Part 37 (1/2)
Mules have been imported into the Islands by the American authorities for the public service. If sold they would fetch about P300 each. They are the most satisfactory draught-animals ever introduced and, but for the fear of the new disease ”surra,” might take the place of buffaloes in agriculture.
Sheep do not thrive in this climate. They are brought from Shanghai, and, as a rule, they languish and die in a few months. Oxen, goats, dogs, cats, pigs, monkeys, fowls, ducks, turkeys, and geese are among the ordinary domestic live-stock. Both the dogs and the cats are of very poor species, and the European breeds are eagerly sought for. The better cla.s.s of natives have learned to appreciate the higher instincts of the European dog. Many Chinese dogs with long, straight hair, pointed nose, small eyes, and black tongues are brought over from Hong-Kong. All thoroughbred Philippine cats have a twist in their tails, and are not nearly so fine as the European race.
Natives do not particularly relish mutton or goat's flesh, which they say is heating to the blood. I have found stewed monkey very good food, but the natives only eat it on very rare occasions, solely as a cure for cutaneous diseases. No flesh, fish or poultry has the same flavour here as in Europe; sometimes, indeed, the meat of native oxen sold in Manila has a repulsive taste when the animal has been quickly fattened for the market on a particular herb, which it eats readily. Neither can it be procured so tender as in a cold climate. If kept in an ice-chest it loses flavour; if hung up in cool air it becomes flabby and decomposes. However, the cold-storage established by the American authorities and private firms, since 1898, has greatly contributed to improve the supply of tender meat, and meat s.h.i.+pments are regularly received from Australia and America.
The seas are teeming with fish, and there are swarms of sharks, whose victims are numerous, whilst crocodiles are found in most of the deep rivers and large swamps in uncultivated tracts. The _Taclobo_ sea-sh.e.l.l is sometimes found weighing up to about 180 lbs. Fresh-water fish is almost flavourless and little appreciated.
In all the rice-paddy fields, small fish called _Dalag_ (_Ophiocephalus vagus_), are caught by the natives, for food, with cane nets, or rod and line, when the fields are flooded. Where this piscatorial phenomenon exists in the dry season no one has been able satisfactorily to explain.
The only beast of prey known in the Philippines is the wild cat, and the only wild animal to be feared is the buffalo.
Both the jungles and the villages abound with insects and reptilia, such as lizards, snakes, iguanas, frogs, and other batrachian species, land-crabs, centipedes [159], tarantulas, scorpions, huge spiders, hornets, common beetles, queen-beetles (_elator noctilucus_) and others of the vaginopennous order, red ants (_formica smaragdina_), etc. Ants are the most common nuisance, and food cannot be left on the table a couple of hours without a hundred or so of them coming to feed. For this reason sideboards and food-cupboards are made with legs to stand in basins of water. There are many species of ants, from the size of a pin's head to half an inch long. On the forest-trees a bag of a thin whitish membrane, full of young ants, is sometimes seen hanging, and the traveller, for his own comfort, should be careful not to disturb it.
Boa-Constrictors are also found, but they are rare, and I have never seen one in freedom. They are the most harmless of all snakes in the Philippines. Sometimes the Visayos keep them in their houses, in cages, as pets. Small _Pythons_ are common. The snakes most to be dreaded are called by the natives _Alupong_ and _Daghong-palay_ (Tagalog dialect). Their bite is fatal if not cauterized at once. The latter is met with in the deep mud of rice-fields and amongst the tall rice-blades, hence its name. Stagnant waters are nearly everywhere infested with _Leeches_. In the trees in dense forests there is also a diminutive species of leech which jumps into one's eyes.
In the houses and huts in Manila, and in most low-lying places, mosquitoes are troublesome, but thanks to an inoffensive kind of lizard with a disproportionately big ugly head called the _chacon_, and the small house-newt, one is tolerably free from crawling insects. _Newts_ are quite harmless to persons, and are rather encouraged than otherwise. If one attempts to catch a newt by its tail it shakes it off and runs away, leaving it behind. Rats and mice are numerous. There are myriads of c.o.c.kroaches; but happily fleas, house-flies, and bugs are scarce. In the wet-season evenings the croaking of frogs in the pools and swamps causes an incessant din.
In the dry-season evenings certain trees are illuminated by swarms of fire-flies, which a.s.semble and flicker around the foliage as do moths around the flame of a candle. The effect of their darting in and out like so many bright sparks between the branches is very pretty.
There are many very beautiful _Moths_ and _b.u.t.terflies_. In 1897 I brought home about 300 specimens of Philippine b.u.t.terflies for the Hon. Walter Rothschild.
The _White Ant_ (_termes_), known here as _Anay_, is by far the most formidable insect in its destructive powers. It is also common in China. Here it eats through most woods, but there are some rare exceptions, such as Molave, Ipil, Yacal, etc. If white ants earnestly take possession of the woodwork of a building not constructed of the finest timber, it is a hopeless case. I have seen deal-wood packing-cases, which have come from Europe, so eaten away that they could not be lifted without falling to pieces. Merchants' warehouses have had to be pulled down and rebuilt owing to the depredations of this insect, as, even if the building itself were not in danger, no one would care to risk the storage of goods inside. The destruction caused by _anay_ is possibly exaggerated, but there is no doubt that many traders have lost considerable sums through having had to realize, at any price, wares into which this insect had penetrated.
Bats are to be seen in this Colony, measuring up to 5 feet from tip to tip of their wings. They are caught for the value of their beautiful soft skins, which generally find a sale to Europeans returning home. Bat-shooting is a good pastime, and a novelty to Europeans. Small Bats frequently fly into the houses in the evening.
Deer and _Wild Boars_ are plentiful, and afford good sport to the huntsman. In Morong district--in Negros Island--and in Rizal Province, on and in the vicinity of the estate which I purchased--I have had some good runs. Monkeys, too, abound in many of the forests. In all the islands there is enjoyment awaiting the sportsman. Pheasants, snipe, a dozen varieties of wild pigeons, woodc.o.c.k, jungle-fowl (_gallus bankiva_), wild ducks, water-fowl, etc. are common, whilst there are also turtle-doves, _calaos_ (_buceros hydrocorax_), hawks, cranes, herons, crows, parrots, c.o.c.katoos, kingfishers, parroquets, and many others peculiar to the Archipelago which I will leave to ornithologists to describe. [160] One curious species of pigeon (_calanas nicobarina_) is called in Spanish _Paloma de punalada_ because of the crimson feathers on its breast, which look exactly as if they were blood-stained from a dagger-stab. [161] In 1898 I saw some specimens of this pigeon in the Hamburg Zoological Gardens. There are several birds of gorgeous plumage, such as the _oropendolo_ (Spanish name).
It is a curious fact that these Islands have no singing birds.
The _Locust Plague_ is one of the great risks the planter has to run. In 1851 the Government imported some _Martins_ from China with the hope of exterminating the locusts. When the birds arrived in the port of Manila they were right royally received by a body of troops. A band of music accompanied them with great ceremony to Santa Mesa, where they were set at liberty, and the public were forbidden to destroy them under severe penalties. At that date there were countless millions of locusts among the crops. These winged insects (Tagalog, _balang_) come in swarms of millions at a time, and how to exterminate them is a problem. I have seen a ma.s.s of locusts so dense that a row of large trees the other side of them could not be distinguished. Sailing along the Antique coast one evening, I observed, on the fertile sh.o.r.e, a large brown-coloured plateau. For the moment I thought it was a tract of land which had been cleared by fire, but on nearing it I noticed that myriads of locusts had settled on several fields. We put in quite close to them and I fired off a revolver, the noise of which caused them to move off slowly in a cloud. When locusts settle on cultivated lands, miles of crops are often ruined in a night by the foliage being consumed, and at daybreak only fields of stalks are to be seen. In the daytime, when the locusts are about to attack a planted field, the natives rush out with their tin cans, which serve as drums, bamboo clappers, red flags, etc., to scare them off, whilst others light fires in open s.p.a.ces with damp fuel to raise smoke. Another effective method adopted to drive them away is to fire off small mortars, such as the natives use at provincial feasts, as these insects are sensitive to the least noise.
The body of a locust is similar in appearance to a large gra.s.shopper. The females are of a dark brown colour, and the males of a light reddish-brown. The female extends the extremity of her body in the form of an augur, with which she pierces the earth to the depth of an inch, there to deposit her eggs. In two or three weeks the eggs hatch. Every few days the females lay eggs, if allowed to settle. The newly-born insects, having no wings until they are about ten days old, cannot be driven off, and in the meantime they make great havoc among the crops, where it is difficult to extinguish them. The method employed to get rid of them is to place a barrier, such as sheets of corrugated iron roofing, at one side of a field, dig a pit in front of the barrier, and send a number of men to beat round the three sides of the field until the young locusts jump in heaps into the pit. I have heard planters say that they have succeeded, in this way, in destroying as much as 20 tons of locusts in one season. I do not know the maximum distance that locusts can fly in one continuous journey, but they have been known to travel as much as 60 miles across the sea. Millions of unwinged locusts (called _lucton_) have been seen floating down river streams, whilst, however, the winged insect cannot resist the heavy rains which accompany a hurricane.
It is said that the food pa.s.ses through the body of a locust as fast as it eats, and that its natural death is due either to want of nourishment, or to a small worm which forms in the body and consumes it. It is also supposed that the female dies after laying a certain number of eggs. Excepting the damage to vegetation, locusts are perfectly harmless insects, and native children catch them to play with; also, when fried, they serve as food for the poorest cla.s.ses--in fact, I was a.s.sured, on good authority, that in a certain village in Tayabas Province, where the peasants considered locusts a dainty dish, payment was offered to the parish priest for him to say Ma.s.s and pray for the continuance of the luxury. In former times, before there were so many agriculturists interested in their destruction, these insects have been known to devastate the Colony during six consecutive years.
In the mud of stagnant waters, a kind of beetle, called in Visaya dialect _Tanga_, is found, and much relished as an article of food. In the dry season, as much as fifty cents a dozen is paid for them in Molo (Yloilo) by well-to-do natives. Many other insects, highly repugnant to the European, are a _bonne bouche_ for the natives.
CHAPTER XXI
Manila Under Spanish Rule
Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is situated on the Island of Luzon at the mouth and on the left (south) bank of the Pasig River, at N. lat. 14 36' by E. long. 120 52'. It is a fortified city, being encircled by bastioned and battlemented walls, which were built in the time of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, about the year 1590. It is said that the labour employed was Chinese. These walls measure about two miles and a quarter long, and bore mounted old-fas.h.i.+oned cannon. The fortifications are of stone, and their solid construction may rank as a _chef d'oeuvre_ of the 16th century. The earthquake of 1880 caused an arch of one of the entrances to fall in, and elsewhere cracks are perceptible. These defects were never made good. The city is surrounded by water--to the north the Pasig River, to the west the sea, and the moats all around. These moats are paved at the bottom, and sluices--perhaps not in good working order at the present day--are provided for filling them with water from the river.
The demolition of the walls and moats was frequently debated by commissions specially appointed from Spain--the last in October, 1887. It is said that a commission once recommended the cleansing of the moats, which were half full of mud, stagnant water, and vegetable putrid matter, but the authorities hesitated to disturb the deposit, for fear of fetid odours producing fever or other endemic disease.
These city defences, although quite useless in modern warfare with a foreign Power, as was proved in 1898, might any day have been serviceable as a refuge for Europeans in the event of a serious revolt of the natives or Chinese. The garrison consisted of one European and several native regiments.
There are eight drawbridge entrances to the Citadel [162] wherein were some Government Offices, branch Post and Telegraph Offices, the Custom-house (temporarily removed to Binondo since May 4, 1887, during the construction of the new harbour), Colleges, Convents, Monasteries, a Prison, numerous Barracks, a Mint, a Military Hospital, an Academy of Arts, a University, a statue of Charles IV. situated in a pretty square, a fine Town Hall, a Meteorological Observatory, of which the director was a Jesuit priest, an Artillery Depot, a Cathedral and 11 churches. [163] The little trade done in the city was exclusively retail. In the month of April or May, 1603, a great fire destroyed one-third of the city, the property consumed being valued at P1,000,000.