The Philippines: Past and Present | Page 3

destined to modify my whole subsequent life. I had firmly believed that
if fortunate enough to get home I should have sense enough to stay
there, but before six months had elapsed I was finding life at Ann
Arbor, Michigan, decidedly prosaic, and longing to return to the
Philippines and finish a piece of zoölogical work which I knew was as
yet only begun.
Doctor Bourns, like myself, was eager to go back, and we set out to
raise $10,000 to pay the expenses of a two-years collecting tour, in the
course of which we hoped to visit regions not hitherto penetrated by
any zoölogist.
Times were then getting hard, and good Doctor Angell, the president of
the university, thought it a great joke that two young fellows like
ourselves should attempt to raise so considerable a sum to be spent
largely for our own benefit. Whenever he met me on the street he used
to ask whether we had obtained that $10,000 yet, and then shake with
laughter. One of the great satisfactions of my life came when, on a
beautiful May morning in 1890, I was able to answer his inquiry in the

affirmative.
He fairly staggered with amazement, but promptly recovering himself
warmly congratulated me, and with that kindly interest which he has
always shown in the affairs of young men, asked how he could help us.
Through his kindly offices and the intervention of the State Department
we were able to obtain a royal order from the Spanish government
which assured us a very different reception on our return to the
Philippines in August from that which had been accorded us on the
occasion of our first visit to the islands.
There was now revealed to us a pleasing side of Spanish character
which we had largely missed during our first visit. Satisfied as to our
identity and as to the motives which actuated us, the Spanish officials,
practically without exception, did everything in their power to assist us
and to render our sojourn pleasant and profitable. Our mail was
delivered to us at points fifty miles distant from provincial capitals.
When our remittances failed to reach us on time, as they not
infrequently did, money was loaned to us freely without security.
Troops were urged upon us for our protection when we desired to
penetrate regions considered to be dangerous. Our Spanish friends
constantly offered us the hospitality of their homes and with many of
them the offer was more than pro forma. Indeed, in several instances it
was insisted upon so strongly that we accepted it, to our great pleasure
and profit.
Officials were quite frank in discussing before us the affairs of their
several provinces, and we gained a very clear insight into existing
political methods and conditions.
During this trip we lived in even closer contact with the Filipino [2]
population than on the occasion of our first visit. Our rapidly growing
knowledge of Spanish, and of Visayan, one of the more important
native dialects, rendered it increasingly easy for us to communicate
with them, gain their confidence and learn to look at things from their
view point. They talked with us most frankly and fully about their
political troubles.

During this our second sojourn in the Philippines, which lengthened to
two years and six months, we revisited the islands with which we had
become more or less familiar on our first trip and added six others to
the list. [3] We lived for a time among the wild Bukidnons and
Negritos of the Negros mountains.
After my companion had gone to Borneo I had the misfortune to
contract typhoid fever when alone in Busuanga, and being ignorant of
the nature of the malady from which I was suffering, kept on my feet
until I could no longer stand, with the natural result that I came
uncommonly near paying for my foolishness with my life, and have
ever since suffered from resulting physical disabilities. When able to
travel, I left the islands upon the urgent recommendation of my
physician, feeling that the task which had led me to return there was
almost accomplished and sure that my wanderings in the Far East were
over.
Shortly after my return to the United States I was offered a position as a
member of the zoölogical staff of the University of Michigan, accepted
it, received speedy promotion, and hoped and expected to end my days
as a college professor.
In 1898 the prospect of war with Spain awakened old memories. I
fancy that the knowledge then possessed by the average American
citizen relative to the Philippines was fairly well typified by that of a
good old lady at my Vermont birthplace who had spanked me when I
was a small boy, and who, after my first return