A Womans Journey through the Philippines | Page 9

of ultimate success in battle, which consisted of a white camisa, the native shirt, on which was written in Latin a chapter from the Gospel of St. Luke. But notwithstanding his anting-anting, and the more potent factor of several hundred natives in his ranks, he was easily defeated by a mere handful of soldiers from the little fort, and when last heard of by our ship was lying in the American hospital at Dumaguete awaiting transportation to Guam. His former army was mucho amigo to the Americans, and once again the pretty drives around Dumaguete were quite safe, and once again the native, when passing an American, touched his hat and smilingly said good day in Visayan, a greeting which sounds uncommonly like "Give me a hairpin."
On the evening of our second day in Dumaguete, the natives of the town gave a ball in honour of the cable-ship, at the house of one of the leading citizens. There, on a floor made smoother than glass with banana leaves, we danced far into the night to the frightfully quick music of the Filipino orchestra. One would hardly recognize the waltz or two-step as performed by the Visayan. He seems to take his exercise perpendicularly rather than horizontally, and after galloping through the air with my first native partner, I felt equal to hurdle jumping or a dash through paper hoops on the back of a milk-white circus charger.
Their rigadon, a square dance not unlike our lanciers, the Filipinos take very seriously, stepping through it with all the unsmiling dignity of our grandparents in the minuet. The sides not engaged in dancing always sit down between every figure and critically discuss those on the floor, but while going through the evolutions of the dance, it seems to be very bad form to either laugh or talk much, a point of etiquette I am afraid we Americans violated more than once. Another very graceful dance, the name of which I have forgotten, consists of four couples posturing to waltz time, changing from one partner to another as the dance progresses, and finally waltzing off with the original one, the motion of clinking castanets at different parts of the dance suggesting for it a Spanish origin.
At midnight a very attractive supper was served, to which the presidente escorted us with great formality. As is customary, the women all sat down first, the men talking together in another room and eagerly watching their chance to fill the vacant places as the women, one by one, straggled away from the table. The supper consisted for the most part of European edibles, but there were several Visayan delicacies as well, all of which I was brave enough to essay, to the great delight of the native women, who jabbered recipes for the different dishes into my ear, and pressed me to take a second helping of everything. All of them ate with their knives and wiped their mouths on the edge of the table-cloth, having Spanish precedent for such customs, and all were heartily and unaffectedly hungry after their violent exercise in the waltz and two step.
It was very late when we finally left the baille, amidst much hand-shaking and many regrets that our stay in Dumaguete was so short, while great wonder was shown by all that we should be able to sail at daylight on the morrow, it seeming well-nigh incredible to the native mind that so much could have been accomplished in so short a time; for, despite the fact that we had been in Dumaguete less than two days, everything was completed--a marvel, indeed, when one considers the tremendous current which made the landing of the shore end a hazardous proceeding.
To one who has never witnessed the difficulties of propelling a rowboat through the heavy breakers of some of these Philippine coast towns, it would be hard to appreciate the struggles of the Signal Corps to land shore ends at the different cable stations. More than once men were almost drowned in its accomplishment but fortunately on the whole trip, despite many narrow escapes, not a man was seriously injured in the performance of his duty. Once landed on the beach, the shore end was laid in the trench dug for it, one end of the cable entering the cable hut through a small hole in its flooring, where after some adjustment and much shifting of plugs and coaxing of galvanometers, the ship way out in the bay was in communication with the land, through that tiny place, scarce larger than a sentry-box, in which a man has barely room enough to turn around.
Each telegraph office, when finally established, looks for all the world like a neat housekeeper's storeroom, with its shelf after shelf of batteries, all neatly labelled like glass jars of