# Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 9

I should like to say here, by way of explanation, which may or may not be necessary, that I am not trying in this narrative to pose as a woman endowed with an especial comprehension of such problems of state as men alone have been trained to deal with. I confess only to a lively interest in my husband's work which I experienced from the beginning of our association and which nothing in our long life together, neither monotony, nor illness, nor misfortune, has served to lessen; and it would be practically impossible for me to write a record of memories in which he did not figure very largely.
In the settlement of American control in the Philippine Islands Mr. Taft, first as President of the first legislative Commission and, later, as Civil Governor, had to contend with a varied and complex resistance which it would be difficult for one not experienced in politics to comprehend. If it had been Filipino resistance only it would have been fairly easy to overcome, but Filipino resistance was indirectly sanctioned and directly assisted by a strong opposition in the United States to what seemed to us who were on the ground to be the only sensible and really patriotic measures possible under the circumstances.
For reasons which I have tried to convey, as clearly as I am able, my husband was not in favour of a continuation of military rule in the Islands beyond the time when military activity was imperative, nor was he in favour of abandoning a problem which grew daily more difficult and more complicated. So he and his colleagues persisted in the tremendous task of settling a whole people under a sane and sensible form of government.
PHILIPPINE NON-CHRISTIANS. A BONTOC IGORROTE (TOP, LEFT,) A MORO AND TWO KALINGA CHIEFS (WITH SHIELDS)
There was always something new to be talked over at our family table, or during the long evening hours on the verandah overlooking the Bay and, in spite of the fact that much of our “news” presented itself in the form of fresh delays and exasperating difficulties, life was very entertaining.
Not long after we returned from our trip through the South Mrs. J. Franklin Bell invited my sister Maria and me to go with her on an expedition, on which she expected to accompany her husband, through the mountains of northern Luzon which are inhabited by non-Christian tribes only. General Bell was commander of troops in the North and this was to be an inspection trip. It meant several weeks on horseback, over dangerous trails where, in parts at least, no white woman had ever been, but we were most anxious to go. The trouble was that I had never ridden in my life, so I looked with considerable trepidation to the prospect of a long and necessarily intimate association with a horse. I brought the proposition up in family council and my husband advised me, by all means, to go. I should probably have gone without this advice, but it was comforting to have it because if anything happened I could “blame it all on him.” In fact, I began to do this even before I left. When my courage dwindled a little I promptly told him that it was all his fault; that if he hadn't urged me to go I never should have thought of such a thing; but that as long as I had promised I should have to see the adventure through, though I knew I should never survive it. He only laughed ​and assured me that we would have a glorious time and that the trip would do us “all the good in the world.”
Major Stevens, who expected to accompany us, brought me an American horse, of formidable dimensions, and volunteered to superintend my first encounter with him. He was as gentle as a lamb. I wouldn't let him go faster than a walk the first evening and the fact that I was pretty stiff at the end of my ride made me almost hopeless. The second evening I let him out a little, and began, much to my surprise to enjoy the exhilaration of the exercise. By the third evening I had progressed so far that I decided for myself that the poor old beast had no speed in him at all.
We took a Spanish steamer, the Salvadora, from Manila up to Vigan, where General Bell was stationed, and, though I am glad to have had the experience, I shouldn't care to repeat it. When we got on board we were shown at once to a most promising-looking stateroom, quite spacious, and with four berths in it. The trip to Vigan was to take from Thursday to Saturday and we were glad to note that we were going to be quite comfortable. But our self-congratulations came to a sudden end. Upon inspection we found the room was indescribably dirty, the beds were without sheets, the pillows were like rocks, there were insects galore, and the thermometer stood at 110 degrees. Ventilation was out of the question because the room opened into a sort of public saloon where innumerable Filipinos, in various states of undress, slept, stretched out on the floor, on the tables, on chairs, on anything that could serve as a resting place. The second night I got the Captain's permission to sleep on the bridge, since the decks, too, were covered with a miscellaneous crowd and were rendered additionally uncomfortable by odoriferous strings of cabbages and other vegetables which hung from the awnings.
The food on the ship was all Spanish; indeed, I might say, terribly Spanish; still, I was rather used to it and didn't ​mind much as long as I could get into a wind-swept corner of the deck to eat it. But there were some American women on board who had just come out from the United States and they complained violently.
We were put ashore early Saturday morning; much earlier, in fact than we had been expected to arrive. We had to drive three miles before we reached the Bells’ house,and when we did get there we were delighted to find that they were just having breakfast. They were eating real, human food and, however heroically we had adapted ourselves to the peculiarities of Spanish cookery, there was nothing we stood so much in need of. They were a most homelike and comfortable-looking party, Besides the General and Mrs. Bell there were two young officers, Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Nolan, and a young lady whose name was Miss Bubb, a daughter of Gencral Bubb, and whose general characteristics had won for her the nickname of “Bubbles.”
The first thing we learned was that Mrs. Bell would, after all, be unable to go with us on the trip through the mountains. She was not at all well and the doctor had forbidden it. We were greatly disappointed. Mrs. Bell is so jolly and full of fun that she is an addition to any party, and on such an expedition as we were contemplating we were sure to miss her tremendously. But, the party was all made up. General Bell was to take command; “Bubbles” was going; then, in addition to my sister and me, there were Major Rice, Major Stevens, Captain Shearer and Captain Haight—eight in all.
First let me say that the northern part of the island of Luzon bears just about as much resemblance to the rest of the archipelago as the Alps bear to the plains of Nebraska. We began to notice the difference even at Vigan, though Vigan is at sea-level and is as hot as a sea-level town is supposed to be in that latitude. But it feels and looks like a little foreign city; foreign, that is, to the Philippines. Its ​houses are well built of ancient-looking stone, with heavy red-tiled roofs; its streets are narrow and crooked and it has a fine plaza filled with fire-trees which, when I saw then first, were in full bloom. There is no way to describe the magnificence of a grove or avenue of fire-trees. They make a veritable cloud of flame which, seen against a background of blue hills, or overhanging the mouldy, old-world grace of a Spanish church and convent, fairly “takes one’s breath.” The world-famed cherry trees of Japan, wonderful as they are, seem pale and soulless in comparison. I wonder the Spaniards didn’t line the streets of Manila with fire-trees and make for themselves the reputation of having created the most amazing city m the world.
While we were at Vigan, and before starting on the long trip, we made an excursion to Bangued, in the province of Abra. Mrs. Bell went with us. This town, a short time before, could be reached only by raft up the Abra River, no launch ever having been built that could go through the rapids, but the establishment of an Army post made necessary the building of a piece of road which shortened the journey at the Bangued end. The first part of the trip, however, had still to be made by water and all the supplies for the soldiers were sent up on a fleet of twenty or more rafts which started out together every morning. When there was a breeze each of them would run up a sail of bright, striped Igorote cloth.
We had a grand raft with a bamboo awning. And there were comfortable rattan chairs, to say nothing of a picnic luncheon and a carefully wrapped and jealously guarded box of ice. Ice was the rarest of all luxuries in the provincial towns of the Philippines in those days.
We moved very slowly against the current of the swift-flowing river, but we had no desire to hurry. It was really enchanting. From narrow, pebbly beaches on either bank rose rugged cliffs which seemed to tower mountain high, ​
| ON THE LONG TRAIL IN NORTHERN LUZON. MRS. TAFT SECOND FROM THE LEFT | MR. TAFT AND CHARLIE ENJOYING THEIR FAVOURITE EXERCISE |
At eleven o’clock we reached the village where the road begins and the whole population gathered around in curious groups and gazed at us. White women were still a novelty in that region and I’m sure we looked much more peculiar to them than they looked to us. There were crowds of school children from the new American school, and one very much embarrassed little girl, who had had her English book only about four months, read some English for me very nicely. Likely as not that same little girl has by this time won a normal school certificate and is herself teaching English in an “American” school. Such is the history of many of her generation.
When we reached Bangued the young men in the command of Major Bowen, who was our host, gave up their house to the ladies, and we had three comfortable beds, with mosquito nets, in a large, airy room. It was a fine afternoon for a siesta because it rained in torrents for the rest of the day and the patter of rain on nipa thatch is a soothing sound. The young men’s house was just across from the ​Major’s and by evening the street was such a river that we had to be carried over for dinner. But nobody minded; and we enjoyed even the music of the native band which stationed itself down under our windows and enlivened the occasion with a wonderful medley of sound. When the bandmen came upstairs for refreshments Mrs. Bell and two of the young officers ran down and tried their powers on the instruments, and I can only say that the result was joyful pandemonium.
The next morning we left our hospitable hosts and, escorted by Lieutenant Ingram, made the return trip all the way down the river. The water was high and, though it had taken us an interminable time to go up, it took only three hours and a half to go down; and some of the rapids were most exciting. We took our lunch basket and chairs ashore on a lovely, green, shaded knoll and dallied there for several hours. Only a month before nobody, who was not compelled to, ever went over this route on account of the danger of being shot, but the last of the Abra insurgents had surrendered, and so safe did we feel that we were absolutely unarmed.
If I should try to write a detailed account of this expedition I am afraid I could not avoid conveying the idea that we encountered nothing but a continuous downpour. It was the “rainy season” and we were wet most of the time, but Mr. Taft was right when he promised that we would have a glorious time and that the trip would do us a “world of good.” Down in the heat and the political turmoil of Manila I was taking things much too seriously, while up in the far-away north there was nothing to do but dismiss all worry and accept things as they came along. After we left Vigan on the long trail the only way we could get even a letter through was by messenger who had to travel hundreds of miles through a most difficult country. So I enjoyed myself thoroughly, as did every one else in the party, hardships and ​physical discomforts seeming only to add to our gaiety.
At first I thought that my riding lessons in Manila were not going to do me much good. We had had a most luxuriously easy time in the beginning. We left General Bell’s house in an Army ambulance, instead of on horses, for our first day’s journey on the “long trail”’ General Bell was in command and he knew what he was doing. All he had to do was to issue orders; we obeyed. That is what it is to go camping with a soldier. One learns what discipline means.
We were permitted to take with us only such things as were absolutely necessary. Even then, the “absolute necessities” which we eventually discarded as useless impedimenta would have made a long list. Everything was done up in waterproof bundles and when we started out these were stuffed so full that they would hardly fasten, but they grew slimmer as time went on. The most important articles, we found, were our slickers and wraps. It was wet and cold and we had to have them, but all our toilet appurtenances together went easily into Miss Bubb’s saddle-bags.
The first day we forded a river—the same river—several times, and, finally, we had to cross it on a raft which was so small that it could carry only one thing, or one person at a time. My sister, Miss Bubb and I sat on the bank above the ford for more than two hours waiting for all our things to get across. While we waited many natives came along driving carabaos, and it was amusing to see the two-wheeled, awkward carts hustled onto the swaying raft—one thing after another falling into the river—while each poor old carabao was forced to swim, dragged along by his master who held fast to a string attached to a ring in the animal’s nose. If I had been able to speak the dialect I would have said: ‘Your friend the Carabao, being a water-buffalo, could probably swim the river much more easily without your assistance.” I have had to look on and suffer at many ​things in the Philippine Islands merely because I was unable to speak a dozen-odd different dialects. In the provinces Spanish was seldom of any use because the common tao knows little or nothing of it, and it is with the common tao that one wishes there to communicate.
On our first day’s journey we did thirty-seven miles in a jolting Army wagon, but the air was so invigorating, and we were having such a good time, that we were not exhausted. We didn't even murmur when we were told to be ready to start at four the next morning.
This was at Candon and we were joined there by Major Stevens, which made our party complete. The next evening, at Concepción, we camped in a lovely, new nipa-thatched house which had been built by a man who was known generally as “Windy” Wilson, an Army captain. We were extremely thankful for the shelter, because it was raining as it can rain only in northern Luzon and we had every reason to believe that this would be the last house we would be permitted to occupy for many a day. We were striking straight into the mountains and our shelter-to-be was a small field tent slung on the cargo saddle of a commissary mule.
Captain Wilson’s house was quite spacious. It had two rooms; one small and one large one. The ladies slept in the smaller room on Army cots, while the four stalwart officers of our military escort stretched themselves out on blankets and slickers on the split bamboo floor of the larger room. The walls and partitions were of woven nipa palm leaves, known locally as suali, while the two windows were made of braided bamboo and were set in grooves so, when we wanted to open them, all we had to do was to give them a gentle shove. There were no “trappings of civilisation,” but we managed to be perfectly comfortable.
AN IGORROTE HEAD DANCE, AND A COMPANY OF CARGODORES WITH THEIR DOGS, WHICH ARE TO BE KILLED FOR FOOD
In my diary, which I kept on that trip, I find that at each stopping place I have solemnly set down the observation that: "the scenery to-day was the finest we have yet found"; and when we reached Sagada I took the trouble to record for my own future reference that: "I shall not rest until Will has seen it." He never has.
At Sagada we found ourselves quite far up in the Igorrote country, where Filipinos as a rule, do not go. We had come from Cervantes over a trail where the horses cautiously ​kept to the inside, and where we were told to let go of our inner stirrups so, in case a horse went over the edge of the precipice its rider would have a chance of falling clear on the terra-firma side instead of being hurled out into open space. There are a great many people who have to be taken over such trails blind-folded, but there were no dizzy-heads among us, and as each turn of the way revealed to us different and more wonderful views, we filled the day with exclamation points.
Here and there we met bands of Igorrotes, marching “Indian file,” carrying great bundles of rice up short-cut mountain trails, which wound through the rice terraces and were “as steep as the side of a house.” All the men had long, murderous-looking spears, while the women were evidently the burden-bearers. Along the main trail we came, now and then, upon a company of men leading home a whimpering and pitiful little pack of very thin dogs. We knew these were to be killed and eaten and, naturally, the thought was sickening, but in the Igorrote country the dog-loving white man has to get used to this. Some day, perhaps, it will be different, but not until herds and flocks have been substituted and entirely new ideas have patiently been instilled into the minds of these people. For the time being dog flesh is their most cherished article of diet.
Bureau of Science, Manila.
VIEWS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY IGORROTE RICE TERRACES. PRACTICALLY ALL OF NORTH CENTRAL LUZON IS CULTIVATED IN THIS MANNER
Bontoc, which we reached after a day's weary, wet riding over slippery trails from Sagada, is the capital of what is now known as the Mountain province. For the first time in their known history the Igorrotes are united under one central government, each tribe having its lieutenant governor—an American always. There are the Benguets, the Bontocs, the Ifugaos, the Ilongots, the Kalingas and others, and they have been engaged in inter-tribal warfare since time began, their chief pleasure being derived from the taking of each other's heads. When I went into the Igorrote country headhunting was still in full force and houses were still decorated with festoons of human skulls, while no man ever ventured forth, even to his rice-fields, without his spear and shield and head-axe. They all carry spears even yet, but head-hunting, having been made by the American government a capital offence, is not so popular. Mr. Dean C. Worcester, as Secretary of the Interior, in direct charge of all wild tribes, actually succeeded in introducing substitutes for the sport in the form of baseball and other inter-tribal athletic contests and peaceful, though rough and strenuous pastimes. For fourteen years Mr. Worcester was to these children of the hills a most highly respected Apo-apo,—chief of chiefs.
Miss Bubb, my sister Maria and I were the first white women who ever set foot in Bontoc and to say that we created a sensation is to describe our reception too mildly. We were the guests of three American miners who had a comfortable house and who, having lived among the Igorrotes ​for a long time—one of them for more than a year without visiting civilisation—could give us much interesting first-hand information. The people gathered around us in hordes, but they kept at a respectful, not to say a reverential, distance. I think they were afraid of us; especially the women, not one of whom would let us look at her baby. But we were used to that. Many Christian Filipinos believe firmly in the "evil eye." There was one little dwarf who was bolder than the rest and who followed us everywhere He was like a little, brown, toy-child, beautifully formed, and looking not more than one year old, but we were told that he was at least fourteen.
Everybody wanted to give us things. The evening I arrived I received a present from one of the headmen, of three live chickens, and the next day, as we were picking our way through the native village, another man ran after me and, very graciously and gracefully, presented me with two fresh eggs. We learned to say "mapud," which means "good," and, in connection with smiles and gestures, found. it served us famously for all purposes of social intercourse.
Bontoc is in a deep valley, on the bank of a wide, swift river and surrounded by close sheltering hills, so it is not as cold as it is in Sagada and some other places we visited; but it is cold enough, and I failed to understand how the natives could live in a state of almost complete nakedness. But they do and, in fact, all these people do, even in the coldest regions. The Bontoc Igorrote wears a very bright-coloured clout called a "G-string" with a heavy, brass chain around his waist, while his long, black hair is tucked into a little, flat, straw hat which is fastened, in some mysterious way, on the back of his head. They nearly all wear heavy, brass earrings which make their ears unsightly, and the Bontoc "dandy" usually has a long, black, homemade and half-smoked cigar tucked behind one ear for all the world like the pencil of an absentminded bookkeeper.
​We had canyaos, or bonfires with "head-dances," and all the strange varieties of entertainment provided by the village headmen. The musical instrument of the Igorrote is called a ganza, which is a round brass gong with a handle made of a human jaw-bone, upon which the "musician" beats a rhythmical measure with a soft, padded mallet as he whirls and twists in his fantastic dance. These ganzas—some of them very old,—are tribal rather than individual property and it is very difficult to induce their owners to part with them. Their value is computed in carabaos instead of in rice, or in dollars and cents. If you should ask an Igorrote how much he would take for his ganza, especially if it were one associated with tribal history, he would very likely look smilingly solemn and say: "One hundred carabao," or any other prohibitive number that might happen to occur to him. This is a form of racial pride and deserves respect.
We went from Bontoc back through Sagada to Cervantes, and then started down the long, narrow trail straight through the mountains to Baguio. At Cervantes we received our first messages from Manila and, among other things, was an order to Major Stevens to report for duty. His going gave us an opportunity to send letters down and report ourselves alive and not at all anxious to get home, but we didn't like losing the Major. We had, by this time, become a very well-acquainted, well-disciplined and congenial party and we disliked seeing the beginning of the end of our expedition. General Bell directed everything and joined in our sports and foolishness whenever he could do so without endangering the dignity of the "corps," but, while he was kindness itself, he was so strict with the young officers that we had sometimes to steal our opportunities for relaxation.
A few hours' riding south from Cervantes are some famous copper mines which were owned by a Spanish syndicate. We turned off in their direction and came into a most ex​traordinary country. The whole face of the landscape looks like corroded copper, and the great, scarred gulches where the ore has been taken out make one think of chaos, or dreams of an inferno. I don't know how to express an idea of bigness in a mere touch of description as I pass on through the story of this trip, but I want to convey an impression of overwhelming size in everything. It is a great, wild world where one sees miles in every direction and where nature seems to have done everything on a gigantic scale.
A mile or so beyond the copper mines we came upon a veritable mountain paradise,—from our point of view, at least. It was the home of Don José Mills, a Spaniard who, some unknown reason, had banished himself to this out-of-the-world spot and, with what labour and pains can only be imagined, had made for himself a civilised abode. I was shown to a room all by myself, which had in it a real bed with springs and a mattress. It was the first one I had seen for I don't know how long. I regarded it with great curiosity at first, then I sat down on it most respectfully. I lay down and stretched myself out; then I pulled up a soft blanket and, though it was only midday, nothing short of the gravest emergency could have induced me to move. The emergency presented itself, finally, in the form of luncheon and I discovered that Don José had returned hurriedly from Candon in order to entertain us and that he had brought with him everything in the form of food and liquid refreshments that he could find. The result was a triumph, and we decided that we should like to remain under his hospitable roof indefinitely.
Bureau of Science, Manila.
IGORROTE CHIEF PROUDLY DISPLAYING HIS HOUSE DECORATIONS OF HUMAN SKULLS AND CARABAO HORNS
Bureau of Science, Manila.
BONTOC IGORROTES WITH GANZAS, SHOWING HANDLES MADE OF HUMAN JAW-BONES
Up at Sagada we came upon the only bed of mint that any of us had ever seen in the Philippines, and as General Bell had almost an inspired knowledge as to what mint was originally intended for, this gave us material for three new verses:
It was a free-for-all composition contest; anybody was likely to produce a new verse, or even a whole new song with a different tune, at any moment, and we shortened many a long mile with such nonsense.
At Don José's we not only sang all our songs for the benefit of our host, but one of our number produced a harmonica, on which he played very well indeed, and we had an impromptu baile. Then we "dropped the handkerchief," ​"followed the leader," gave some original renderings of German Grand Opera, played Puss-in-the-corner, and finished the evening with our feet on a fender before a great, open fire, recounting, with much appreciated embellishments, our interesting experiences.
We knew we should not find any place as delightful as Don José's again,—not even in Manila, because Manila would be hot, so it was with great reluctance that we obeyed orders to be ready to leave the next morning at six. This meant getting out of our comfortable, civilised beds at five o'clock, while the stars would still be out, and when the ashes of our evening's fire would be cold and grey on the hearth. It was a cheerless thought, but we had to "get to Loo" said General Bell.
It was raining—of course—and there was not much scenery visible except when the clouds would float upward, now and then, like veils lifted off grand panoramas, but by this time we had ceased to consider the weather. When we got to Loo we found the "town" consisted of just two empty log huts, one with a plaited reed floor, the other with no floor at all, and neither of them with any sort of partition. We stretched a rope across the middle of the better one, hung Igorrote blankets on it by way of a screen, and prepared to make ourselves comfortable on the, fortunately flexible, floor; ladies on one side, gentlemen on the other. But along late in the afternoon a pack train of mules and Igorrotes and orderlies arrived from the south bringing us the astonishing news that the Commissioners were only a few miles behind and expected to camp that night at Loo!
The rain had settled down into a dreary, soaking patter; it was cold; we were all wet; there was no place for a fire; and, altogether, we were fairly uncomfortable.
The Commissioners, Mr. Worcester and Mr. Moses, with their private secretaries and a doctor—five in all—came along about an hour behind their pack train. They ​straggled in one by one, very grumpy, and we decided right away that they had not been taught, as we had been, to make the best of everything and to cultivate sociability on the trail. They had had a much more difficult day's riding than we because the trail up is much harder than the trail down, but we were pretty certain, on the whole, that we were much the better managed party.
With more Igorrote blankets we arranged another partition in the hut to make room for them, then we gave them a good hot dinner—cooked in the tent which had been put up for kitchen purposes—and immediately a social thaw set in. We got all the news from Manila that we were so anxious for, and all the latest gossip. The news was disquieting. A cablegram had come announcing that the Supreme Court had decided there should be no duties in Porto Rico against United States imports, and instructing the Commission to suspend all legislation in the Philippine Islands until further notice. This might mean anything, but whatever else it meant it certainly meant renewed uncertainty and the possibility that no change in the government would be made until after Congress met.
The politics of the situation were extremely complicated and seemed to revolve around a question which, because of a rather pugnacious manner of expressing it, had become a popular clamour. The question was: "Does the Constitution follow the Flag?" In other words, really, could duties be collected on imports from one American port to another? In any case, the question in respect to us was one for Congress to answer and it seemed to me we were facing another long period of uneasiness and delay.
We knew the entire Commission had expected to make a trip in June for the purpose of organising the Christian provinces in the far north beyond the Mountain Province, but they were halted by the order to suspend definite activities, and Commissioners Worcester and Moses had taken advan​tage of the "breathing spell" to run up into the mountains and inspect proposed routes for roads and railways. That is how we happened to encounter them at Loo. We shared their opinion that one of the greatest things that could be done for the country was to make the mountains of central Luzon, with their glorious climate, easily accessible. The trails as we found them were mere paths worn by the feet of Igorrotes and, besides being very narrow, were at such grades as to make them in many places all but impassable. The party, highly representative of American authority in the Islands, as it was, sat around on the bamboo floor, huddled up in blankets, and talked long into the night about hopes and fears and governmental problems of great difficulty and importance.
We left Loo at six o'clock in the morning and after eight straight hours of the hardest work we had yet been called upon to do, we arrived at Cabayan. According to my own diary: "I was completely tired. The greater part of the way we rode through beautiful pine forests, but up and down hills as steep as the side of a house; across rivers, and up a waterfall." This sounds like pretty heavy going, but my account of it written at the time was, I am sure, only slightly exaggerated. I remember distinctly that from Loo to Baguio, five full days, we walked a great part of the way; and not only did we walk, but we rendered necessary assistance to our horses which, giving out one by one, had to be dragged up the steep grades and "eased" down the opposite sides in a way that would have been highly ludicrous had we been engaged in anything but a very serious business. Only the steady old mules plodded along "without a word," and found their own way in safety around the dangerous turns.
Bureau of Science, Manila.
THE BENGUET ROAD BEFORE AND AFTER COMPLETION. NOT THE MOST THRILLING CURVE ON THIS SPECTACULAR HIGHWAY.
The Igorrotes grew less and less interesting as we went along and displayed few evidences of the industry and thrift which characterise the more northern tribes. The mountains are higher and the scenes are broader and more wonderful at the southern end of the range, but the only cultivation we came upon was in the villages and along the banks of the little rushing streams. It was evident that we were approaching “civilisation.” Here and there we went through small groves of coffee trees, beautiful in a wealth of snow-white blossoms, but evidently deserted, and wretchedly ragged and unkempt.
Baguio, now the summer capital of the Philippine Islands, the “Philippine Simla,” as it is so often called, lies at the top of what has become justly celebrated as “the magnificent Benguet Road,” the building of which has been the subject of more controversy than almost any other one thing that American authority and enterprise has accomplished in the Islands. The Benguet Road when I first saw it was known as “Mead’s Trail,” so named in honour of the engineer who made the original survey for it, and in some places it was nothing more than a thin line drawn against perpendicular cliffs to indicate where cutting was to be done.
Let somebody else argue the question as to whether or not this road has justified the faith of the men who built it. My husband and his colleagues were responsible for the beginning of it and Mr. Taft authorised the payment of the large sums of money which went into it, but he does not in the least object to honest criticism of the project. His only ​question is: "How else could we have accomplished what we did?" For which there is no satisfactory answer. I have ridden over it since it was completed and, in common with a majority of those who have enjoyed this privilege, I am strongly prejudiced in its favour. There are few, if any roads in the world more spectacular, or which represent a greater triumph of engineering skill. Fairly hewn out of the almost solid, but too crumbling, walls of the Bued River Canyon, it winds for about seventeen miles through constantly changing scenes of extraordinary grandeur, then it strikes the foothills of the mountains and rises in a succession of splendid upward sweeps to an altitude of more than five thousand feet in less than six miles.
The Benguet Road was originally a railway project and was to have been built by the British company which owns the Manila and Dagupan Railway. But this syndicate wanted a perpetual grant and a guarantee from the government which could not then be given. It was necessary, in any case, to build a wagon-road before railway construction could be started and Captain Mead, who was sent out at the head of a surveying party, reported that such a road would cost at least $50,000, or $75,000. The Commission appropriated the $50,000 and issued orders to have the work begun, fully expecting to have to add another $25,000 before the road was finished. Nobody knows what character of road Captain Mead had in mind when he made his estimate, but it transpired that nothing short of first-class construction would last through even one heavy rain. Besides, the Bued River Canyon had to be spanned six or eight times with tremendous suspension bridges, and before the project was completed an unwilling government had spent something like $2,500,000 on it. This was spread over a period of years, of course, and much of it went for necessary improvements or for the replacement of storm-wrecked bridges and ​graded sections, but its enemies like to refer to it as our two and a half million dollar road.
The Manila and Dagupan Railway company extended its road up to the point where the Benguet Road begins and thus a way was opened into the only region in the Philippines where one may find really invigorating air. And while the road was building Baguio development began. A United States Army Camp was established on a ridge overlooking a wide range of pine-covered hills, and a hospital was erected for the accommodation of invalid soldiers who, before these facilities for taking care of them were provided, had always, at great expense to the government, to be sent back to the United States. A civil hospital and tuberculosis camp were opened; good hotels under private ownership soon took the place of field tents and rough board shacks; markets and stores were started, bringing in supplies in wholesale lots, and fair-sized buildings soon began to go up in a substantial business section; people began to build houses as rapidly as builders could be found to do the work; churches and schools began to appear where nothing was before; a summer camp for the recuperation of thousands of public-school teachers was started in a high valley carpeted with pine-needles, and lecture courses for vacation instruction were instituted; a country club was organised with golf links, a baseball diamond, polo grounds, tennis courts and everything that goes to make a country club successful. The plan of the city was drawn by Architect Burnham of Chicago, who visited Benguet for the purpose, and a great central plaza was provided with artistic, but inexpensive buildings for the accommodation of the two branches of the government. Cottages in rows went up almost overnight; rich Filipinos and a few Americans built fine homes; beautifully metalled drives began to wind in and out and over and around the hills, and a high-class government automobile ​'bus line was put on the Benguet Road which is the delight of every American or other foreigner in the Islands, as well as of many hundreds of Filipinos who annually take advantage of this wholly novel opportunity to reach a salubrious climate in their own land, and by a route which in any European country would attract scores of thrill-seeking tourists.
And so the Philippine Simla was begun. Its friends, or, in other words, most people have dreams of a great future for it when it shall be a thriving, prosperous city and a health resort for everybody "east of Suez" who needs to seek near by a temperate and invigourating climate.
It is six years since I saw Baguio, for I visited it the last time in 1907, but even then I could not believe that it was built on the ground that I had ridden over and found practically uninhabited only six years before. At that time a provincial government had been organised, and an American, Mr. Phelps Whitmarsh, who was a writer and had lived among the Igorrotes a long time, was appointed governor. But he was governor of a wild-tribe province which did not then boast any greater signs of civilisation than winding foot trails and a few groups of low-thatched huts which were known as towns.
THE ZIGZAG. HOW THE BENGUET ROAD CLIMBS TO AN ALTITUDE OF OVER 5000 FEET IN SIX MILES. ​floor and we were not only quite frozen but we were thoroughly smoked.
At Baguio we got letters and telegrams from Manila and one of the telegrams announced my husband’s appointment as Governor of the Islands, so I knew that an adjustment of state affairs had been made and that I should reach Manila to begin a new era in my Philippine experience. Mr. Taft wrote me that the plans for his inauguration were practically complete and that he was issuing cards for a big reception in honour of General MacArthur at our house on the evening of the Fourth of July. This filled me with something like panic, because I didn’t expect to reach Manila until after the first of July and I didn’t see how I could get ready on such short notice to entertain hundreds of people. However, it was not for me to enter a protest on such a score, so it was decided that we would go down as soon as we possibly could.
We spent two days enjoying the delightful hospitality of our friends in Baguio and in exploring the country round about, and I, after listening to builders’ dreams of what was to be and now is, proceeded to select a site for my own future summer home.
We sat around a roaring fire of an evening and sang all our songs, rather ruefully; we recounted our many adventures, and expressed our sincere regret that our holiday was over; then on the morning of the 25th of June, at the dreary hour of half past four, we mounted our refreshed and rested horses and started down the long Naguilian trail to the coast. I wish only to add that the heat in the lowlands, after our long breath of white man’s air in the mountains, was almost more than we could stand, and I made the fatal mistake of leaving Baguio in a heavy flannel riding shirt and with no thin blouse handy to take its place.