A Womans Impression of the Philippines | Page 9

A
peculiar expression lingered on his countenance--kind of struggle
between a painful memory and a judicial estimate. He was so absorbed
in his musings that he did not notice me, and he spoke aloud.
"I knew she was thin," he said, "but even with her low-necked dresses,
I did not think that it was as bad as it is."
I beat a retreat without attracting his attention, but I understood him, for
I had seen him on the back seat of an army ambulance in the clutches of
the perennially youthful lady, starting for the Pali.
We left Honolulu with the modified regret which always must be
entertained when other lands are beckoning. The native custom of
adorning departing friends with wreaths of flowers was followed, and
some of our army belles were almost weighed down with circlets of
blossoms cast over their heads by admiring officers of Honolulu. Once
clear of the dock and out of eye range, they shamelessly cast these

tokens away, and the deck stewards gathered up the perfumed heaps
and threw them overboard. The favorite flowers used in these ley, or
wreaths, were the creamy white blossoms with the golden centre from
which the perfume frangipani is extracted. This flower is known in the
Philippines as calachuchi. There were also some of the yellow,
bell-shaped flowers called "campanilo," and a variety of the hibiscus
which we learned to call "coral hibiscus," but which in the Philippines
is known as arana, or spider.
The flowers of Honolulu and Manila seem very much alike. In neither
place is there a wide variety of garden flowers, but there is an
abundance of flowering shrubs and trees.
One quite common plant is the bougainvillaea, which climbs over
trellises or trees, and covers them with its mass of magenta blossoms.
The scarlet hibiscus, either single or double, and the so-called coral
hibiscus grow profusely and attain the size of a large lilac bush. There
is another bush which produces clusters of tiny, star-like flowers in
either white or pink. It is called in the Philippines "santan," but I do not
know its name in Honolulu.
Catholic missionaries were instrumental in introducing into the
Hawaiian Islands a tree of hardy and beautiful foliage which has
thrived and now covers a great part of the mountain slopes. This is the
algoroda tree, the drooping foliage of which is suggestive of a weeping
willow. Then there is the beautiful West Indian rain-tree, which the
Honolulu people call the monkey-pod tree, and which in the
Philippines is miscalled acacia. Its broad branches extend outward in
graceful curves, the foliage is thick but not crowded, and it is an ideal
shade tree, apart from the charm of its blossoms of purplish pink.
The fire-tree and the mango are two others which are a joy to all true
lovers of trees. The fire-tree is deciduous, and loses its leaves in
December, In April or May, before the leaves come back, it bursts into
bloom in great bunches of scarlet about the size of the flower mass of
the catalpa tree. The bark is white, and as the tree attains the size of a
large maple, the sight of this enormous bouquet is something to be
remembered. When the leaves come back, the foliage is thick, and the

general appearance of the tree is like that of a locust.
Among tropical trees, however, the most beautiful is the mango. Its
shape is that of a sharply domed bowl. The leaves are glossy and
thickly clustered. It is distinguishable at a long distance by its dignity
and grace. But the mass of its foliage is a drawback, inasmuch as few
trunks can sustain the weight; and one sees everywhere the great trunk
prostrate, the roots clinging to the soil, and the upper branches doing
their best to overcome the disadvantages of a recumbent position.
We ate our first mangoes in Honolulu, and were highly disgusted with
them, assenting without murmur to the statement that the liking of
mangoes is an acquired taste. I had a doubt, to which I did not give
utterance, of ever acquiring the taste, but may as well admit that I did
acquire it in time. The only American fruit resembling a mango in
appearance is the western pawpaw. The mango is considerably larger
than the pawpaw, and not identical in shape, though very like it in
smooth, golden outer covering. When the mango is ripe, its meat is
yellow and pulpy and quite fibrous near the stone, to which it adheres
as does a clingstone peach. It tastes like a combination of apple, peach,
pear, and apricot with a final merger of turpentine. At first the
turpentine flavor so far dominates all others that the consumer is moved
to throw his fruit into the nearest