on long journeys speedily resolved, if we may judge from the results, that the suit most natty and nice for wear within twenty degrees of the Equator was the perfect white, and so the snowy figures below shoulder straps became familiar. This did not, of course, indicate acute stages of active service. Never were campaigns more destructive of good looks in clothing, than those in assailing Santiago and Manila, in which the thin stuffs were tested in torrential rain and ditches full of mud. The compensation was that the volunteers fresh from the camps of instruction, put on in a few days the appearance of veteran campaigners. In Manila there was an edifying contrast between the Spaniards who had surrendered and the Americans who did not pause when the Mausers were fired into their ranks, not with the faintest hope of successful resistance, but for the "honor of Spain." The Spanish soldiers had been well sheltered and came out in fairly clean clothes, while the soldiers of our nation closed up dingy ranks, suited for hunting in swamps and thickets, their coats, hats and trousers the color of blasted grass and decayed leaves. The passage of the line from the new to the old clothes was sudden, and the gallant boys in blue were not in the least disconsolate over the discoloration of their uniforms, having reached the stage where it was a luxury to sleep on a floor or pavement, without wasting time to find a soft or quiet spot.
The sombre taste of the Spanish ladies in dress, so famous and effective that the black mantillas and skirts, and the fans that do such execution in the hands of the dark-eyed coquettes, as to have sway where empires have been lost and won—control Cuba, but does not dominate the Philippines. The Pope of the period, it will be remembered, divided the new worlds discovered by the navigators of Spain and Portugal, awarding to the best of his knowledge, by a line drawn south from the southern shore of the Caribbean Sea. Portugal holding that to the eastward and Spain that to the westward. Hence the separation of South America between Brazil and the rest of the central and south American states, to await the inevitable end of the evolutions that were the revolutions of independence. Magellines, a Portuguese, who, being slighted in his own country, went over to the Spaniards, and pointed out that by sailing west the east would be attained, and so found the straits that bear his name, and the Ladrones and Philippines, annihilating the Papal boundary line by taking and breaking it from the rear.
The conquest of the Philippines by the Spaniards has not been complete as a military achievement or the enforcement of the adoption of customs and costumes according to the habits and taste of the conquerors, who have nibbled at the edges of the vast archipelago, greater in its length and breadth and its natural riches than the West Indies. The Spanish ladies in the Philippines are dressed as in the ancient cities of their own renowned peninsula. The Filipinos are of the varied styles that adorn Africans and the Asiatics. They are gay in colors and curious in the adjustment of stuffs, from the flimsy jackets to the fantastic skirts. The first essential in the dress of a Filipino is a jacket cut low, the decolette feature being obscured to some extent by pulling out one shoulder and covering the other, taking the chances of the lines that mark the concealment and disclosure of breast and back. There is no expression of immodesty. The woman of the Philippines is sad as she is swarthy, and her melancholy eyes are almost always introspective, or glancing far away, and revising the disappointed dreams of long ago. Profounder grief than is read in the faces of bronze and copper no mourning artist has wrought nor gloomy poet written. Below the jacket, the everlasting blazer, is a liberal width of cloth tightly drawn about the loins, stomach and hips, making no mistake in revelations of the original outline drawings, or the flexibilities which the activities display. There are two skirts, an outer one that opens in front, showing the tunic, which is of a color likely to be gaudy and showing strangely with the outer one. The feet are exposed, and if not bare, clothed only in clumsy slippers with toe pieces, and neither heels nor uppers. Women carry burdens on their heads, and walk erect and posed as if for snap photographs. The young girls are fond of long hair, black as cannel coal, and streaming in a startling cataract to the hips. It seems that the crop of hair is unusually large, and it shines with vitality, as the breeze lifts it in the sunshine. The Philippine boys are still more lightly clad than the girls, who have an eye to queer combinations of colors, and the revelation of the lines that distinguish the female form without flagrant disclosure. There is much Philippine dressing that may under all the surroundings be called modest, and the prevalent expression of the Filipino is that of fixed but bewildered grief. The males are rather careless, and display unstinted the drawings of legs, that are copper-colored and more uniform in tint than symmetry. Two or three rags do a surprisingly extensive service, and all the breezes cause the fluttering of fantastic but scanty raiment. It is a comfort to return to a country where people wear clothing not as a flimsy and inadequate disguise. What will be the influence of our armies bent to the tropics, upon the dress of Americans? It is a question that may be important. The "wheel" has introduced knickerbockers and promises to result in knee breeches. On the transports that have traversed the Pacific the soldiers were fond of taking exercise in undershirts and drawers only and they swarmed from their bunks at night, to sleep on deck, sometimes condescending to spread blankets to take the edge off the cruelty of the hard wood, but reluctant to be encumbered with undershirts. Their favorite night dress was drawers only, and they acted upon the false theory that one cannot take cold at sea. The authority of officers was often necessary to impress the average soldier that he ought to have an undershirt between his skin and the sky. The boys were during their long voyage very sparing in the use of shoes and stockings, and it has perhaps never before occurred in American experiences that there was such an opportunity to study the infinite variety of the big toe, and, indeed, of all the toes. In active army service the care of the feet is essential. The revelations on shipboard disclose the evils of ill-fitting shoes to be most distrusting. One of the claims of West Point for high consideration is in teaching the beauty of white trousers, and our tropical army experiences will extend the fashion. When General Merritt and Admiral Dewey parted on the deck of the China in Manila harbor, both were clad in spotless white, their caps, coats and trousers making a showy combination. There was also a group of sea captains who had gathered to give the Captain of the China a good send-off, and they with the staff officers, were all in radiant white. There was not a boy in blue among them. The illustrious General and Admiral reminded me of Gabriel Ravel, when in his glory as The White Knight. It would be hard to say which wore the nattier cap, but that of the Admiral was of the more jaunty cut, while the General—gold cord for a band and gold buttons, especially became his blue eyes. If the officers of the army, navy and transports could be photographed as they stood in dazzling array, as if hewn from marble, the fashion plate resulting would be incomparably attractive, and in the summers to come we shall find among the influences of our tropical adventure and possessions a heightening of the colors worn by American ladies, and a whitening of the suits of gentlemen, involving the necessity of "calling in" white coats, as well as straw hats on stated days in early September.
CHAPTER XIV
A Martyr to the Liberty of Speech.
Dr. Jose Rizal, the Most Distinguished Literary Man of the Philippines,
Writer of History, Poetry, Political Pamphlets, and Novels, Shot on the
Luneta of Manila—A Likeness of the Martyr—The Scene of His Execution,
from a Photograph—His Wife Married the Day Before His Death—Poem
Giving His Farewell Thoughts, Written in His Last Hours—The Works
That Cost Him His Life—The Vision of Friar Rodriguez.
There is history, romance and tragedy in the martyrdom of Dr. Rizal, whose execution by shooting on the Luneta two years ago is a notable incident of the cruelties of Spanish rule. This was on account of the scholarship, the influence, the literary accomplishments, and the personal distinction of the man. Dr. Rizal was easily the foremost writer his race and country has produced. He was a poet, novelist, political essayist, and historian, and his execution was for the crime of loving his country, opposing the Spaniards, criticising and lampooning the priests. He is called the Tagalo Martyr, for he was of the tribe of Malay origin, the most numerous and rebellious in the Philippine Islands. His fate was shocking. He was an intelligent, learned man, an enthusiastic patriot, who had been educated in Spain and France. For writing a book against Spanish oppression he was exiled to the Island of Dapitan. There he met a young woman of Irish parentage, with whom he fell in love. They were engaged to be married, when, on some pretext, the Doctor was brought back to Manila, sent to Madrid to be tried, and then sent back to Manila. The unhappy girl to whom he was betrothed tells the rest of the story:
"Everyone knew that Dr. Rizal was innocent. All that could be brought against him was the publication of his book, and the Spanish officials who tried him had never even read it. Nevertheless, he was condemned to death. I then asked permission to be married to him, and they granted my request, thinking to add to the horror of his martyrdom. The marriage was celebrated by a friar the same day on which he was sentenced. I passed the whole night on my knees in prayer before the prison door, which shut my husband from me. When morning dawned, the Doctor came out, surrounded by soldiers, his hands bound behind his back. They took him to the Luneta, the fashionable promenade of the city, where all military executions take place. The lieutenant in command of the firing party asked my husband where he would prefer to be shot. He replied 'Through the heart.' 'Impossible,' said the lieutenant. 'Such a favor is granted only to men of rank. You will be shot in the back.' A moment after my husband was dead. The soldiers shouted, 'Hurrah for Spain,' and I, 'Hurrah for the Philippines and death to Spain.' I asked for the body. It was refused me. Then I swore to avenge his death. I secured a revolver and dagger and joined the rebels. They gave me a Mauser rifle, and the Philippines will be free."
In his poem, filled with his last thoughts—his exalted dreams that had faded, his patriotic sentiments that were bloody dust and ashes, his love for the woman he was allowed to marry a few hours before he was shot, his woeful love for his troop of devoted friends, who would have died for him and with him if the sacrifice then and there had not been hopeless—it will be discovered that he was a true poet, and we give one of his stories that was hostile to the orders of the Church, and a satire on Spanish rule, showing why he was a martyr.