Part 1 (1/2)
Fil and Filippa.
by John Stuart Thomson.
CHAPTER I
NAMES
It took me over a month and a half to reach the summer islands that I sought. In three weeks I had gone through the Panama Ca.n.a.l and had reached San Francisco, and in four weeks more I had crossed the world's widest, most peaceful, and bluest ocean, the Pacific.
There, like a string of pearls hanging from the golden Equator, I found thousands of wonderful islands of all sizes, but only two of them are very large. I found also my new and kind young friends: Fil; his sister Filippa; Fil's boy playmate named Moro, who came from the large southern island; their parents and friends; and the good Padre. Each one of them was shorter and darker than I. Yet they said to me: ”The Stars and Stripes, now our flag also, makes us all American brothers, which we will be always.”
”But how is it that you are called Filipinos, and live in the Philippine Islands?” I asked.
Fil smiled and said: ”Though I believe you know without asking me, I shall tell you to show that I know our romantic and interesting history.
”Hundreds of years ago, many years before America became a nation, the roving Spaniards discovered these islands, and named them the Philip-pines, in honor of their king Philip. When the American Admiral Dewey won these islands from Spain, our name was not changed.
”And our Christian names of Fil and Filippa have the same sound, and almost the same meaning, as Philippines,” added Filippa, her eyes smiling from under her cloud of beautiful hair,--hair longer and richer than an American girl's hair,--and eyes darker and deeper than an American girl's eyes. Perhaps her brows were a little bit flatter, and her nose was a little bit shorter and wider, than ours; but still she was pretty, especially when she smiled, for she had beautiful white teeth.
Then I turned to Fil's playmate, Moro, and asked him what his rolling name could mean. Moro was even more eager and darker than Fil. He replied, as he bravely touched his toy sword:
”I, too, am of the Malay race, but of a different religion from Fil. I am a Mohammedan; that is, I reverence the same prophets whom the Turks wors.h.i.+p. I come from the southern islands of the Philippines. There we spend most of our time roving in boats, and hunting over the hills. The first white man who met us saw that we were as dark, and had the same religion, as the tribes of Morocco in Africa. That perhaps is why I am called Moro, the Mohammedan, whose father fears no man; nor shall I, when I grow up.”
”But we are all friends now under a new, friendly flag; and we preach and practice love, instead of fear and fighting,” I replied.
Filippa looked upon me with very happy eyes, when I said this; for a girl seems to know wiser ways of settling quarrels than do boys. A boy becomes excited; a girl thinks longer and acts more slowly. Certainly, Filippa's gentle ways and the expression in her wonderfully deep eyes had more power with Fil and Moro than would strife and force.
”Every name seems to have a pretty meaning in your Edenlike Philippines,” I remarked to Filippa's playmate, Favra.
”Yes,” she replied, ”the Padre (pa'drai), our pastor or cleric, who knows so much, tells me that my name means the friendly one who does favors.”
CHAPTER II
CLIMATE, TYPHOONS, VOLCANO
Next day I met the Padre. He was seated on a cane chair under a clump of whispering bamboos, which are giant gra.s.ses as tall and as strong as trees.
We had hardly exchanged morning greetings, by saying ”Buenos dias (boo ai'nos de'as),” before we heard the children running along the white sh.e.l.l path, between the parklike tropical woods.
”Every one awakens early in this wonderful climate, yet no one seems to be fully awake,” I said.
The good Padre replied: ”We are situated so near the Equator that the sun rises into full and bright daylight at once.”
”I seem to half dream all day. Is it the balmy warm air, or the scents of new flowers, or the equatorial sun?” I asked.
The Padre explained it by saying: ”The sun throws more direct rays here; and they pierce through thin hats, and especially through black clothes. It is best to wear thick, white paper helmets. Moreover, our climate is more damp than is America's climate.