Frangipani

“ Big full-blooded Samoan chiefs smile and show their white teeth as they roll banana-leaf cigarettes between their dusky fingers. Across the flat lies Apia town with its one main street; beyond the inland plateaux rise, and far off you can see the moonlit waves breaking into patches like white moss on the level ocean plains.
By the copra and coco plantations are the emigrant settlements, where tired coolies, most of them Malay Indians, rest after their toil. Native women linger near them, for they are generous men those coolies, and give the velvet-skinned native girls sham jewellery. ”

“ Instead of tattered and ludicrously patched negroes of bovine temperament lolling in the shade of as ragged hovels of palm-leaves and jungle rubbish, comparatively well-dressed men and women, ranging in complexion from light brown to pale yellow, sat in chairs on projecting verandas or leaned on their elbows in open windows, staring with that fixed attention which makes the most hardened stranger self-conscious in Spanish-America, yet which, contrasted with the vacant black faces of Haiti, was an evidence at least of human intelligence and curiosity. ”

“ From the Moluccas, Malacca, and India, the Portuguese imported many articles,16 and in return took with them to the Moluccas rice, wine, crockery-ware, and other wares needed there; to Malacca, gold and money, besides a few special trinkets and curiosities from Spain, and emeralds.
Smaller vessels belonging to natives of Borneo also came to Manila, bringing well-made palm-mats, a few slaves, sago, and tibors; large and small jars, and excellent camphor; these articles were bought more by the Filipinos than by the Spaniards. ”

“ The fields that are still uncut have those fat yellow canes with long joints that are the joy of the sugar grower, for the Caroni plain is famed for its fertility. Humped Indian bulls and their tropic-defying offspring dot the pastures and corrals. From Canupia a road leads to Alligator Village, where Hindus may be seen standing naked and motionless on their flimsy little rafts made of woven palm-fronds catching cascadura, the choicest delicacy of Trinidad. ”

“ Nickel, in one hundred reis pieces and higher, is too valuable for most negro transactions. As they say in Bahia, with a black it is “vintem pa’ cachaza, vintem pa’ farinha, e prompto!” (a copper for rum, a copper for mandioca meal, and enough!) He will not work again until he must have more cachaza and farinha. Whenever any real work is required, such as the digging of sewers, paving of streets, or laying of street car tracks, gangs of white Europeans have to be shipped in to do it. ”

“ Before almost all of them stood a little “shop,” a few horizontal sticks raised off the ground by slender poles and shaded by a cluster of brown palm-leaves. Vacant-faced negro men and women, none of them boasting a real garment, tended the establishments squatting or lolling in the patches of shade which the early morning sun cast well out into the roadway. The stock in trade of the best of them would not have filled a market-basket. A cluster of bananas; a few oranges, small, but yellower than those of Cuba ”

“ Balik-Papan, rising tier above tier on the dark hillside, and brilliant with a multitude of flashing lights, looks picturesque as Naples itself, when we steam away in the gathering gloom, and the dazzling illumination, reflected in the tranquil sea, appears a miraculous transfiguration. Oil tanks and warehouses, refineries and factories, vanish under the veil of night, and only a fairy vision of unearthly brightness remains as a final recollection of our brief visit to Borneo. ”

“ They are roofed, however, as are the others, with the palm-leaves called nipa.” (Antonio de Morga, Sucesos.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 16, pp. 117–118.)
34 “The edifices and houses of the natives of all these Filipinas Islands are built in a uniform manner, as are their settlements; for they always build them on the shores of the sea, between rivers and creeks. The natives generally gather in districts or settlements where they sow their rice, and possess their palm trees, nipa and banana groves, and other trees, and implements for their fishing and sailing.” ”

“ Then when the sun has lost its youthful ardor one may climb again to the village and catch the afternoon train over the mountains to the north coast. The region about Highgate almost rivals the beauty of Porto Rico. Cacao, cocoanuts, clumps of bamboo, the spreading breadfruit-trees, whole valleys full of bananas, some of which climb far up the surrounding slopes, decorate the rugged landscape. One looks almost in vain, however, as in all Jamaica, for the queen of tropical vegetation, the royal—or, as the English unimaginatively call it, the cabbage-palm. ”

“ For example, if Francisco wanted a banana he would call for a “batag” (bä′-täg) , but the Manila Filipinos would probably not understand him, as their word for banana is “saging” (sä′-ging) . Due to the widespread influence of the American schools, one can find English spoken in even remote parts of the Philippines, and hence in spite of sixty different native languages, the people now have a common method of speech which can be understood in all sections of the islands. ”

“ The long-drawn vowels and doubled consonants of Italian speech are certain to be heard in every block, though more often as a foreign accent in the local tongue than in the native dialect of the speaker. For the Italian fits more snugly into his environment in the Argentine than in the United States. He finds a language nearly enough like his own to be learned in a few weeks; there is a Latin atmosphere about the southern republic, particularly its capital, which makes him feel so fully at home that he is much less inclined to segregate than in the colder Anglo-Saxon North. ”

“ Almost every language known to man may be heard on the streets and in the shops, and the Filipino, the Japanese, the Chinese, and the East Indian rub elbows with the American, the European, and the African as they all move along the crowded narrow streets.
Francisco found that he must depend upon his knowledge of the English language in order to make his way in Manila; he knew very [98] little Spanish, and his native tongue, Bicol, was almost useless. The Filipinos in this part of the islands speak a language called Tagalog (Tȧ-găl′-ȯg) , which is strikingly different from Bicol. ”

“ Nor is the mania confined to the men: the bright gala-dress of the gitana has become fashionable among high-placed señoras who appear at dance or salon sporting the gaudy Manila shawl with its flowing fringe, short frock, and with hair coiffeured á la Flamenca. To prefer the raciest and most highly-flavoured Spanish dishes, to quaff freely the Manzanilla, to smoke cigarettes, to prefer olives to bonbons, to know the bull-fighters by their pet names, to be loud if not witty, smart in repartee and slang—this is to be Flamenca. ”

“ Mulatto estate owners may have pure white peons working for them; a native octoroon is frequently seen ordering about a Gallego servant from Spain. There is still considerable evidence of Indian blood in the Porto Rican physiognomy, for the aborigines, taking refuge in the high mountains, were wiped out only by assimilation. Then there are Japanese or Chinese features peering forth from many a hybrid face. The Spaniards brought in coolies to work on the military roads, and they mixed freely with all the lower ranks of the population. Yet pure-blooded Orientals are conspicuous by their absence ”

“ When the Japs marched into Manila they decorated the Philippine Falange for the fifth-column job the Falangistas performed for Hirohito. And there are twenty Falangist cells in Latin America for every one cell they had in Manila on December 6, 1941.
"And why not, Dick? It's the Germans who've always run the Falange. Today they run Spain. And they also run the Exterior Falange set-up. Maybe Falangismo as a philosophy is phony as all hell, and maybe its creed of Hispanidad, with all its blah about Latin America returning to the Spanish Empire, is just as phony. ”

“ Here and there, too, were groups of European immigrants still in the costumes of their homelands in the year, in some cases distant, when they left them. Italian colonization succeeded negro slavery closely in São Paulo State, which owes its prosperity and its leadership in the world’s coffee production mainly to these newcomers. In addition to their living quarters and modest wages, the colonos are usually given a piece of ground on which to plant corn, black beans, and mandioca for their own use, and sometimes permission to graze a few head of stock. ”

“ Last year a fragata was despatched from this city to Maluco. Therein were two descalced friars, who were going to that court on business connected with their order; and they carried with them a packet of letters from this Audiencia and your governor. This fragata anchored in a port of the island of Borney, called El Paso; and the natives attacked them, after having given assurance of safety so that they would land. They killed one of the friars, and all the men except three or four Spaniards; and burned the fragata, after having robbed it. ”

“ The extremity of the Peninsula formed the kingdom of Naples, now in the hands of Ferrante I. (1458–1494) , illegitimate son of Alfonso the Magnanimous, of Aragon; while Sicily and Sardinia belonged, with Aragon, to the legitimate branch represented just now by Ferdinand the Catholic (1479–1516) . Always the most disturbed of the Italian states, Naples had in 1485 been the scene of a baronial revolt against the tyranny of Ferrante. The King, indeed, by cunning and ability had triumphed, but his faithlessness and inhuman cruelties had made him most unpopular, and his rule most insecure. ”

“ The Spanish friars are at the bottom of all the trouble in the Philippines. The Aglipayan schism came because of them, and the many revolts that have disturbed the islands for the past three centuries have been because the people wanted native rather than Spanish priests. ”

“ It is true that she has a larger percentage of Spanish blood than any other city of Bolivia, but this is rarely found in its unadulterated form. Some negro and considerable Indian ancestry has left its mark, and while there is not a full-blooded African, or perhaps a full Indian, in town, and Spanish is the universal, if slovenly, tongue, genuine white natives are few in number. As to the beautiful girls and women of popular fancy, they do exist, but certainly in no larger proportion than pearls in oysters. ”

“ Many of the negroes, too, own their small estates and increase their incomes by making jelly from the nutmeg fruit. Yet from the sea all this is hidden under a dense foliage that completely covers the nowhere level island. Along the geometrical white line of the beach are several villages; higher up are seen only scattered huts and a few larger buildings, 358except where the two considerable towns of Goyave and Victoria break the pretty green monotony.
But if Grenada must yield the palm for beauty to some of its neighbors, St. ”

“ Finally, Porto Ricans are little to be depended upon in the matter of time; mañana is still their watchword despite twenty years of Anglo-Saxon bustle. But, for that matter, Americans get hopelessly irresponsible on this same subject after a few years in the tropics.
The unprepared visitor will find Porto Ricans astonishingly white, especially in the interior. There are few full negroes on the island; sixty per cent. of the population have straight hair. Yet there is a motley mixture of races, without rhyme or reason from our point of view. ”

“ Negros Island was entirely opened up by foreign capital. In Manila, the fathers of many of the half-castes and pure natives who at this day figure as men of position and standing, commenced their careers as messengers, warehouse-keepers, clerks, etc., of the foreign houses.
There were a great many well-to-do Spaniards in trade, but few whose funds on starting were brought by them from the Peninsula. The first Spanish steamer-owner in the Colony, a baker by trade, owed his prosperity to the support of Russell & Sturgis. ”

“ Certainly its ancient fascination is gone, and to-day it is nothing but a languid little capital of a stagnant country, the least interesting of any I had seen in South America.
The time-worn assertion that the population of Paraguay is wholly Indian in blood is a decided overstatement. In Asunción one sees at least as many whites as in La Paz. Nor is it true that there are nine women to every man. True, Francia wiped out the old Spaniards for conspiring against him ”

“ The Italians have flocked in from all parts of their peninsula, but the natives of the north take to the land, and furnish a very large part of the agricultural labour, while the men from the southern provinces, usually called Napolitanos, stay in the towns and work as railway and wharf porters, or as boatmen, and at various odd jobs. In 1909, out of 1,750,000 persons of foreign birth in the republic,83 there were twice as many Italians as Spaniards, besides one hundred thousand from France, the latter including many French Basques, who are no more French than Spanish. ”

“ Negroes, of course, are by no means in the majority in the largest of the Antilles, though most Cubans probably have African blood in their veins. In the Oriente may still be found traces of the Siboney Indians. Immigrants from all the varied provinces of Spain, African slaves, Chinese coolies, creoles from Haiti, Louisiana, and Florida, and a scattering of many other races have mingled together for generations; and from this blending of east and west, north and south, tempered by the tropical climate, emerges the Cuban. ”