Two deep cuts give an angular shape to the stem; and when its two sides are wide enough apart to admit of a cross-stem being placed between them, they can be employed as roof-ridges or for the framework of tables and chairs; a quantity of flat split pieces of bamboo being fastened on top of them with chair-cane. These split pieces then form the seats of the chairs and the tops of the tables, instead of the boards and large bamboo laths used at other times. It is equally easy to make an oblong opening in a large bamboo in which to fit the laths of a stand.
A couple of cuts are almost enough to make a fork, a pair of tongs or a hook.
If one makes a hole as big as the end of one’s finger in a large bamboo close under a joint, one obtains by fastening a small piece of cloth to the open end, a syphon or a filter. If a piece of bamboo is split down to the joint in strips, and the strips be bound together with others horizontally interlaced, it makes a conical basket. If the strips are cut shorter, it makes a peddler’s pack basket. If a long handle is added, and it is filled with tar, it can be used as a signal torch. If shallower baskets of the same dimensions, but with their bottoms cut off or punched out, are placed inside these conical ones, the two together make capital snare baskets for crabs and fish. If a bamboo stem be cut off just below the joint, and its lower edge be split up into a cogged rim, it makes, when the partition of the joint is punched out, an earth-auger, a fountain-pipe, and many things of the kind.
Pleasures of travel.Strangers travelling in the interior have daily fresh opportunities of enjoying the hospitality of nature. The atmosphere is so equitably warm that one would gladly dispense with all clothing except a sun-hat and a pair of light shoes. Should one be tempted to pass the night in the open air, the construction of a hut from the leaves of the palm and the fern is the work of a few minutes; Village rest houses.but in even the smallest village the traveller finds a “common house” (casa real), in which he can take up his quarters and be supplied with the necessaries of life at the market price. There too he will always meet with semaneros (those who perform menial duties) ready to serve him as messengers or porters for the most trifling remuneration. But long practice has taught me that their services principally consist in doing nothing. On one occasion I wanted to send a man who was playing cards and drinking tuba (fresh or weakly-fermented palm-sap) with his companions, on an errand. Pleasant prison life.Without stopping his game the fellow excused himself on the ground of being a prisoner, and one of his guardians proceeded in the midst of the intense heat to carry my troublesome message. Prisoners have certainly little cause to grumble. Frequent floggings little regarded.The only inconvenience to which they are exposed are the floggings which the local authorities very liberally dispense by the dozens for the most trifling offences. Except the momentary bodily pain, however, these appear in most cases to make little impression on a people who have been accustomed to corporal punishment from their youth upwards. Their acquaintances stand round the sufferers, while the blows are being inflicted, and mockingly ask them how it tastes.
Change from Malayan character.A long residence amongst the earnest, quiet, and dignified Malays, who are most anxious for their honor, while most submissive to their superiors, makes the contrast in character exhibited by the natives of the Philippines, who yet belong to the Malay race, all the more striking. The change in their nature appears to be a natural consequence of the Spanish rule, for the same characteristics may be observed in the natives of Spanish America. The class distinctions and the despotic oppression prevalent under their former chiefs doubtless rendered the Filipinos of the past more like the Malays of today.
[1] Bertillon (Acclimatement et Acclimatation, Dict. Encycl. des Science, Médicales) ascribes the capacity of the Spaniards for acclimatization in tropical countries to the large admixture of Syrian and African blood which flows in their veins. The ancient Iberians appear to have reached Spain from Chaldea across Africa; the Phoenicians and Carthaginians had flourishing colonies in the peninsula, and, in later times, the Moors possessed a large portion of the country for a century, and ruled with great splendor, a state of things leading to a mixture of race. Thus Spanish blood has three distinct times been abundantly crossed with that of Africa. The warm climate of the peninsula must also largely contribute to render its inhabitants fit for life in the tropics. The pure Indo-European race has never succeeded in establishing itself on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, much less in the arid soil of the tropics.
In Martinique, where from eight to nine thousand whites live on the proceeds of the toil of 125,000 of the colored race, the population is diminishing instead of increasing. The French creoles seem to have lost the power of maintaining themselves, in proportion to the existing means of subsistence, and of multiplying. Families which do not from time to time fortify themselves with a strain of fresh European blood, die out in from three to four generations. The same thing happens in the English, but not in the Spanish Antilles, although the climate and the natural surroundings are the same. According to Ramón de la Sagra, the death-rate is smaller among the creoles, and greater among the natives, than it is in Spain; the mortality among the garrison, however, is considerable. The same writer states that the real acclimatization of the Spanish race takes place by selection; the unfit die, and the others thrive.
[2] An unnecessary line is here omitted.—C.