Part 11

After breaking camp and securing our equipment, we bade the big show a fond farewell. A long line of street cars conveyed the battalion to the Union Station, where Pullman sleepers of the “Big Four” draped with streamers awaited it. The Sixth Infantry band discoursed music as the soldiers of the sea bade their friends good-by, and, as they boarded the two sections of the train, the reverberating strains of “Maryland, my Maryland” were received with vociferous applause by the multitude that crowded the station platform. As the hand rendered the old war-songs “Yankee Doodle” and “Dixie,” so sacred to the North and the South, the train rolled off for the quaint little city of Annapolis, the capital of Maryland.

The marine barrack at Annapolis is the finest military post in the United States. On our arrival in the city, the battalion was met by the marine band, and escorted to the quarters, where an especially arranged dinner lay in waiting.

The following day, orders were received for the battalion to proceed to Washington, D. C., to participate in the unveiling of a monument to “Frederick the Great,” presented to the United States by Germany. This was the last procession in which the St. Louis battalion was seen intact.

Shortly after our return to Annapolis, an order was received from marine headquarters, detailing all men having two years or more to serve, on the Panama expedition. Having less than one year to serve to complete my enlistment, I was ordered to duty at the United States Naval Academy, until the expiration of my enlistment.

XII.

Topographical Survey in Northern Luzon

The Friars’ Monastery――Headquarters of the Insurgent Aguinaldo――In Charge of the Cargadores――Meeting with Albinos――Among the Igorrote Head-hunters――Enamored with a Beautiful Señorita――Planting Rice to Music――A Midnight Ride Through the Jungle――A Moonlight Fiesta――Quartered in a Cholera Infected Hacienda――The Jungle――The Rainy Season――Return to Civilization.

In the summer of 1908 while stationed at Ft. William McKinley, a military post in the Philippines, I was detailed from brigade headquarters for topographical survey on the Island of Luzon. This assignment was more than welcomed as a departure from the monotonous routine of guard duty, wearisome marches, and military manœuvres. I was instructed to report to First Lieutenant Kenyon A. Joyce of the Thirteenth Cavalry, whose headquarters were in an old Spanish monastery in the small nippa-shack village of Lolomboy, near the “barrio” of Bocaue, situated along the Manila and Dagupán Railroad between Manila and Baguio, the famous Philippines health resort.

Hastily gathering together my necessary field equipment with transportation and orders, I departed for my destination with a feeling akin to that of the small boy on his first excursion from home. Alighting from the street car on the escolta near the old bridge of Spain, I purchased some periodicals and a large sombrero, then, engaging a caramato, was driven to the Tondo station, where I boarded a first-class coach for Bocaue.

After a wearisome ride through stifling humidity, over rice-dikes and through jungle, I arrived at my post of duty and immediately reported to the commanding officer of the detachment, after which I divested myself of my accoutrements and met the members of the survey party, consisting of about twenty-four soldiers, representing every branch of the United States army.

This aged edifice, with its mysterious subterranean vaults, its columns of Tuscan and Doric origin, and surrounded by balconies encompassed with ornamental balustrades, was occupied by the soldiers and used as headquarters by the topographical ensemble.

Prior to the Spanish-American war, this building had been a sanctuary of worship, the abode of mendicant friars. At the time of the insurrection, the old monastery was occupied as headquarters by General Aguinaldo, until compelled to relinquish his stronghold by the American troops.

Expert Filipino draughtsmen were employed in the plottings of the survey, their work in delineating offsets being admirably executed.

The circuitous route our journey necessitated through mountains, jungle, and across innumerable streams and ravines made it impossible to use ponies or caribou in the conveyance of our provisions, so that a contingent of native cargadores were employed in drawing a native cartello, which carried not only the provisions, but also the camp equipage, including our cooking utensils.

The entire party was divided into three sections, each section comprising one commissioned officer, eight enlisted men, and four brawny cargadores who handled the native cart or cartello. Each section had a separate circuit on which to work, these circuits penetrating jungle and mountainous country hitherto unexplored by the military. Provisions for two weeks were usually carried, the length of time it required in covering our territory.

My first duty in connection with this survey was recording the readings of the transit, operated by the officer in charge. Our route led through the “barrios” of Marilao, Santa Maria, Tomano, Buena Vista, San Jose, Bagbaguen, Prensa, and Santa Cruz, in the province of Bulacan. The heat endured on these expeditions was intense, especially along the rice-dikes, which were barren of foliage. Occasionally, when in the vicinity of a barrio where we had but one night to remain, instead of spreading canvas we bivouacked under the roof of some convenient casa. On one occasion, having worked until sundown, our cartello was drawn alongside of an old native house of worship, in the barrio of Buena Vista, where a “fiesta” had been in progress for several days. Here, under the eaves of this sacred shrine, this soldier outfit dined “A la cartello.”

In the interior of this sanctuary, the flickering lights in a large candelabrum, at the base of the crucifix, shone dimly through the gloom. With a feeling of absolute safety, the soldiers spread their ponchos over the bamboo matting and, wrapped in blankets, reposed in peaceful slumber. There was nothing to disturb the tranquillity of this night until, shortly before the break of dawn, we were aroused by the tolling of the bells, and the chanting of the Ave Maria, uttered in solemn devotion by a long procession of natives garbed in ceremonious black, preceded by a señorita bearing a cross, flanked on either side by torch-bearers. As the procession moved slowly down the aisle, the soldiers arose from their unusual berth and, occupying seats, observed the ceremonies with respectful silence. These natives were the thoroughbred Tagalogs, the aborigines of the Philippines, the greater number of them being converts to Roman Catholicism, the balance adhering to the doctrines of the Reformation, or the Protestant religion.

Leaving Buena Vista, our route led through the beautiful Marquina Valley, with its immense forests of bamboo, ebony, sapan-wood, and gum-trees entwined by the bush-rope of palasan, trees teeming with the luscious mango and guava, bordering on plantations and groves of the vegetable kingdom, including the banana, plantain, sugarcane, pineapple, coffee, cinnamon, and tobacco.

From Marquina our course led into the dense forest of the San Madre Mountains. Before leaving the valley, I was detailed to handle the cargadores. This party in itself was a comedy; the only things they thought seriously of were cigarettes, salmon, and rice. I gave each of them a sobriquet,――namely, “Blinky,” Pedro, Carlo, and Pablo de Gusman. Blinky, a one-eyed dusky savage, was the hero of the drama; when he wanted anything, he would pat me on the arm and exclaim, “El capitan, mucho bueno,” and in the same breath, “Dalle mi cigarillo.” He would then wink at the others. Blinky was familiar with the lay of the land, and was a valuable assistant when it came to questions of emergency, such as getting the cartello across a stream or a deep ravine. It was sometimes necessary in crossing a river, to unload our cargo and ship it across in a binto, a boat similar to a canoe, then float the vehicle across the best way we could.

Having been detained rather late one evening in a barrio where I had been exchanging rice, bacon, and salmon, for chickens, eggs, and vegetables, I could have made my objective point before sundown had not something unforeseen occurred; we had reached an unexpected ravine or gorge through which a torrent of water gushed; here we found it necessary to cut two bamboo trees on which to slide the cartello across on its hubs. We were having excellent success when the hubs slipped off, dumping our cargo into the stream and Pablo de Gusman with it. Luckily the native grabbed the wheel of the cart and was saved. A rope attached to the front of the cartello was the means of our saving the greater part of the rations; but we were in a sorrowful plight, it being impossible to drag such a load up the precipitous slopes. We found it necessary to pack the cargo up piece by piece. The scene was laughable in the extreme: Blinky looked as though he had been sentenced to be shot, while the singsong chorus of native lingo, like the buzzing rabble of Italian emigrants, combined with reaching the site of our camp in the darkness, completed my baleful imbroglio. Let it suffice to say: an impatient mapping detail awaited our arrival.

The country through which we passed was one of tropical grandeur; monkeys, wild-boar, and parrots were frequently seen along the mountain ranges. At night it was interesting to watch the vampires darting hither and thither over mango-trees, nipping the delicious mangos, sometimes carrying them to their roosts for their young. These vampires resemble a bat, though much larger; the body is about the size of a kitten, the wings measuring when fully developed six feet from tip to tip.

Albinos are frequently met with in northern Luzon; on one occasion, strange to relate, we came in contact with a small colony of this type of people, unrelated, however, as the albino is a freak of nature possessing no inherency. They were reluctant to converse, contenting themselves with looking on, as they shielded their pink eyes from the rays of the sun with a fan of the palm-leaf. The interest we Americans manifested in these people seemed greatly to amuse the Filipinos.

The Igorrote head-hunters are a wild tribe inhabiting the northern provinces. Their features are large, with kinky hair, large teeth, and black complexions. They are far below the other tribes in intellect and intelligence. The appellation “head-hunter” has its significance in the fact that the head of the enemy is taken as a relic, similar to the custom of the American Indian in scalping his victim. We watched these barbarians killing dogs for market, saw them making grasshopper pies, and, to our disgust, they ate eggs with chickens in them. Eggs containing chickens were worth double the price of fresh eggs.

It was a great pleasure to return to our headquarters in the old monastery, where wholesome food and cool shower-baths could be had. The evenings at this domicile were always enjoyably spent, either at cards, reading, or music. Occasionally, Sebastian Gomez, an old Filipino, would bring his two granddaughters to the quarters; these were fairly good-looking señoritas and excellent musicians, the one playing the harp while the other played the accordion, accompanied by the old man with a guitar. Very often a deputy revenue collector, who spent considerable time with us, would join this trio with a violin, and these instruments combined rendered excellent music.

Occasionally my work consisted in planting signal-flags on points of vantage, where they could be seen through the telescope of a transit. It was incidental to one of these trips that Kane, of the Engineer Corps, and myself, while driving through a remote barrio, came in contact with the beautiful Señorita Carmen Lemaire. In my travels I had encountered many odd freaks of nature, leaving me not overly susceptible to surprise; on this occasion, however, the unique circumstance attending the incident created little less than astonishment. The fact that to hear the Anglo-American tongue spoken by natives even in Manila was a rarity seldom enjoyed, made this event the more surprising.

We had left headquarters at Lolomboy in the early morning, with a pony hitched to a cartello containing the signal-flags, tent equipage, and rations for three days. Crossing the ferry at Bocaue, we struck a northerly route running west of Malolos, the old Filipino capital. We had covered a number of miles over a dusty road and through sweltering heat, when a quaint little barrio shaded by cocoa and palm trees on the banks of the Cianti River was reached. As the pony jogged along through the heart of the village, turning out occasionally for the little pickaninnies who played in the street, my eyes fell on something unusual for this section of the world,――an exceptionally beautiful señorita, apparently a mestizo of European extraction, presiding over a fruit-stand in front of a large hacienda, from which exhaled the sweet odor of grated-cocoanut boiling in the syrup of the sugarcane.

“Kane, did you see that?” I asked. “Yes, some class; I wonder where that complexion came from,” he replied. “Let’s try and find out,” I said.

It was about the hour for the Filipino siesta and time for “tiffin”; so, drawing under the shade of a large mango tree, we tied and fed the pony, and I informed the engineer that I was going to buy some eggs. “Let me buy them,” said Kane, smilingly.

Approaching the hacienda, I saw standing under the eaves, with the grace of a Wanamaker cloak-model and the beauty of the allegorical Psyche, a Filipino señorita still in her ’teens, whose raven tresses would have been the envy of the “Sutherland sisters.” “Buenos dios, señorita,” I ventured. “Buenos dios,” she replied. “Tiene weibus?” (Tagalog for “Have you eggs?”). “Si, señor,” she replied. Kane, whose knowledge of the dialects was limited, appearing on the scene, said, “How do you do?” “Quite well, thank you; how are you?” she said. “Better,” said Kane, smiling in expressive surprise. At first I thought it an apparition with a voice; to hear good old United States spoken in a feminine voice, after being inflicted for months with the pigeon English of Chinese and the smattering cackle of the natives was almost too good to be true.

“Are you soldiers the advance-guard of a regiment, or merely out for a joy ride?” she inquired, showing two rows of pearly teeth through an inquisitive smile. “Joy ride is right, with room for six,” replied Kane. Here my curiosity led me to inquire as to how this illustrious personage had acquired such fluency in the English language. Whereupon she informed me that she had been educated at the University of Manila and was a school-teacher home on vacation.

Having purchased some eggs, she further attracted our attention by volunteering to fry them, and asking if we desired the albumen scrambled with the yolk. Her complexion was a study, for, although her hair and eyes were of raven black, her color was fair, with features resembling the Louisiana Creole. She set a very dainty repast, consisting of rice, fish, eggs, and fried plantains, and, suffice to say, we three――Kane, the pony, and myself――were exceedingly happy; the pony because he had reached the end of his journey, for there were no flags put up that day.

Before our departure we exchanged addresses; I found her name to be Carmen Lemaire, which further increased my curiosity. Having asked permission to pay her a visit some evening in the future she informed me that it would afford her much pleasure to have me call, but that several natives were very jealous of her, including a cousin whose ire, if aroused by my calling after sundown, might jeopardize my life; therefore any other than an impromptu daylight visit would be imprudent for her to approve. Assuring the señorita a little boastfully of my utter disregard for the marksmanship of her suitors, of my utmost confidence in fate, and my inability to call during the day she set an evening in the following week for me to see her.

Bidding adieu, we left this hacienda with its fair inhabitant, and journeyed on our route. The following day the pony had to go some to make up for lost time, and it required the best part of three days to complete the work. Our return trip was the longest way round, but not the sweetest way home.

On our return to Lolomboy we told the story of having met the beautiful señorita. The old Filipino Sebastian knew of her, and told us she had been selected to act as queen of the “Grande Fiesta” at the Manila Carnival.

The following Thursday evening before sundown, “knighthood was in flower.” Having selected and placed some choice literature in my saddle-bags, I mounted a pony and galloped off for the scene of my triumph with the visage of the charming Carmen before me.

The iridescent hues of the vanishing sun tinted the western horizon, as I reined my pony into a verdant trail, winding with the course of the river, almost hidden from view by the high grass that lined the trail on either side. The moon at its full shone through the cocoanuts hanging in clusters from the tall trees, as I dismounted at the Lemaire hacienda in the barrio of Montao. A Filipino patrol passing by took charge of the pony, thereby relieving my mind of the fear of its being stolen by ladrones, who lurk in the mountain districts of Luzon.

On entering the large bamboo casa, with its nippa eaves extending beyond the walls, I was met by the affable Carmen, and conducted to a cosey retreat, in the manner and customs of the Philippines, After meeting her mother, a very retiring Filipino lady. I presented the señorita with the periodicals, which included the San Francisco Sunset Magazine, containing my picture taken at Salt Lake City when a soldier in a machine-gun battery. Her beauty on this occasion was augmented by a pretty silken kimono and straw sandals, characteristically simple. In her hair she wore a pink carnation, which vied in beautiful contrast with her complexion. A gold necklace with pendant attached and a finger-ring of turquoise and diamonds completed her attire.

Side by side on the wall hung two large pictures,――one the martyred patriot Jose Rizal, the other the ex-Governor-General of the Philippines, now our President, William H. Taft. On the opposite wall hung the señorita’s much-cherished diploma from the University of Manila and a certificate of belles-lettres. Books were shelved in galore. An East Indian matting covered the bamboo floors, while the sleeping compartments were hidden from view by large portières. Various articles of interest were shown to me, including photographs, a prayer-book printed in Spain in the sixteenth century, and the bridal-veil worn by her mother on her wedding morn.

During the evening the son of the presidente of the village, accompanied by his sweetheart, a pleasing young couple, called at the hacienda. Being unable to hold an intelligent conversation with these guests, our conversazione was one of ignorance crasse. The elder Señora Lemaire,

Carmen’s mother, served the guests with limeade and charlotte-russe, which were delectable and refreshing.

After the couple had departed, I related several stories of the United States to this amiable señorita. I told of my home away off in Pennsylvania, my school days, friends, escapades, the war, my travels, and incidentally mentioned the resemblance she bore the Creoles of New Orleans, among whom I had spent a winter; being careful to impress on her mind, that the Creole is of Spanish and French descent, not negro, as some educated people suppose. She listened very attentively to my stories, occasionally asking questions, particularly regarding the Creoles.

The anecdotes of her college days were more than interesting, as were the stories she told about the insurrection. She was very familiar with the history of the war, from the blowing up of the _Maine_ to the battle of the “crater” in the Sulu.

“Lemaire is a very uncommon name in the Philippines, is it not?” I remarked. “Yes,” she sighed, “very uncommon.” Realizing the interest I took in her, and the eagerness I possessed to hear some of her life’s history she continued:

“About twenty years ago a party of European surveyors employed by the Manila and Dagupán Railroad, in surveying this section of my country, were stationed at Malolos, my former home. In the course of human events, one of the party――namely, Armand Lemaire――became enamoured with and courted my mother, with whom he was eventually joined in holy wedlock. Of this union I am the fruition. At the expiration of my father’s duties in the Philippines, he was ordered to India, where, falling a victim, he succumbed to the plague.” Reaching into the drawer of an escritoire, she drew forth the picture of a man, whose intelligent features clearly indicated the ancestry of this charming young woman.

Continuing, she said: “My mother, on receiving notice of my father’s death, took up her residence on this plantation, provided before his departure for India, and here she has lived ever since in pensive quietude, never fully recovering from the effects of her dire misfortune.”

There was something unusually pathetic in this sincere girl’s story, and my conjecture, as I gazed on her mother’s bridal-veil, had found a sequel. With the assurance of my utmost sympathy, the conversation switched on to other topics. Glancing at my watch the hands indicated midnight, and I had told the patrol to be on hand with my pony at eleven o’clock.

Glancing over the balustrade, Carmen inquired, “Donde cabalyo?” The patrol had arrived with the pony as if by magic.

As I bade Carmen Lemaire a fond adieu, she again admonished me as to the possible violence of her jealous suitors. “Keep on the alert and take no chances,” she said.

After tipping the patrol a two-peso note, I mounted my pony, and wafting a “buenos-notches” galloped off in the pale moonlight, sincerely wishing some dusky rival would take a shot at me, that I might demonstrate “the survival of the fittest.”

My ride through the jungle in lonely contemplation was uneventful until the barrio of Bocaue was reached. Here I found a barrier in the shape of a river. I had failed to take into consideration that the ferry ceased running at midnight. The ferry, a flat-bottomed scow capable of carrying about fifty people, was moored on the opposite side of the river and no one there to man it. I had my choice of two things,――namely, swim the current or wait until dawn. Having placed a photograph along with some other valuables in the band of my sombrero, I reined my pony to the brink, and was about to plunge when I saw looming on the opposite shore the figure of a police patrol.

In imitation of the semaphore system, I wig-wagged the Filipino, and with a hoarse voice in bad Spanish impressed on his mind the necessity of my getting across. Having a passing acquaintance with the municipal officer, he recognized me, and propelled the boat across himself by means of a cable, the river being about one hundred yards wide at this point. On reaching the other side, the patrol was as much pleased in making a little side money as I was delighted in getting across. It was not long before I had stabled my pony and sought peaceful repose in my Helen Gould cot in the old monastery.