It is not at all impossible that some of our distaste for Cebu arose from the fact that, on the several occasions of our visits there, we were coaling, a circumstance which would detract from the Pearly City itself. No sooner were we at anchor than huge _cascos_ came alongside and the coaling would begin.
Inky black shapes flitted back and forth through great clouds of dust, each carrying a basket on its head. Hoarse commands were shouted, demoniacal voices answered somewhere from the pit, and then would come a period of comparative quiet, followed by what seemed to be a burst of frenzied rage from the different lighters, though in reality I believe the natives were on the best of terms, and were just inviting each other to dinner. This state of affairs continued without intermission for eight days on each of our several visits there. For eight days the soot fell alike on the quarter-deck and the forecastle. The ship became a black abomination. The very towels in our staterooms left grimy, unpremeditated streaks on face and hands.
During this period I do protest that we suffered those torments usually reserved for the unregenerate, and as the furnace over which the town is built was several degrees hotter each trip than on the previous visit, we were thus precluded from going ashore to either of the badly managed hotels for which the place is infamous.
So dangerous was the country around Cebu in those days that one afternoon on a little drive to an encampment about four miles from the town, we were escorted there and back by a guard of armed soldiers on horseback, some of them heading the cavalcade, the others bringing up the rear. It was a most unusual day for Cebu, as the slightly overcast sky made the temperature quite endurable. The country passed on our drive was unusually fine, with its groves of palms and plantains; its tall cottonwood-trees by the road-side, the ripe pods on the bare branches bursting and showing the soft, white fluff within; its giant mango-trees with bonfires built beneath them, as a quick method of ripening the fruit for market. Then there were acres of corn and fields of rice ready for harvesting, proving conclusively, as some one suggested, that the natives of Cebu could raise something besides h---, though he had never believed it before.
