The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines

"A man can be arrested in Manila, plunged into jail, and kept there twenty years without ever having a hearing or even knowing the complaint upon which he was arrested. There is no means in the legal system there of having a prompt hearing or of finding out what the charge is. The right to obtain evidence by torture is exercised by military, civil, and ecclesiastical tribunals. To this right there is no limitation, nor is the luckless witness or defendant permitted to have a surgeon, a counsel, a friend, or even a bystander to be present during the operation. As administered in the Philippines one man in every ten dies under the torture, and nothing is ever heard of him again. Everything is taxed, so that it is impossible for the thriftiest peasant farmer or shopkeeper to ever get ahead in life.

"The Spanish policy is to keep all trade in the hands of the Spanish merchants, who come out here from the peninsula and return with a fortune. The Government budget for education is no larger than the sum paid by the Hong Kong authorities for the support of Victoria College here. What little education is had in the Philippines is obtained from the good Jesuits, who, in spite of their being forbidden to practice their priestly calling in Luzon, nevertheless devote their lives to teaching their fellow-countrymen. They carry the same principle into the Church, and no matter how devout, able, or learned a Filipino or even a half-breed may be, he is not permitted to enter a religious order or ever to be more than an acolyte, sexton, or an insignificant assistant priest. The State taxes the people for the lands which it says they own, and which as a matter of fact they have owned from time immemorial, and the Church collects rent for the same land upon the pretext that it belongs to them under an ancient charter of which there is no record. Neither life nor limb, liberty nor property have any security whatever under the Spanish administration."

Such was his indictment of Spain.

He began a war for independence from Spain in the provinces of Luzon. He was an inspiring general and practically made prisoners of some fifteen thousand of the Spanish forces. He organized a Government at least nominally Republican, although it has been called a dictatorship. The purchase of the Philippines by the United States, in accordance with the Treaty of Paris, has been opposed by Aguinaldo and his followers in a most distressing war. He has claimed the absolute independence of all the Philippines, although, so far as our knowledge goes, his authority does not extend far beyond certain districts of the Island of Luzon. Without anticipating the verdict of history upon our relations to the Philippines, it is enough to add that the bloodshed and suffering caused by this war are most deplorable.

HONG KONG

Hong Kong and the China Sea have come to stand not only for Europe in Asia, but for America in Asia, though of the latter, Manila is the port. The center of the world's forces changes, and it is a strange current of events that has made the China Sea, with its English port of Hong Kong, and the Luzon port of Manila, facing each other across the blue ocean way, the pivotal point of not only England in China, but of America in the East. The Anglo-Chinese community in Hong Kong represents the union of Europe and Asia in the family of nations, and America joins the world of the higher civilization at Manila, the scene of Dewey's victory.

The civilizing history of Hong Kong is largely associated with Sir John Bowring, whom a large part of the world recalls merely as a writer of popular hymns; as, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory."

The British free traders secured Hong Kong as a market for the East, and added it to the British Empire in the middle of the century. The Suez Canal increased the importance of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, not being an integral part of Asia, became a place of refugees before its union with the British Empire. It lay in the route of the British possessions in Africa, India, and North America. Its Urasian destiny was seen in the alliance between Europe and Asia concluded at Canton (1634) between the East India Company and the Chinese Government. It then became the vantage ground of the Anglo-Saxon race. The early English Governors of Hong Kong made the port the cradle of liberty and free trade, and a civilizing influence in the East.

The island is some nine miles long and from two to six miles broad, with a population of more than one hundred and twenty thousand, most of whom are Chinese. It was ceded in perpetuity to the British by the treaty of Nankin in 1843, when its Government began to be administered by Colonial Governors, under whom it grew commercially.

The East India Trade Company had prepared the way for this little Britain in the East. The United States in the middle of the century began to trade at Canton from the ports of Boston and Salem. It is a very curious and almost forgotten fact that the first cargoes from New England to Canton consisted largely of ginseng, a plant now little esteemed, but which at that time had acquired such a medical reputation in China as to be almost worth its weight in gold. The plant was held to be a magical cure for nearly all diseases and to possess the gift of immortal youth.

Boston and Salem are still adorned with the tall and stately mansions of these old merchants, whose wooden vessels went to the China Sea, at first carrying ginseng and returning with tea. A writer in a Boston paper thus pictures this period:

"The generation that would not have had to look at a map to find out where Manila was when George Dewey arrived there, is almost passed away. These were the great sailors of their time; men who met emergencies with nerve and overcame tempest and adversity with equal complacency, who knew the merchants of Canton and Calcutta as well as the merchants of Salem and Boston, and whose tempers were never ruffled if even stress of circumstance compelled them to put up with a paltry profit of one hundred per cent. They lived at a time when there might easily be a fortune in a single freight, and when one turn round the world might represent more than a million of money. Most of them lived before the day of the bill of exchange, and when the solid old method of carrying specie in the hold was the familiar business practice. They knew the pirate of the China Sea and he of Barbary, too, for it was this old-fashioned system of carrying your capital with you that made the pirates' life worth living. They lived before the cable as well, and from the moment that a ship cleared from Canton or Manila or Singapore there was no way in the world for the consignee or the merchant in Boston to know what she had on board until she arrived here to speak for herself. Be it silks or teas or what-not, the merchant must move quickly to bid or buy, for the nature and value of the cargo could not have been discounted in advance, while the ship was skimming the oceans. Each vessel made her own market, and the wharf was the market place. It was good news, indeed, when a captain with a cargo of teas was informed by his owners, who may have met him upon the completion of a two years' cruise, that the price of tea had advanced the day before his arrival. It was pretty apt to be something in the captain's own pocket, too, for in those days he was allowed to carry twenty-five tons of freight for his own private speculation, and a salary of three hundred dollars a month in addition was not uncommon. There are retired captains on Cape Cod and in Salem and in the suburbs of Boston to-day who earned a competence in those times of Boston's water-front prosperity. They became masters sometimes before they were of age, and occasionally there would be one, like the late R. B. Forbes, who would become a great merchant, the head of a famous, wealthy house, known the world over, almost before he realized how great was the fortune that had overtaken him. And there was another very nice thing about those old days of plenty. If a man came home from China rich, invested his wealth in a railroad or some manufacturing or mining project that would be pretty apt to ruin him, all he would have to do would be to exile himself, under the right auspices, for another year or two in China, and then return to his home and friends with his fortunes quite mended."

The great merchant at Canton at the time of the Boston commercial period was Honqua. He was as noble as he was rich, and Mr. Forbes, the famous old Boston merchant, relates the following story of him:

"A New England trader had gone to Canton, and had been unsuccessful, and owed Honqua one hundred thousand dollars. He desired to return home, but could not do so if he discharged the debt. Honqua heard of his condition, pitied him, and sent for him.

"'I shall be sorry to part from you,' he said, 'but I wish you to return as you so desire, happy and free. Here are all your notes canceled.'"

Here was superb commercialism.

The American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands opens the way to China by the China Sea. In the progress of events the achievements of Magellan have led the ships of the West to the East again, and it is possible that there may yet be great Mongol emigrations to the western shores of the southern continent. The lantern or farol of Magellan was never more prophetic than now. So suggestion lives.

TRAVELERS' TALES OF THE PHILIPPINES

Hong Kong is the market place of the Eastern world. Here the East and West meet in the airy bazaars, and from it, it is easy to find one's way to Luzon, over the bright sea mirrors, the sleepy, dreamy splendors of the China Sea.

But few travelers have written books on Luzon, and those have usually published them in French or in Spanish. Travelers from the East have, as a rule, not remained long on the island, where earthquakes, typhoons, malarial fevers, and the plague itself have been not unfrequent visitors, and where one welcomes gratefully the shadows of the night in the seasons of fervid heat. The rain storms are downpours and deluges that are blinding, but they leave behind their inky tracts a paradise of beauty and bloom.

The morning on the China Sea in serene weather is a royal glory. It has the odors of Araby and the freshness of an Eden. The earth seems waiting. The sails hang listlessly on the glassy, breathless straits, and the sun sheds its splendor through the pale blue air as powerfully as the clouded heavens poured down the rain.

The Filipinos are a sensitive race, and many of them have a keen sense of injustice. Great numbers of them have a church education, and their views of the world are bounded by what they have learned of India, China, and Malaysia and Iberian peninsula from the priests of Spain.

A recent traveler from Manila said to me:

"The Filipinos have hot blood and are revengeful, but they are quick to discern justice. A boy who attended me at the hotel came to me one day bleeding.

"'My master has beaten me,' he said, 'with a rawhide.'

"'He has abused you,' I said. 'Why?'

"'He took me into the storeroom and lashed me, and the rawhide cut me. I bleed.'

"'Why did he punish you?'

"'The porter told him he found me neglecting my work by hiding away and fighting cocks. It was not true. The porter lied; he hates me.'

"'Go to the marshal and make a complaint against the landlord. Go now, before the blood dries. A master has no right to beat one like that. It is inhuman. Justice ought to be done.'

"'But I do not blame him; he is not to blame. The porter is to blame. The porter lied.'

"'But the marshal would hardly take up your case against the porter; he would hold him to be a person of slight consequence.'

"'But wrong is wrong whether it be done by a landlord or his porter. The porter should go to prison for twenty years!'"

The case then dropped, but the boy carried a case for revenge against the porter in his heart. He was quick to discern justice.

Cockfighting is a favorite diversion among the Filipinos. A traveler says that he has seen Filipinos going to mass carrying gamecocks under their arms to set fighting in the cemetery after the service.

The brutal sport is a passion, and is to be seen going on almost everywhere on festal days, and in the evenings in the cool shadows of awnings and palms.

Alfred Marché published a book in Paris in 1887 entitled Luxon and Palaveran; Six Annes de Voyages aux Philippines. It contains some vivid pictures of the natives, of the habits and customs of the country, of the earthquakes and storms. He describes the earthquake seasons when the earth trembled, and the people rushed wildly into the open courts at the first tremor. As great as the terror was the Chinese did not leave their merchandise unprotected for fear of thieves, showing that the trembling earth did not overcome the nature of the merchant or the native thief. The one would face death for his goods and the other for his chance of getting plunder.

Monsieur Marché gives some views of the tropic jungles, one of which is illustrated by a very curious anecdote and pictorial illustration.

One day one of his native servants told him that he had seen in the woods an immense python, which seemed to have been gorged with some animal that he had swallowed, and so rendered sluggish and resistless.

"I should like to see so large a serpent," said the traveler.

An hour afterward, while he was sitting in the shadow of his bungalow, an extraordinary sight met his eyes. The native had gone into the wood and had put a cord about the neck of the great serpent and attached it to the horns of a buffalo, and the buffalo was dragging the python toward the bungalow. The python was seven meters long (thirty-nine inches to a meter), a distended mass of folds and flesh (page 356, Alfred Marché's Luzon).

What had he swallowed? What creature was there inside of him that was about to be digested, and that so distorted his folds?

The serpent was harmless in the noose and from the weight of his meal.

The traveler severed the python's vertebræ, rendering it inoffensive, and then made an incision into its abdomen.

A surprise followed. Out of the abdomen came a calf of some months' growth. The animal's legs were so doubled under its body as to make the latter horizontal. The serpent was prepared for the museum of the traveler.

The same traveler describes earthquakes, after which victims were fed by tubes let down under the ponderous débris.

One of the most interesting books of travel in Luzon that we have ever read is entitled Aventures d'un Gentilhomme Breton aux iles Philippines, par P. de la Gironière (Paris, 1855). A part of the work has been translated into English by Frederick Hardman, and from this translation in part we select material for a view of the life of the French savant in Jala-Jala, a very interesting district of the island. The original French work is very vividly illustrated. The English abridgment is without illustrations. (French edition, Boston Public Library, No. 3040a, 182. English abridgment, 5049a, 69.)

THE ADVENTURES OF DR. DE LA GIRONIÈRE IN LUZON(After Hardman.)CHANGING THE HEART OF A BRIGAND

"Jala-Jala is a long peninsula, stretching from north to south into the middle of Bay Lake. The peninsula is divided longitudinally by a chain of mountains, which gradually diminish in elevation, until, for the last three leagues, they dwindle into mere hills. These mountains, of easy access, are covered partly with wood and partly with beautiful pastures, where the grass attains a height of between one and two yards, and, when waving in the wind, resembles the waves of the ocean. Finer vegetation can nowhere be found; it is refreshed by limpid springs, flowing from the higher slopes of the mountain down into the lake. Owing to these pastures, Jala-Jala is richer in game than any other part of the island of Luzon. Deer, wild boar, and buffalo, quails, hens, snipes, pigeons of fifteen or twenty kinds, parrots; in short, all manner of birds, there abound. The lake teems with water-fowl, and especially with wild ducks. Notwithstanding its extent, the island contains no dangerous or carnivorous beasts; the worst things to be feared in that way is the civet, a little animal about the size of a cat, which attacks only birds; and the monkeys, which issue from the forest by troops, and lay waste the maize and sugar fields.

"The lake, which yields excellent fish, is less favored than the land; for it contains a great many caymans, a creature of such enormous size that in a few minutes it divides a horse piecemeal and absorbs it into its huge stomach. The accidents occasioned by these caymans are frequent and terrible, and I have seen more than one Indian fall victims to them.

"At the period of my purchase the only human inhabitants of Jala-Jala were a few Indians, of Malay extraction, who lived in the woods and tilled some nooks of land. At night they were pirates upon the lake, and they afforded shelter to all the banditti of the surrounding provinces. The people at Manila had given me the most dismal account of the district; according to them, I should soon be murdered: my turn for adventure was such, that all their stories, instead of alarming me, only increased my desire to visit men who were living almost in a savage state.

"As soon as I had bought Jala-Jala, I traced for myself a plan of conduct, having for its object to attract the banditti to me; to this end, I felt that I must not appear among them in the character of an exacting and sordid owner, but in that of a father. All depended upon the first impressions I should make upon these Indians, now my vassals. On landing, I went straight to a little hamlet, composed of a few cabins.

"My faithful coachman was with me; we were each of us armed with a good double-barreled gun, a brace of pistols, and a saber. I had already ascertained, from some fishermen, to which Indian I ought to address myself. This man, who was much respected by his countrymen, was called, in the Tagal tongue, Mabutin-Tajo, translatable as The brave and valiant.

"He was quite capable of committing, without the slightest remorse, five or six murders in the course of a single expedition; but he was brave; and courage is a virtue before which all primitive races respectfully bow. My conversation with Mabutin-Tajo was not long; a few words sufficed to win his good will, and to convert him into a faithful servant for the whole time I dwelt at Jala-Jala. This is how I spoke to him:

"'You are a great rascal,' I said; 'I am the lord of Jala-Jala; it is my will that you amend your conduct; if you refuse, you shall expiate all your misdeeds. I want a guard; give me your word of honor to turn honest man, and I will make you my lieutenant.'

"When I completed this brief harangue, Alila (that was the brigand's name) remained for a moment silent, his countenance indicating deep reflection. I waited for him to speak; not without a certain degree of anxiety as to what his answer would be.

"'Master!' he at last exclaimed, offering me his hand and putting one knee to the ground, 'I will be faithful to you until death!'

"I was very well pleased with this reply, but I concealed my satisfaction.

"''Tis good,' I said; 'to show you that I have confidence in you, take this weapon, and use it only against enemies.'

"I presented him with a Tagal sabre, on which was inscribed in Spanish: 'Draw me not without cause, nor sheath me without honor.'

"This legend I translated into Tagal; Alila thought it sublime, and swore ever to observe it.

"'When I go to Manila,' I added, 'I will bring you epaulets and a handsome uniform; but you must lose no time in getting together the soldiers you are to command, and who will compose my guard. Take me at once to him among your comrades whom you think most capable of acting as sergeant.'

"We walked a short distance to the habitation of a friend of Alila's, who usually accompanied him on his piratical expeditions. A few words, in the same strain as those I had spoken to my future lieutenant, produced the same effect on his comrade, and decided him to accept the rank I offered him. We passed the day recruiting in the various huts, and before night we had got together, in cavalry, a guard of ten men, a number I did not wish to exceed. I took the command as captain.

"The next day I mustered the population of the peninsula, and, surrounded by my new guards, I selected a site for a village, and one for a house for myself. I gave orders to the fathers of families to build their cabins upon a line which I marked out, and I desired my lieutenant to employ all the hands he could procure in extracting stone, cutting timber, and preparing everything for my dwelling. My orders given, I set out for Manila, promising soon to return. On reaching home, I found my friends uneasy on my account; for, not having heard from me, they feared I had fallen victim to the caymans or the pirates. The narrative of my voyage, my description of Jala-Jala, far from making my wife averse to my project of living there, rendered her on the contrary impatient to visit our property, and to settle upon it."

Dr. de la Gironière lived many years at Jala-Jala in the peninsula country. He relates many adventures in the primitive forests, one of which is as follows:

A BUFFALO HUNT IN JALA-JALA

"The Indians consider the pursuit of the buffalo the most dangerous of all hunts; and my guards told me they would rather place their naked breast at twenty paces from a rifle's muzzle than find themselves at the same distance from a wild buffalo. The difference is, they say, that a rifle bullet may only wound, whereas a buffalo's horn is sure to kill.

"Taking advantage of their fear of the buffalo, I one day informed them, with all the coolness I could assume, of my intention to hunt that animal. Thereupon they exerted all their eloquence to dissuade me from my project; they drew a most picturesque and intimidating sketch of the dangers and difficulties I should encounter; I, especially, as one unaccustomed to that sort of fight – for such a chase is in fact a life or death contest. I would not listen to them. I had declared my will; I would not discuss the subject, or attend to their advice.

"It was fortunate that I did not; for these affectionate counsels, these alarming pictures of the dangers I was about to run, were given and drawn by way of snare; they had agreed among themselves to estimate my courage accordingly as I accepted or avoided the combat. My only reply was an order to get everything in readiness for the hunt. I took care that my wife should know nothing of the expedition, and I set out, accompanied by a dozen Indians, almost all armed with guns.

"The buffalo is hunted differently in the plain and in the mountains. In the plain, all that is needed is a good horse, agility, and skill in throwing the lasso. In the mountains, an extraordinary degree of coolness is requisite. This is how the thing is done: The hunter takes a gun, upon which he is sure he can depend, and so places himself that the buffalo, on issuing from the forest, must perceive him. The very instant the brute sees you, he rushes upon you with his very utmost speed, breaking, crushing, trampling under foot, everything that impedes his progress. He thunders down upon you as though he would annihilate you; at a few paces distance, he pauses for a moment, and presents his sharp and menacing horns.

"It is during that brief pause that the hunter must take his shot, and send a bullet into the center of his enemy's brow. If unfortunately the gun misses fire, or if his hand trembles and his ball goes askew, he is lost – Providence alone can save him! Such, perhaps, was the fate that awaited me; but I was determined to run the chance. We reached the edge of a large wood, in which we felt sure that buffaloes were; and there we halted. I was sure of my gun; I thought myself tolerably sure of my coolness, and I desired that the hunt should take place as if I had been a common Indian. I stationed myself on a spot over which everything made it probable that the animal would pass, and I suffered no one to remain near me. I sent every man to his post, and remained alone on the open ground, two hundred paces from the edge of the forest, awaiting a foe who would assuredly show me no mercy if I missed him.

"That is certainly a solemn moment in which one finds himself placed thus between life and death, all depending on the goodness of a gun, and on the steadiness of the hand that grasps it. I quietly waited. When all had taken up their positions, two men entered the forest, having previously stripped off a part of their clothes, the better to climb the trees in case of need. They were armed only with cutlasses, and accompanied by dogs. For more than half an hour a mournful silence reigned. We listened with all our ears, but no sound was heard.