Army Life vs. Navy Life
TELEPHONE NUMBER 25
MANILA HOTEL
MANILA, P.I.
CABLE ADDRESS: MANHOCO MANILA
CODES: W.U. AND A.B.C. 5TH EDITION
Sallie dearest:
We got back from Baguio last night and I surely did hate to leave and come down here where it is so hot. In my last letter I didn’t tell you much about it, did I. It is really an army camp, but the climate etc. are so wonderful that people go there as often as they can just to get braced up and forget that they are in the Philippines. The general was here in Manila and offered us his house there, which is perfectly beautiful – has a great huge living room with enormous open fireplace, heaps of bed rooms and the loveliest porch the whole way round. Am sending a picture of the amphitheater which is just behind his house. It is a natural one. The only thing they did to it was to build the little sort of stone pagoda for a stage, and outline the rows for seats with rough stone. It is lovely, and they open it next month with a play that one of the officers wrote. All the army people were so good to us. Everyone takes their meals at the mess, and we had such fun there. There was the nicest lieutenant, Gary by name, who was terribly good looking and a perfectly thrilling [bean? Ham?]. We had the best times together – rode horseback a lot and used to take these old Spanish trails that were most fascinating. I rode the general’s horse, which was ideal, and wore boots, breeches and coat belonging to one of the officers who was rather small, so fitted me all right. We drove a lot too. The Igarotes, the natives, are interesting and remind me a lot of our Indians. One custom they have that is awful is eating dogs. Every Sunday morning they have the big dog market. We went to see it and there were 1600 dogs brought in for sale. The thinner a dog is the more valuable. They starve him for a week till there’s hardly a bit of flesh on his poor bones, then fed him rice, and when he won’t eat any more, they take a stick and stuff it in to him, then wait half an hour till the rice is partly digested, and then beat him with a stick (to chase out the devil) till he dies, cut his throat and roast him, skin and all. Now isn’t that terrible?
Am sending today package number three, so let me know if any don’t reach you. In it are some striped bags that I think are so pretty and will make nice presents. They are woven by hand by the Igarotes, and the black one with the long fringe they [wear] on their hips to carry money. Isn’t it good looking?
A bachelor officer, Capt. Davison was staying in the General’s house (in fact he is his aid) and he was so good to us – took me driving a lot of times and gave a big tea for me. A good many families live in tents as there aren’t enough quarters yet for all, so everything is very informal, but so nice. There were a couple of dances, too that Mr. Gary took me to. I certainly do like army life – really believe I have seen more of it than of Navy life. Anyhow I like it heaps better.
It takes twelve hours on the most awful train you could imagine from Baguio here, so last night I was more than thankful to get here, so long as we had to come. Today we sail on the army transport “Warren” around the islands, about a two weeks trip, and do hope when we get back to find some mail from you. Haven’t had a scratch since we left Sydney.
Forgot to say that Mr. Spore, the one I knew at Annapolis, came over several times from [Carito] to see me and took me motoring, etc. and we had some good chats about “old times”.
Oceans of love,
February 17, 1913 Alice
A Shell Which Softens the Light Beautifully
TELEPHONE NUMBER 25
MANILA HOTEL
MANILA, P.I.
CABLE ADDRESS: MANHOCO MANILA
CODES: W.U. AND A.B.C. 5TH EDITION
Sallie dearest:
You can’t imagine how good it was to see real solid land again, and best of all the stars and stripes flying everywhere! This hotel is a wonder – really the lovliest I’ve ever been in considering the climate, etc. It is so suitably built. No ordinary doors and windows at all, but they are made of strips of wood like a lattice, and instead of glass the holes are filled with a shell which softens the light beautifully. These slide back and forth but are open most of the time. My room, which is enormous, and has a lovely stone balcony, looks right out on the harbor, which is filled with men-of-war and liners, and a band on one or the other is playing all day long. Even this is so changed and improved from the way it was when we were here before. The annual carnival, which is the event of the year is on now, and lasts a week, so everything is very gay. People come for it even from China and Japan, but it is more or less just like other carnivals the world over. We have been having the usual round of things, out to several luncheons and dinners, of which I am dead tired – except of the dinners on board the battleships, and I do like them, for there is generally someone I know or have heard of.
There are hundreds of men and women here peddling embroideries, baskets, hats, etc. and I often give them the number of my room, and then sometime during the day they come in, squat on the floor, and show me their things. Even though the baskets are bulky and hard to send, I had to get a few and have already sent them to you to keep for me till I get home. Left the prices on in case you might have to open them at the post office. The tags are in Philippine money, which is just twice ours; that is P.35 is equal to $.17 ½, so you can see how cheap they are, but all made by the natives. I wanted to get lots more, but had such a dreadful time getting paper or boxes to put them in that I soon got discouraged. Have sent two packages so far, so look out for them. There is one brown basket that I thought would be so lovely with a glass jar inside filled with yellow flowers. There are some waists too, and I want you and Mary and Shang each to select the one you like best, and have it made up. The rest with the little card cases you can put away for me. The waists were all three pesos (or a dollar fifty) a piece. Aren’t they pretty for that price! Don’t tell anyone. And the dear little card cases are just $.38 in our money. You will probably recognize a few – Samoan mats and a long basket and a woven thing they sometimes wear around their necks. These were given me the day I left Samoa – and also some napkin rings and poi balls which they twirl in their hands in a certain dance. Thought I might as well send them now, but there will be no duty on anything, as they are all made by natives belonging to the States.
Didn’t finish this in Manila. Came up here to Baguio, twelve awful hours on the train, yesterday and am visiting army people here at camp John Hay. We have a beautiful house with the most wonderful view down through the mountains. We are 5000 feet high and have a fire every evening. That won’t seem funny to you at home now, but if you could have scorched in Manila the way we did and then in so short a time find this change, you could imagine how we appreciate it. Will tell you […] later, but it is more like home than anyplace I’ve seen, and it is the greatest relief to see pine trees instead of cocoanuts.
You can write now c/o Consul General, Yokohama, Japan.
Alice
Grandma has been coming the last two visits all right. Hope she doesn’t take anymore extended vacations.
Half Naked Natives *****
Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen.
Dampfer Prinz Sigismund
Mary dear:
Would have written sooner, but father said he was going to write to you, so thought I’d wait a while. We have been on this ship just three weeks and I’ll be more than thankful when we reach Manila in two days, although the trip has been broken stopping five places and they were all such interesting out of the way places. Never had I imagined that in this day and generation people could be so uncivilized. They talk in the books about the half naked natives, but really they are 99/100, being clad only in the proverbial fig leaf made out of a bit of bark or banana leaf, and that is usually flapping around in the breeze. Around their left arm they wear a band woven of grasses and in this they stick a few flowers, their pipe and a knife. The ones that work for white people add to this collection a bunch of keys and perhaps their spoon. Their hair is so thick and curly that they can just stick a feather or flower straight down and there it stays all day. The captain took us in his launch to some native villages where everything was most primitive, just like the days of Adam and Eve, in fact. They have an awful custom of chewing the beetle nut. It is about the size of a small cocoanut. This they cut open at the top and fill with lime. Then whenever a man dies or is killed, they take the bone from the fore arm and sharpen it. This is used to dig out the lime and beetle nut, and you seldom see a person without his nut and bone, and every minute or two he takes a bite; it makes their mouths, teeth and lips an awful brick red. One thought that always added spice to our excursions was that they are all terrible cannibals and might have grabbed us any minute. After a fight, which the different tribes have quite often, they have continual feasts, because they eat all the people they kill. Fine arrangement, isn’t it. Needless to say, everyone on board is German, and I reign supreme as the only woman. The first four days there was a nun in the 2nd class, and as she couldn’t speak a word of English I got lots of practice in German, because every day I used to talk for several hours with her, and it really is wonderful how much you can learn when you have to, isn’t it? For it wasn’t long before I could talk quite fluently with her and soon mustered up courage to talk to the men and officers and, and now have no fear at all, not that I speak perfectly by any means, but I have lost that quaky, nervous feeling. I have a little dictionary which I never move without, but hope soon to abandon even that.
There was one man on board who has a coffee and rubber plantation at Raboul. When we got there he asked me to drive over it with him, and in a week moment I consented. Well, never have I had such an exciting ride, and I hope never to experience another like it. We had a little two wheeled affair, and a pony that looked most innocent, but started off at forty miles an hour and never stopped, not even when his two hind feet were flying in the air over our heads. We whipped around corners, tore through grass so tall it nearly hid the pony, jumped ditches, bumped over cocoanuts, flew under trees so low I thought our heads would be knocked off, and went where roads never were and never could be. I [was] vainly grasping with one hand the seat to keep from falling out, and with the other trying to hold on my hat and my parasol up and skirts down and endeavoring to carry on a brilliant conversation in German, and to admire his trees. This would have been bad enough, but to add to my troubles the black boy that had brought the pony had insisted on coming too, giving us to understand that it was not to be trusted, so he hung on the back, arrayed as I have already described with the addition of an ivory bar stuck through his nose, a string of shark[‘]s teeth around his neck, and in each ear a boar’s tusk. Suddenly he yelled out, “Big fellow master pull him bull plenty too much”. Then with a few seconds of wild thinking I said gently in my host’s ear, “Traiben Sie das Pferd nicht so sehr!” Now you know that was an awful tax on my mind, but when the black boy discovered that I could understand him, he was delighted and launched forth saying with pride, “Grass belong cocoanut belong me, him go today”. He had just had his hair cut. He called me “one fellow missy” and the German “big fellow master” and said some of the funniest things I have ever heard. One of the Germans who lives there told me that the worst thing that they can think of is being cold, so when you want a glass of ice water you must say – “him cold like hell.”
The captain speaks a little English and one of the passengers too, but I shall shout for joy when we get to Manila, where I can really talk and know I am being understood. You know nearly all of New Guinea, etc. belongs to Germany, so naturally you see nothing but Germans or blacks.
These are flannel flowers and are the national flower of Australia. I had a huge bunch sent me the day we sailed from Sydney. I was awfully sick the second day, but have felt fine ever since even though it has been desperately rough and we have had the racks on the table the whole trip and I was at first really sore and stiff from balancing and bracing myself with the rolling of the ship.
You were a dear to send me the silk stockings, and I was more than glad to get them, especially as they are hole-proof. From your telling me that Arthur said it was the darndest present he ever saw, I fully expected a sachet the size of a postage stamp, or one of these little ribbon arrangements to hold pins.
Have done a lot of sewing on board, and among other things have made the cutest nightdress out of barred flax or some such material, scalloped the neck and sleeves in light blue and across the front worked little half wreaths of flowers in pink, blue and green cross stitch. Lately have been wearing the nicest “garment” which I half copied and half invented called “Chemaloons” – combination of chemise and pantaloons, like this [sketch]. Just like a chemise, only with the little V shaped seam to make the legs. I wear it under my corset, and it is so cool and looks so nice when undressed, as well as being so easy to make. Try it with an old chemise, and see if you don’t like it. Just happened to think that in the states by this time perhaps these are out of style. Everything here is about five years behind time.
Yesterday was the Kaiser’s Geburtstag, and we had quite a celebration on board. Will you send this to the Angel when you’ve finished, because it is getting so rough I can hardly stay in this chair, but will write to her as soon as we get to Manila.
Heaps of love for you and Arthur
Alice
January 30, 1913 At Yap, one place we stopped, they use stone money. A piece worth a dollar is about six feet in circumference and three inches thick with a hole in the middle. Everyone leaves them lying around their “front yards” as there is little danger of anyone carrying them away.
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