Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-09-05
A PHILIPPINE ROMANCE.
ADVENTURES IN THE ISLANDS OF
A GENTLEMAN OF BRITTANY.


About the middle of the present
century, when Dumas the elder was
ct the height of his career, and the Or
igin of many an interesting piece of
French literature was delightfully."- un
certain, couple of works appeared
that drew attention to the mysterious
and far-off Philippines. In his "Thou-
sand ard One Phantoms," issued seri-
| ally in the Constitutional, Dumas
made free with fellow countryman
who had been the hero of certain sur
| prising adventures in the Pearl of the
Orient, and the hero thereupon not
caring to figure as phantom in
feuilleton, got out his Adventures of
a Gentleman of Brittany in the Phil
ippines." Some persons, however,
thought the hero would have been
truer to life as the creation of Dumas;
that as q real gentlema1 of Brittany
he was only another living liar, and
that, in fact, his romantic narrative
was the work of new Selkirk and
Defoe combination.
Paul Proust de la Gironniere was
counted in the pedigree of an ancient
Piedmontese family that came over
the st. Bernard and into Brittany in
the days Of Louis XIV, and soon be-
came rich enough to have access to the
nobility and to contract ''the most
| 6attering alliances. Paul's father
was born at Nantes, where his ances-
tors had held high office under the
| crown. His wealth was swept away
bS the revolution; and he died on
piece of land owned by his wife. Paul's
mother gave the boys such education
as she could, and then they went to
| seek their fortune. One died in Mad
aGascar; another returned to Porto
| Rico to die in his mothers arms; the
| husband of one of Paul's sisters died
| in Mauritius, and another brother died
while visiting Paul in the Philippines.
Paul was born at Nantes; he stud
led medicine; and thence, a mere
| STRIPPING, he sailed as ships surgeon
| to the Far East, embarking for the
| fourth time on October 8, 1919, and
casting anchor about the end of May,
1920, in the Bay of Manila. He landed
at Cavite, enjoyed the whirl of Manila
society, studied the Tagafoc, went
among the natives in the mountains,
| began the career of sportsmanship
that was to culminate in hunting the
stag and the buffalo and in killing
| caymans and boa constructors, and fin
| ally allowed his ship to go home and
leave him in the metropolis of the
archipelago.
Ia ho1 b.
dent physician. He faced the fanati-
cism of the cholera massacre of 1920,
and he had clean shirt in his hat and
dollar in his pocket. Finding rich
old don nearly blind, he cured one eye
and made glass ball for the socket of
| the other, and his reputation was
| established. Paul became DIR. Pablo,
and surgeon of regiment of regulars
and of battalion of militia. But
when the leaders of the Novalles re-
bellion of 1923 were shot, he had oc-
casion to call Spanish informer a
coward, and some time thereafter,
having words with the Governor Gen
eral over question of ethics, he re-
| signed and was thenceforth sort of
surgical free lance to the people of
LuZon.
The travels of La Gironniere in the
island, though undertaken incident
ally to professional duty or out ofmere
curiosity or desire to go somewhere,
are scientifically interesting, and will
be as important to the historian as
many of the manuscript accounts that
are rolled up in the cloistral archives.
| He explored caves, lakes, mountain
businesses and immense forests; slept
in treetops and on the tidal sands:
learned The ways of the tribes and
gathered legends; attended the Tin
| guian brain feast; sketched the interior
OF Igorrot huts and carried off the
skeleton of Negro woman.
La Gironniere's most valuable con-
tribution to the civilization of the
island was his colony of Jala-Jala.
Before his resignation had been ac-
cepted, Senor Pablo, who was known
among the natives as Malamit Oulou.
or "Cool Head" had secured of the
Minister of Finance site for model
farm in the mountainous peninsula
that extends southwark into the beau
tiful Lake OF Bay at the head of the
Pasig. Here, with his devoted wife,
and commissioned to subdue as he
might the pirates and banditti of this
wild region, he founded among these
victims of Spain's eytortion and mis-
rule o prosperous and orderly COM
munity. Assisted by these industrious
and loving neighbors, and heartily
seconded by the once dreaded Chieftain
Alila, by Malay-Japanese priest whom
the Archbishop had told him nobody
could ever live with, and by his ever
inspiring Anna, the "Queen of Jala-
Jala," he converted forest and
malarial swamp into thriving town
surrounded with timber land, pasture
grounds, and rich fields of rice, in
digo, sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee.
His herds alone comprised 5000
head of oxen, 800 buffaloes and 600
horses. For the introduction and per-
fection of coffee culture, he received