It was about the last of January that I made a trip to Iligan, arriving in a Moro sailboat from another port on the north coast of Mindanao. Two or three army transports, with the quarantine flag flying (for the cholera was still in evidence), lay quietly at anchor in the bay. Along the shore a warm breeze ruffled the green branches of the copra palms. Near the new dock a gang of Moros were at work, perspiring in the hot rays of the tropic sun. A tawny group of soldiers, dressed in khaki, rested in the shade of a construction-house, and listened dreamily to far-off bugle calls.
The Moros were dressed picturesquely in a great variety of costume, ranging from bright-colored silk to dirty corduroy. Red buya-juice, was leaking from the corners of their mouths. Their turbans, though disgracefully unclean, were silk. Their coats were fastened by brass military buttons, and their sashes, green and red, with a long fringe, were tied around their waists; their trousers, like a pair of riding breeches, buttoned up the side.
While spending the first evening at the club, I had seen mingling with the young lieutenants, immaculate in their new olive uniforms, bronzed, mud-bespattered officers in the blue army shirt and khaki, with the Colt’s six-shooter hanging from an ammunition belt. These were the strangers from the town of white tents on the border of the woods. At midnight possibly, or even later, they would mount their horses and go riding through the night to the encampment on the hill. The very next day one of the immaculate lieutenants, laying off the olive uniform, might have to don the old campaign hat and the flannel shirt, and follow his unshaven comrades up the road.
We stretched our army cots that night in the roulette room (this is not a country of hotels), and to the rattle of the balls and the monotonous drone of the croupier, “’teen and the red wins,” dropped off to sleep. On the day following the Dr. Hans dropped in with Generals Wade and Sumner, and the jingle of the cavalry was heard as they rode out with mounted escort to inspect the operations of the road. After a dance and a reception at the residence of the commanding officer in honor of the visitors, “guard mount,” the social feature of the day, was viewed from the pavilion in the little plaza where the exercise takes place. Its dignity was sadly marred that evening when a Moro datto, self-important in an absurd, overwhelming hat, accompanied by an obedient old wife on a moth-eaten Filipino pony, and a dog, ignoring everybody, jogged along the street and through the lines.
I walked out to the camp next morning with Lieutenant Harris. Even for this short stretch the road was not considered altogether safe. We forded the small river just beyond the cavalry corral, where an old Spanish blockhouse stands, and where a few old-fashioned Spanish cannon still lie rusting in the grass. A Moro fishing village—now a few deserted shacks around the more pretentious dwelling of the former datto—may be met near where the roadway joins the beach. Pack-trains of army mules, with their armed escorts, passed us; then an ambulance, an escort wagon, and a mounted officer.
Two companies of the Tenth infantry were camped in a small clearing near the sea. Leaving the camp, we went along the almost indistinguishable Moro trail to where the mighty Agus River plunges in a greenish torrent over an abrupt wall into the deep, misty cavern far below. The rushing of the waters guided us in places where we found the trail inadequate. Arriving at the falls, we scrambled down by means of vines until we reached a narrow shelf near where the cataract began its plunge. Upon the opposite side an unyielding precipice was covered with a damp green coat of moss and fern. It took five seconds for a falling stone to reach the seething cloud of mist below.
A Deserted Moro Shack
Moro Weapons (Spear and Dirk)