The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 29

The capital and the whole of the civilised Philippines mark the crucifixion of our Saviour by two days of devotion, of solemn calm. Under Spanish rule a stately procession, attended by the highest and the humblest, filed slowly through the silent streets, the Civil Government, the Law, the Army, the Navy, the Munic.i.p.ality and the Religious Orders, being represented by deputations in full dress, who followed bare-headed the emblems of the faith in the presence of an immense crowd of natives, who bent the knee and bowed the head in homage to the crucified Saviour.

I never failed to witness this imposing spectacle when in Manila, and it was mortifying to me to remember that Good Friday in London is nothing but a vulgar holiday, and that probably not one person out of a hundred in its vast population realises in the least degree the event that solemn fast is intended to commemorate.

The death-like stillness of Good Friday remained unbroken till High Ma.s.s was over on Sat.u.r.day morning, when the cathedral bells rang out a joyous peal, soon taken up by the bells of the numerous churches in the city and all over the provinces.

The ensigns were run up to the staff or peak, the yards were squared, and royal salutes thundered out over land and sea, whilst clouds of white smoke enveloped the moss-grown ramparts of the saluting battery, and the useless, lumbering masts and spars of the flags.h.i.+p. Then steam-whistles and sirens commenced their hideous din, the great doors of the houses were thrown open, and hundreds of bare-backed ponies, with half-naked grooms, issued at full gallop to the sea or river.

Then Manila resumed its every-day life till the next Holy Thursday came round.

CHAPTER XX.

SPORT.

(A CHAPTER FOR MEN.)

The Jockey Club--Training--The races--An archbishop presiding--The Totalisator or Pari Mutuel--The Manila Club--Boating club--Rifle clubs--Shooting--Snipe--Wild duck--Plover--Quail--Pigeons--Tabon--Labuyao, or jungle c.o.c.k--Pheasants--Deer--Wild pig--No sport in fis.h.i.+ng.

Manila was not so badly off for sport as might be thought. The pony-races, conducted under the auspices of the Jockey Club, excited the greatest interest amongst all cla.s.ses.

The ponies underwent their training at the race-course in Santa Mesa, and their owners and other members of the club were provided with early breakfast there. The native grooms took as much interest in the success of the pony they attended as the owner, and they backed their favourite for all they were worth.

Only members were allowed to ride, and the weights were remarkably heavy for such small ponies. When the races came off, business was almost suspended for three days, and all Manila appeared at the race-course. There were sometimes two thousand vehicles and immense crowds on foot.

The ladies in their most resplendent toilettes were received by the stewards, presented with elegantly-bound programmes, and conducted to their places on the grand stand.

Presently a military band would strike up the "Marcha Real," as the Governor-General's equipage entered the enclosure, and that exalted personage, dressed in black frock coat and silk hat, white trousers and waistcoat, with the crimson silk sash of a general, just peeping from under his waistcoat, was conducted to his box, followed by his suite and the favoured persons invited to join his party.

The highest authority in the country presided and handed the prizes to the winning jockeys, who were brought up to him by the vice-president of the club. But on an occasion when the Governor-General and Segundo Cabo were absent, I witnessed the races which were presided over by no less a personage than His Grace the Archbishop of Manila, Fray Pedro Payo, in his archiepiscopal garments, and smoking a big Havana cigar. The old gentleman enjoyed the sport and most graciously presented the handsome prizes to the winners.

Betting was conducted by the totalisator, or pari-mutuel, the bet being five dollars, repeated as often as you liked. As I presume my readers understand this system, I shall not describe it. The natives bet amongst themselves to a considerable amount.

Pavilions were erected by different clubs or bodies, and a profuse hospitality characterised each day. Winners of large silver cups usually filled them with champagne and pa.s.sed them round. Bets were made with the ladies as an excuse for giving them presents. Dinner-parties were given in the evenings at private houses, and there were dinners at the clubs. There were two race-meetings in the year. No doubt this sport, temporarily interrupted by insurrection and war, will again flourish when tranquillity prevails.

There was a boating-club in connection with the British Club at Nagtajan, now removed to Ermita, and some very good skiffs and boats were available. There was a regatta and illuminated procession of boats each year.

Polo clubs and rifle clubs had a rather precarious existence, except that the Swiss Rifle Club was well kept up, and there were some excellent shots in it. There was a lawn tennis club, which had ladies and gentlemen as members, and some very good games were played there and valuable prizes given.

Shooting was a favourite sport with many Englishmen and a few mestizos.

Excellent snipe-shooting is to be had in all the paddy-fields around Manila and the lake. But at San Pedro on the Pasig, there is a wide expanse of rough ground with clumps of bushes, and it was here that the most exciting sport was to be had, and it took some shooting to get the birds as they flew across the openings between the bushes. Snipe-shooting began in September, when the paddy was high enough to give cover, and lasted to the end of November. The birds, when they first arrived, were thin, but they soon put on flesh, and by November were fat and in splendid condition for the table. There is no better bird to be eaten anywhere than a Manila snipe. Bags of eighty were sometimes made in a morning by two guns.

Excellent wild-duck and teal-shooting was to be got on and around the lake and on the Pinag de Candaba, and wherever there was a sheet of water. When crossing the lake I have seen wild fowl resting on the surface in such enormous numbers that they looked like sandbanks. They are not easy to approach, but I have killed some by firing a rifle into the flock. The crested-lapwing and the golden-plover are in plenty, and on the seash.o.r.es widgeon and curlew abound. Inland, on the stubbles, there are plenty of quail. Pigeons of all sorts, sizes, and colours, abound at all times, especially when the dap-dap tree opens its large crimson blossoms. Some kinds of brush-turkeys, such as the tabon, a bird (Megapodius cuningi) the size of a partridge, that lays an egg as large as a goose egg and buries it in a mound of gravel by the sh.o.r.e, are found.

The labuyao, or jungle c.o.c.k, is rare and not easy to shoot in a sportsmanlike way, although a poacher could easily shoot them on a moonlight night.

In the Southern Islands some remarkable pheasants of most brilliant plumage are to be found, and whilst in Palawan I obtained two good specimens of the pavito real (Polyplectron Napoleonis), a very handsome game bird with two sharp spurs on each leg. They are rather larger than a partridge, but their fan-shaped tails have two rows of eyes like a peac.o.c.k's tail, there being four eyes in each feather.

Deer and wild-pig abound, and can be shot within four hours' journey of Manila by road. Round about Montalban is a good place for them. They are plentiful at Jala-jala, on the lake at Porac in Pampanga, and round about the Puerto Jamelo and Pico de Loro, at the mouth of Manila Bay. In fact, they are found wherever there is cover and pasture for them. The season is from December to April.

The usual way is to go with a party of five or six guns and employ some thirty native beaters, each bringing one or two dogs.

The guns are stationed in suitable spots and the beaters and their dogs, fetching a compa.s.s, extend their line and drive the game up to the guns. This is rather an expensive amus.e.m.e.nt, as you have to pay and feed the beaters and their dogs; but it is very good sport, and in proceeding and returning to camp from two beats in the morning and two in the afternoon, you got quite as much exercise as you want or as is good for you. The venison and wild-pig is very good eating, but it is difficult to get it to Manila fresh, whatever precautions you take.

Taken all round, Luzon is well supplied with game, and may be considered satisfactory from a sportsman's point of view.

There is no sport to be had in fis.h.i.+ng; in Luzon, so far as I know, there are no game fish. When living on the banks of the Rio Grande, near Macabebe, I noticed some natives taking fish at night by placing a torch on the bow of a canoe, which was paddled by one man slowly along near the bank, another man standing in the bow with a fish-spear of three p.r.o.ngs, similar to the "grains" used in England. As the fish came up to the light he struck at them with his spear and managed to pick up a good many.

This appeared good sport, and I arranged for a native to come for me in a canoe with torch, and I borrowed a spear. We started off, but there was some difficulty in standing up in a small, narrow canoe, and darting the spear. My first stroke was a miss, the fish escaped; my second, however, was all right, and I shook my catch off the spear into the canoe, but the native shouted out, "Masamang ahas po!" (a poisonous snake, sir) not forgetting to be polite even in that somewhat urgent situation. The snake was wriggling towards me, but I promptly picked him up again on the spear and threw him overboard, much to my own relief and that of the Pampanga.

It was one of those black and yellow water-snakes, reputed as poisonous. That was enough fis.h.i.+ng for me, and I remembered that I had a particular appointment at home, and left fis.h.i.+ng to professionals.

Curiously enough, fish cannot be taken by the trawl, for a mestizo got out a trawling steamer with gear, and men to handle it, and after repeated trials in different places, had to give it up as a bad job.

CHAPTER XXI.

BRIEF GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF LUZON.

Irregular shape--Harbours--Bays--Mountain ranges--Blank s.p.a.ces on maps--North-east coast unexplored--River and valley of Cagayan--Central valley from Bay of Lingayen to Bay of Manila--Rivers Agno, Chico, Grande--The Pinag of Candaba--Project for draining--River Pasig--Laguna de Bay--Lake of Taal--Scene of a cataclysm--Collapse of a volcanic cone 8000 feet high--Black and frowning island of Mindoro--Worcester's pluck and endurance--Placers of Camarines--River Bicol--The wondrous purple cone of Mayon--Luxuriant vegetation.

The island of Luzon is of so irregular a shape that it cannot be intelligibly described without the aid of a map.

That part of it to the north and west of the isthmus of Tayabas lies with its longitudinal axis due north and south, and has a fairly even coast line, there being only two great indentations, the Bays of Lingayen and Manila, both on the west coast. There are also on that side and to the south the smaller bays of Subic, Balayan, Batangas, and Tayabas.

On the east coast of this northern part are the unimportant bays of Palanan, Dilasac, Casiguran and Baler, besides the great bay of Lamon, sheltered by the islands Calbalete and Alabat.

But in the remainder of Luzon, from the isthmus of Tayabas eastward and southward, the coast line is most irregular, and the width much reduced. A chain of mountains commencing at and forming the two above-mentioned islands and running in a south-easterly direction forms the peninsula of Tayabas.

Another range, starting near the Bay of SoG.o.d, runs a little south of east as far as Mount Labo (1552 metres), turns south-east, and runs along the southern sh.o.r.e of the fertile valley of the River Vicol, and with many a break and twist and turn reaches Mount Bulusan, whose slopes run down to the waters of the Strait of San Bernardino. The convolutions of this range form on the south the secure harbour of Sorsogon, and on the north the bays of Albay, Tabaco, Lagonoy and SoG.o.d, besides a mult.i.tude of smaller ports and bays, for the coast line is wonderfully broken up by spurs of the main ranges running out into the sea. Luzon generally is very mountainous, and more especially so that part lying to the north of 16 5', where the great ranges of mountains run in crooked lines but with general north and south direction. The range running parallel to the Pacific coast is called, in its most southern part, the Caraballos de Baler, and the rest of it, up to Punta Escarpada, is known as the Cordillera del Este, or the Sierra Madre. The central range, starting from Mount Caraballo in the lat.i.tude before mentioned, is called the Cordillera Central for about a degree of lat.i.tude, and from there is known as the Cordillera del Norte, terminating at Punta Lacatacay, in longitude 121 east of Greenwich.

The mountains on the western coast are not so lofty, nor do they form a connected range. They are known as the Sierras de Ilocos. Some of these ranges are thirty or forty miles long. There are cuts in places where rivers find an outlet to the sea, such as the Rio Grande de Laoag, the Rio Abra, and some lesser streams. All these ranges have spurs or b.u.t.tresses. Those of the Central Cordillera extend as far, and join with, the coast range on the west, covering the whole country and leaving no large plain anywhere, for the valley of the Abra though long is very narrow. There is a little flat land about Vigan.

But the eastern spurs of the central range, in the part of Luzon under consideration, do not interlace with the spurs of Sierra Madre, but leave a magnificent valley more than two degrees of lat.i.tude in length and varying breadth. This is the only great valley of northern Luzon, and through it runs the Rio Grande de Cagayan and its tributaries, the Magat and the Rio Chico, with numerous minor streams.

Coasting steamers with about twelve feet draught cross the bar of the Rio Grande and lie at Aparri. The river is navigable in the dry season as far as Alcala for light draught steamers. Alligators abound in these rivers. In this valley, which extends through the provinces of Cagayan and Isabela up into Nueva Vizcaya, there is to be found a great extension of rich alluvial soil on which can be raised, besides other tropical crops, most excellent tobacco, the cultivation of which was for many years obligatory upon the inhabitants, who were forbidden to grow rice.