The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1900-03-03

St. Louis Mirror.
Aliaza, Luzon, p. l., Jan. !, 1000.
haps some of you in the United States would
like to know how some of us in the Philip
pines, spent Christmas, chr Did under
stand you to say, s'We would3" Very well,
then. here goes skit, in six chapters, en-
titled,
CHRISTMAS SEVEN THOUSAND MILES
FROM HOME.
Seese:. The ''pueblo'' (village) of Aliaga.
Luzon, Philippine Islands-surrounded for
miles by rice fields, furrowed by innumer-
able creeks and studded here and there with
clumps of bamboo. In the east, in the di-
rection of Cabanatuan. rise the Coraballo
mountains; in the west, toward Tarlac, the
insurgent capital, rise the hazy Tarlac range;
to the southwest, Mount Arayat, towering
into cloudland. stands like mighty sentinel,
a silent witness to recent battles.
OF the several hundred houses and huts in
Aliaga, more than half are without occu-
pants, the owners having fed upon the ap-
proach of the Americans. Indeed, SO sud-
den was their flight that, in some cases, the
advancing troops found meals still the
fire..
The daily tolling of the church bell, and
the simple funeral seen on the streets, con-
sisting of an improvised bamboo stretcher,
the corpse and three or four mourners, are
familiar reminders of the inroad that fever
is making among the natives, who are dying
at the rate of five or six day.
The inhabitants seem cowed, and the only
native display of life is to be found in the
s'Mercado'' (market), where men, women
and children from the surrounding country,
come to barter in and sell eggs, chickens,
pigs and fish; ''bungas" (betel-nuts,) sssam-
palocs'' ian acid, bean-shaped fruit)'
''dayaps'' Qemons), s'Iuyas'' "a ginger-tast-
ing root), ''passionarios" Qarge green fruits
filed with may-pop tasting seeds), ''icmas"
(green leaves chewed with the betel-nui),
and innumerable other native fruits and veg
etables.
Aliaga, hamlet once happy, gay and
prosperous, with houses thrice as many and
population ten times as great-where dance,
music and frolic were wont to hold full sway
to-day bears sad, forsaken appearance.
Aliaga, too, has a war-story! large,
square building hundred yards or SO from
the Catholic church is occupied by a COM
pany of United States soldiers-Co. 1, 24th
U. S. Infantry.
Just in rear of this building is a spacious
house belonging to a Filipino woman,
invalid, who, upon the approach of the
Americans, was hastily carried away on a
litter. In this house live the officers of the
company-Lieuts. Moss and Hay.
AS the natives are not allowed on the
streets after o'clock in the evening, it was
necessary that Padre (Father) Benito Ce-
brero, the Filipino priest, should obtain from
the Commanding Officer permission to have
midnight mass Christmas Eve. Authority
was also given for natives from neighboring
ssbarrios'' (settlements) to enter Aliaga that
night
About ten O'Clock Christmas Eve the
church bells began ringing, and continued
almost necessarily until 1 a. m.
At quarter of twelve Lieut.. HAY and
myself started for the church, which was as
brilliantly Illuminated as would allow
small amount of Oil and fifty or more home
made candles.
Three CT four enterprising Filipinos had
established, in the street in front of the
church, small stands, lighted by solitary
Pickering lights, and where, after mass,
natives C'o"uSd " ouy Puto \SWcet rice
cake,) s'sabaso'' OZARK brown sugar, moulded
into fiat cones), ''maruynas'' Ia kind of
banana frtter), and s'puto- bong bong
(ground rice moulded into short cylindrical
sticks, and eaten with sugar and cocoanut.)
On either side of the walk from the street
to the church, are banana trees. which
were hung crudely made Japanese lanterns,
consisting of three white tissue paper elipses,
fastened together just below the shorter
axes.
The sight within the church was, indeed,
interestingly weird. The main altar and
the space in rear of the chancel rail were
decorated with banana trees, palms and
other tropical plants. To the columns, on
either side of what in American church
would be called the centre aisle, were at
tached Japanese lanterns of the design just
described.
The men, according to the custom of the
country, were dressed in immaculate white,
and stood on side of the church, while
the women, bare-footed, with large white
kerchiefs loosely thrown over their heads,
We're on the opposite side.
There seats in Filipino church.
the men either stand kneel; the women
kneel either erect sitting their heels.
different kinds of bells are simultaneously
rung during the mass.
Filipinos musicians by nature, and il,