A Visit to the Philippine Islands. Bowring John

impede the development of commerce. There is, no doubt, a great want of directing talent and of that special knowledge which modern science is able to furnish. The construction of bridges being generally left to the rude artists who are employed by the Spanish functionaries, or to the direction of the friars, with whom the stare super antiquas vias is the generally received maxim, it is not wonderful that there should be so many examples of rude, unsafe and unsightly constructions. Moreover, estimates have to be sent to the capital of all the proposed outlay, and it is hardly to be expected but that sad evidence should be found – as elsewhere – of short-sighted and very costly economy. The expense, too, almost invariably exceeds the estimates – a pretty general scandal; then the work is arrested, and sometimes wholly abandoned. Funds there are none, and neither policy nor patriotism will provide them. Even when strongly impelled, the Indian moves slowly; self-action for the promotion of the public good he has none. There is no pressure from without to force improvements upon the authorities, and hence little is to be hoped for as to improvement except from direct administrative action.

      I can hardly pass over unnoticed M. de la Gironière’s romantic book,9 as it was the subject of frequent conversations in the Philippines. No doubt he has dwelt there twenty years; but in the experience of those who have lived there more than twice twenty I found little confirmation of the strange stories which are crowded into his strange volume. He was a resident of the Philippines at the time of my visit, and I believe still lives on the property of which he was formerly – but I was told is no longer – the possessor.10 I did not visit his “Paradise,” but had some agreeable intercourse with a French gentleman who is now in charge. I did not find any of that extraordinary savagery with which M. de la Gironière represents himself to be surrounded; and the answer to the inquiries I made of the neighbouring authorities as to the correctness of his pictures of Indian character was generally a shrug and a smile and a reference to my own experience. But M. de la Gironière may have aspired to the honour of a Bernardin de St. Pierre or a Defoe, and have thought a few fanciful and tragic decorations would add to the interest of his personal drama. “All the world’s a stage,” and as a player thereon M. de la Gironière perhaps felt himself authorized in the indulgence of some latitude of description, especially when his chosen “stage” was one meant to exhibit the wonders of travel.

      As to M. de la Gironière’s marvellous encounters and miraculous escapes from man and beast; his presence at feasts where among the delicacies were human brains, steeped by young girls in the juice of sugar-cane, of which he did not drink, but his servant did; his discoveries of native hands in “savory” pots prepared for food; his narratives where the rude Indians tell elaborate tales in the lackadaisy style of a fantastic novel; his vast possessions; his incredible influence over ferocious bandits and cruel savages; – all this must be taken at its value. I confess I have seen with some surprise, in M. de la Gironière’s book, two “testimonies” from M. Dumont d’Urville and Admiral La Place, in which, among other matters, they give an account of the hatching of eggs by men specially engaged for this purpose.11 They saw, as any one may, in the villages on the Pasig River, prodigious quantities of ducks and ducklings, and were “puzzled” to find how such multitudes could be produced; but they learnt the wonderful feat was accomplished by “lazy Tagál Indians,” who lay themselves down upon the eggs, which are placed in ashes. The patient incubators eat, drink, smoke, and chew their betel, and while they take care not to injure the fragile shells, they carefully remove the ducklings as they are brought into being (pp. 358 and 362). Now it may well be asked who takes care when the lazy Tagáls are asleep; and, if our worthy witnesses had reflected for a moment, they would have known that, if all the inhabitants were employed in no other office than that of egg-hatching, they would be hardly sufficient to incubate the “prodigious” numbers of ducklings which disport on the banks of the Pasig. The incubation is really produced by placing warm paddy husks under and over the eggs; they are deposited in frames; a canvas covering is spread over the husks; the art is to keep up the needful temperature; and one man is sufficient to the care of a large number of frames, from which he releases the ducklings as they are hatched, and conveys them in little flocks to the water-side. The communities are separated from one another by bamboo fences, but there is scarcely a cottage with a river frontage which has not its patero (or duckery).

      CHAPTER VI

      POPULATION

      In the last generation a wonderful sensation was produced by the propagation of the great Malthusian discovery – the irresistible, indisputable, inexorable truth – that the productive powers of the soil were less and less able to compete with the consuming demands of the human race; that while population was increasing with the rapidity of a swift geometrical progression, the means of providing food lagged with the feebleness of a slow arithmetical advance more and more behind; that the seats at nature’s table – rich and abundant though it was – were being abundantly filled, and that there was no room for superfluous and uninvited guests; in a word, to use the adopted formula, that population was pressing more and more upon subsistence, and that the results must be increasing want, augmenting misery, and a train of calamities boundless as the catalogue of the infinite forms of mortal wretchedness.

      1

      A recent History of the Conquest of the Islands, and of the Spanish rule, is given by Buzeta, vol. i., pp. 57–98.

      2

      I visited some Cochin Chinese prisoners in the fortification. They had been taken at Turon, and one of them was a mandarin, who had exercised some authority there, – said to have been the commandant of the place. They wrote the Chinese characters, but were unable to understand the spoken language.

      3

      Among my early literary efforts was an essay by which the strange story was utterly disproved of the destruction of the MSS. which had served Cardinal Ximenes in preparing his Polyglot Bible.

      4

      One woman, six children.

      5

      All children.

1

A recent History of the Conquest of the Islands, and of the Spanish rule, is given by Buzeta, vol. i., pp. 57–98.

2

I visited some Cochin Chinese prisoners in the fortification. They had been taken at Turon, and one of them was a mandarin, who had exercised some authority there, – said to have been the commandant of the place. They wrote the Chinese characters, but were unable to understand the spoken language.

3

Among my early literary efforts was an essay by which the strange story was utterly disproved of the destruction of the MSS. which had served Cardinal Ximenes in preparing his Polyglot Bible.

4

One woman, six children.

9

There is an English translation – “Twenty Years in the Philippines.” Vizetelly. 1853.

10

I learn from the Captain-General that Messrs. de la Gironière and Montblanc are now charged with “a scientific mission to the Philippines,” under the auspices of the French government.

11

I find in Mr. Dixon’s book on Domestic Poultry the merits of this discovery in the science of incubation attributed to an ancient couple, whose goose having been killed while “sitting,” the old man transferred the “cooling” eggs to their common bed, and he and the old lady taking their turns, safely brought the goslings into being. I ought to mention that confirmatory proofs of M. de la Gironière’s narrative are added from Mr. H. Lindsay; but Mr. Lindsay guards himself against endorsing the “strange stories” with which M. de la Gironière’s book abounds.