MALAY LIFE IX THE PHILIPPINES. 



4a 



MALAY LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



Br W. G. PALGRAVE. 



IMPATIENT to be already at the term of his 

 voyage, the hoineward-bound passenger is 

 generally, nor least so at the hurried moment of 

 final parting, under a spell that blots out from 

 the scroll of his " pleasures of memory " the rec- 

 ords of whole years, it may be, of happy residence 

 in the lands that he is leaving ; and all by the 

 fresh contrast of lively anticipation of what, too 

 often in fancy only, awaits him in the land, his 

 native home, that lies before. True it is also 

 that some shores there are — though to specify 

 such would be invidious — which the longer one 

 has sojourned on them, the keener the satisfac- 

 tion one feels on leaving them without thought 

 of return. Not so the " Isles of the East," the 

 Philippines. Dull indeed must be his soul, un- 

 sympathetic his nature, who, whatever the hopes 

 that may smile on him from the further vista of 

 his journey's end, can stand as I do now on the 

 deck of the Singapore-ward steamer, the little 

 Leite, and see the forests and mountains of Luzon, 

 Queen of the Eastern Isles, fade away into dim 

 violet outlines on the fast-receding horizon, with- 

 out some wishful remembrance, some pang of 

 longing regret. 



It is not only that Nature — or shall we say 

 Hertha ? — so niggard often of her gifts, has here 

 lavished them rather than bestowed ; though, in- 

 deed, not the iEgaean, not the West Indian, not 

 the Samoan, not any other of the fair island- 

 clusters by which our terraqueous planet half 

 atones for her dreary expanses of gray ocean and 

 monotonous desert elsewhere, can rival in mani- 

 fold beauties of earth, sea, sky, the Philippine 

 Archipelago, from the extreme northern verge of 

 the Formosan Channel to where the t^pid equa- 

 torial wave sinks faint on the coral-reefs of Bor- 

 neo ; nor in all that archipelago, lovely as it is 

 through its entire extent, can any island vie with 

 the glories of Luzon. Set out eastward from Ma- 

 nila, the tropical Venice, amid her labyrinth of 

 estuaries and canals, daily ebbing and flowing to 

 the tides of the vast harbor-gulf, the secure ves- 

 tibule of the typhoon-swept China seas ; thence 

 pass inland between the broad shades of clustered 

 bamboo and palm up the eddying Pasig River to 

 where, apt starting-point of its romantic course, 

 it issues from the wide fresh-water lake of Ba'i, 

 girdled by a hundred miles and more of varied, 



ever-fertile shore-line, and the cloud-capped peaks 

 of the giant Mahahai range beyond ; traverse the 

 yellow cane-fields of the wealthy Laguna district 

 to where, hid among the hills and coffee-groves 

 of Batangas, lies deep the blue cliff -encircled lake 

 of Taal, and amid its waters the fairy islet where, 

 from the miniature central volcano, a shifting 

 pennon of restless smoke and fire ever rises and 

 spreads high over greensward and glossy tree ; 

 then across the rushing rivers, sounding water- 

 falls, and dark woods of Tayabas and the mid- 

 chain, till, between slim tree-fern, and over forest- 

 clad descent, the boundless Pacific opens out its 

 sparkling blue ; and right from the very breakers 

 on the shore towers eight thousand feet in air 

 the perfect volcano-cone of Albay, the fire-breath- 

 ing marvel of these islands, as Fusihama of Ja- 

 pan. 



I have taken, almost at chance, the first route 

 that offered ; Luzon has a hundred more, each 

 different, and each as fair. Nor inferior in intrin- 

 sic beauty, though on a smaller scale, are the 

 scenes that the comparatively lesser islands, such 

 as Panay, Cebu, Samar, Negros, Leite, and others 

 of names strange to the generality of European 

 ears, have to show. More fortunate than their 

 West Indian sisters, no flat and chalky Barbados, 

 no drought-stricken Antigua, no barren Virgin 

 Island, mars the perfection of the Philippine 

 group ; while Jamaica and Antigua themselves, 

 those loveliest of the Antilles, must yield the 

 palm of beauty to the mere average of the " East- 

 ern Isles." Volcanic formation and soil, an abun- 

 dant yearly rainfall, an equable climate, and the 

 life-giving influences of the oceanic tropics, have 

 all combined here to do this, and it is marvelous 

 in our, the beholders', eyes. 



Marvelous in our eyes — impossible, not to 

 be imaged, in the eyes of those who have only 

 word-painting and imagination out of which to 

 construct the view. Tropical scenery, be it of 

 mountain or plain, forest or coast-line, lake or 

 river, can no more be realized by those who have 

 never seen it than colors by the blind, music by 

 the deaf. A Kingsley attempts the picture, and 

 behold a confused description of a Kew palm- 

 house ; a Michael Scott, and lo ! the side-scenes 

 of a theatre. The scientific accuracy of a Wal- 

 lace, and of his compeers, if there be any worthy 



