grandeur, it is with a feeling of supplication, induced by the magical influence of the night, that you involuntarily alight from the “victoria” and enter the sacred portals of this time-consecrated sanctuary, most holy and inviolable site, where for ages past the “padre” sang mass to the souls of the donors, the parishioners, who, kneeling in humble supplication, have chanted, in eloquent voice, the Ave Maria and Gloria Patria from the prayers in the three chaplets of their worshipful Rosary. As you linger in silent meditation along the galleries of this sanctified edifice, as if in quest of the “Holy Grail,” it is with a feeling of penitence for an inherent apostasy which seems to overwhelm you. The glittering satellites in the heavens cast their rays through the apertures of the quaint old campanile, in whose lofty dome, the home of fluttering bats and a staid old owl, tinkling bells for generations rang out at sunset and early dawn, as the people sang their vespers and chanted the Ave Maria.
Inflamed with sudden passion you stand transfixed along the balustrade with a mixed
feeling of sublimity and dread, as if anticipating a great pleasure fraught with dire results, when—hark! the faint though ever-beautiful tones of the “Te Deum laudamus” vibrate softly on the ear. Your peaceful tranquillity has been pleasantly disturbed, and you gaze in ecstatic amazement toward the vestry as a graceful spectre glides gently by. It is the “Choir Invisible.” You feel the fanning zephyrs blowing, you are thrilled with emotion and delight, and, as you depart from this phantasmagoria, you soliloquizingly ask, “Is there any inviolable covenant this scene should strengthen?” Varium et mutabile semper femina. “What’s the use?” you murmur, as you spring into the vehicle and order the cochero to hurry the ponies. In twenty minutes’ time you alight under the canopy of the entrance to the Hotel “Oriente” in Manila, step on the “lift,” and soon find you are amid the soothing strains of an orchestra and the sheltering palms of the roof-garden, tête à tête with your cheerful friends of the tropics.
* * * * *
Though many thousand miles from home, the prospects of soon fraternizing with
friends in the United States brought cheer to the soldiers. Disembarking from the cascoes at the Quartermaster-wharf in Manila, the regiment marched along the beautiful Bayumbayan drive near the old walled city, to the government pier, the point of embarkation. As we bade Manila and its mystical orientalism a parting farewell, our sea-going tugs ploughed the waters of Manila Bay, and ere long the regiment had landed at the quarantine station Mariveles.
If there is a more isolated spot on the top of God’s green earth than this resort is, my conception of hell is very vague. At one time the rendezvous of Chinese pirates, Mariveles later became a Chinese stockade. The Spaniards used it as an outpost. Here at night the soldiers were cooped up like cattle, always welcoming the dawn, when they could at least roam and breathe fresh air. Some distance in the mountains, in the crater of an extinct volcano, a hot mineral spring with an elegant outlet afforded splendid opportunities for bathing. Swimming in the bay was also great pastime, and under the tutorage of Captain Wells, who inaugurated
a system of swimming drill, we found considerable pleasure. His system was to execute, while swimming, the same tactics as we did on foot; this was very funny and enjoyable sport.
After spending two weeks insulated from civilization, during which time we had undergone a process of fumigation, our transport, the Thomas, hove in sight, and was soon moored to the wharf. Little time was spent in storing our accoutrements of war on board. After each company had been assigned to its quarters, the signal to cast loose was given; we had at last commenced our homeward-bound voyage in earnest.
With the homeward-bound pennant flying in the breeze, the transport steamed through the “Mona-Chica” into the China Sea headed for Japan. The shrill click, click, of the wireless telegraph, receiving and transmitting messages, continued throughout the voyage. Occasionally excitement was caused by the sight of a whale; “There she blows!” and you see off the port-side a monstrous species of the mammal genus cruising and spouting like a Holland submarine.