As servants, these boys of ours could teach much to some of their more civilized brethren from Ireland or Nova Scotia now holding sway in American families. They take bossing well, and actually expect to have their heads punched if things go wrong. They don't put their arms akimbo and march out of the house if we mildly suggest that the quality of ants in the cake or the water-pitcher is not up to standard, and actually make one feel at liberty to require anything of them.
And speaking of ants, these little creatures are everywhere ready to eat your house or your dinner right from under you. The legs of the dining-table, the ice-chest, and the sideboard must be islanded in cups of kerosene, and even the feet to one's bed must undergo the same treatment, in order that the occupant may awake in the morning to find something of himself left. Cockroaches are almost equally fierce and, endowed with wings, these creatures, sometimes four inches long, go sailing out the window as you close your eyes and try to step on them. They prowl around at night, with a sort of clicking sound, seeking something to devour, and are apparently just as satisfied to eat the glue out of a book-cover as they are to feed on the rims to one's cuffs or shirt-collars, moist with perspiration.
What the ants don't swarm over the cockroaches examine, and what they reject seems to be taken in charge by the heavy green mould that beards one's shoes, valise, and tweed suits at the slightest suggestion of wet weather.
Visit of the Sagamore--Another Mountain Excursion--The Caves of Montalvan--A Hundred-mile View--A Village School--A "Fiesta" at Obando--The Manila Fire-tree--A Move to the Seashore--A Waterspout--Captain Tayler's Dilemma--A Trip Southward--The Lake of Taal and its Volcano--Seven Hours of Poling--A Night's Sleep in a Hen-coop.
The other day the yacht Sagamore dropped anchor in the bay, her owner and his guests, all Harvard men, having got thus far on their tour around the world. I was sitting on the Luneta, Sunday evening, when I saw those familiar Harvard hat-ribbons coming, and in behalf of our little American colony welcomed the wearers of them to Manila. In return for a dinner or two at the club and a visit to the huge cigar-factories, where three or four thousand operators pound away all day at the fragrant weed, I spent a noon and afternoon aboard the yacht, glad to enjoy a change of fare. The Sagamore is a worthy boat and seems to be loaded up with gimcracks and curios of all classes and descriptions. A collector would positively be squint-eyed with pleasure to see the old vases, carved wood-work, plaques, knives, sabres, pots and kettles that her passengers have picked up all along the way; and it is indeed the only method by which to scour curios from the Orient. The boys thought the Luneta was the best place in its way they had yet seen, and it was as much as I could do to get them away from listening to the artillery-band and looking at the crowds of people in carriages. Three men in a boat of the Sagamore's size make a pretty small passenger-list for a pretty long voyage.