It is, however, only within these few years that these facilities have been given to those engaged in the trade, as formerly the colonial ships were forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to touch at any place in the Philippines after clearing out for Sooloo from Manilla. In spite of this law, however, few of those engaged in the trade had virtue sufficient to obey it, and pa.s.s these places by, when it was so very much to their interest to complete their cargoes there, which they could not do elsewhere nearly so advantageously. And the only consequence of this absurd old prohibition against their doing so, was to involve many of them in long-pending and expensive lawsuits, which have often ruined prosperous men.
Besides those _wise_ regulations, there existed some other forms equally sensible. For instance, the traders of Bisayao province, who send several small craft to Sooloo, which they are close to, were compelled to make a tedious voyage to Manilla against the monsoon, in order that they might report their cargo for Sooloo and get out pa.s.ses, after which they had to return all the way back again, and at length were at liberty to steer for Sooloo.
However, these foolish restrictions were at length put a stop to, and the trade encouraged, by the Government establishing a custom-house at Zamboanga, where there is at all times a considerable military force.
The Sultan appears to be the most powerful n.o.bleman in the country, rather than the sovereign monarch of it. For although the chiefs of the islands, or Datos, usually acquiesce in appearance to his will, they do so more from fear of his power at the moment than with any idea of his legitimate authority, and in effect they very seldom comply with his decrees.
The entire people are slaves owned by the Sultan and these Datos, who exercise over the unfortunate wretches the worst species of tyrannical power; for as these n.o.bles or _reguli_ are subject to no law but there own caprice, if any slave displeases his master, he can, without the slightest fear of having to give any account of the circ.u.mstance to a living soul, draw his kris, and murder the slave. Of course by so doing, however, he impoverishes himself, as he loses the market price of the day for a slave; or should he murder a slave belonging to some one else, a Dato is only expected to pay the amount he was considered worth by his master, or to give another one of his own in exchange for him.
But, notwithstanding all the insecurity of life and property, the Chinese annually resort to Sooloo in pursuit of gain, and occasionally as many as eight small vessels are seen there at a time, during the busy seasons, for trade, just after the changes of the monsoon.
Some of these Chinamen marry and remain in the country, although every now and then some of them are obliged to flee from it to the Philippines, where the Spanish flag protects them against their tyrannical and barbarous pillagers; for as there is no law to appeal to as a protection against the chiefs, they are quite at their mercy. The Datos themselves decide their quarrels and disputes with each other, by arming and a.s.sembling all their slaves and those of their friends who are willing to help them, and fight it out; but should their disputes run very high, or the feud last for any length of time, some powerful Dato, or the Sultan himself, interferes, and decides it finally by obliging both parties to keep the peace.
The footing on which the trade is carried on with Sooloo is rather a strange one; although regulations have at various times been arranged between the Spanish government and that court, by which, although the Sultan has formally promised to give his guarantee that all goods sold by the traders from the Philippines to the Datos shall be paid for, yet there are very few of the traders at Manilla who consider the pledge of his Highness as of much importance, as it is usually only redeemed when his own particular interest requires it. He is, in truth, generally absolutely unable to make the n.o.bles fulfil their contracts, they being as a body very much more powerful than he is. There being little or no money in Sooloo, the trade carried on by the Chinese supercargos of the ships frequenting the port is princ.i.p.ally transacted by barter, they giving their manufactures for the produce of their fishery, &c., and for edible birds"-nests, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, beche de mer, mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.l, wax, gold-dust, pearls, &c.
The profits of those engaged in this trade are very variable, for although their goods are all disposed of apparently at enormous prices, yet there are so many of them delivered to powerful chiefs, or to the Sultan, as presents, or sold to these dignitaries without the traders ever being able to get paid for them, that in reality the profit of the voyage may he scanty enough, although, were the guarantee of the prince to the Manilla government fulfilled, they might he very large if the prices at which they had been sold were actually paid to them.
If the debts of the Datos are not paid off at once they are allowed to stand over for another year, at which distance of time they are very seldom recoverable, good memories being very seldom met with there.
When the result of an adventure is good, the traders look upon these presents and bad debts as necessary expenses incurred to conciliate the authorities of the place, without whose good-will they would be quite unable to prosecute the trade, and in this sort of commerce the Chinese are adepts, although no Europeans could manage it, or would carry it on while upon such a footing.
The ships most suited for the trade are small vessels, of about 200 tons, and their cargoes consist of an infinite variety of goods, each lot being generally of small value. The invoices of a cargo usually cover many pages of paper, and it is no easy matter to make them up without the a.s.sistance of intelligent Chinese, who have themselves been engaged in the traffic, and are well acquainted with the place and the people to be dealt with.
Some of the princ.i.p.al cotton manufactures sent to that market from Manilla consist of chintz prints, jaconets and mulls, white shirtings, cambrics, bandana, kambaya, and other descriptions of handkerchiefs; also, iron and hardware, gla.s.sware, coa.r.s.e China earthenware, silk, cloths, copper work, &c.
Ships are in the habit of touching at some port of the Philippines, generally the Island of Panay, there to load and fill up with rice, sugar, tobacco, oil, and several other articles in small quant.i.ties. Rice is generally taken from its being always in demand by the Sooloomen, whose habits and feelings little suit them for its production, even when the nature of the country admits of its being grown. The Chinese usually take down a large quant.i.ty of a kind of cloth made in their own country, which habit has subst.i.tuted for money, a piece of it of the usual size being always reckoned as a dollar.
The Sooloomen pay for their purchases in various articles, of which the edible birds"-nests are the most valuable. They are cla.s.sified by the traders as of two sorts: white, and feathered; of which, the first sort is the most valuable, being generally worth about its weight in silver, or if very good, a little more; but should its colour tend to a red or darkish tinge, it is depreciated in value and is not worth so much.
The feathered sort, called so because the edible substance, of which the Chinamen make soup, is covered by the birds" down and feathers, is very much lower in price than the white kind, being worth nearly two dollars a pound, or I believe it is generally roughly taken as being only about one-tenth part as valuable as the white.
Tortoise-sh.e.l.l they collect and sell at very high prices, the bulk of it going over to supply the China market with that article, a small quant.i.ty only being annually sent to Europe.
Beche de mer, or tripang, is a sort of fish or sea-slug, found on the coral reefs, &c., of the neighbourhood, which, when cured and dried, is generally shaped something like a cuc.u.mber.
It is minced down into a sort of thick soup by the Chinese, who are extremely fond of it,--and indeed with some reason, as when well cooked by a Chinaman, who understands the culinary art, the tripang is a capital dish, and is rather a favourite among many of the Europeans at Manilla.
There are thirty-three different varieties enumerated by the Chinese traders and others skilled in its cla.s.sification; for being brought to Manilla in large quant.i.ties for that purpose, for the China market, it has become a peculiar business of itself by the dealers in it, and varies in price, according to quality, from fifteen to thirty dollars per pecul of 140 lbs. English.
The slug, when dried, is an ugly looking, dirty brown-coloured substance, very hard and rigid until softened by water and a very lengthened process of cookery, after which it becomes soft and mucilaginous.
Sometimes the slugs are found nearly two feet in length, but they are generally very much smaller, and perhaps about eight inches might be the usual size of those I have seen, their shape, as before mentioned, strongly resembling a cuc.u.mber. After being taken by the fisherman they are gutted, and then cured by exposure to the rays of the sun, after which they are smoked--over a fire, I believe--when the curing process is completed.
Shark fins, and the muscles of deer, are also exposed for sale by the Sooloo people to their Chinese visitors, by whom they are eagerly purchased for their countrymen"s cookery, both of these articles being very favourite delicacies. The first I have never tasted, although the flesh of a shark, if cut from some particular parts of his body, is far from being bad or unsavoury, if dressed by a China cook. As for the sinews of deer, they are very good, and occasionally met with at Manilla on the tables of Europeans who enjoy the reputation of having good palates.
Mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.l is so well known in Europe, that it is quite unnecessary to remark upon it, more than that those coming from Sooloo are by much the finest and largest sh.e.l.ls of any hitherto known in commerce, being superior to those coming from the Persian Gulf.
Pearls are also brought from Sooloo, but they are seldom of any great size or value.
Gold is brought to Manilla from the same place, both in dust and in small bars, but not in any great quant.i.ty.
The ships engaged in this trade are generally absent about six months from Manilla, which they leave in March or April, and return to, after coasting about and disposing of all their cargoes, in September or October; no new voyages being undertaken by them until the following year.
During June and July, the most active trade is said to be carried on, as the number of traders annually frequenting the island from those in the neighbourhood, is much greater than at other times.
Besides the trade with Sooloo, a ship is absent nearly every year to Ternate, and other places of the Moluccas, where they usually manage to get their goods ash.o.r.e, without paying the heavy duties which the Dutch have imposed upon them. The months of December or January being the usual time for starting for the Moluccas, these traders generally begin the busy season at Manilla by the purchase of grey shirtings and domestics, by adding which to goods very similar to those suited for Sooloo, they are enabled to have two strings to their bow, should the prices in the Moluccas be low; as they can, in that case, stand over to Sooloo in June, when they are usually able to dispose of their investments.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
The insolence of the Sooloo men has at various times drawn down on them the wrath of the Spanish authorities, who, in 1848, and also shortly after I left Manilla, towards the end of 1850, were making arrangements for punishing them, as they afterwards did, with some severity, about the beginning of this year.
The Datos, and their families, are like the old Danes, or Nors.e.m.e.n, born to be seamen; and the barbarous state of their native country preventing the establishment of a mercantile marine, their energies have marked out a scheme of warlike adventure on the sea, to succeed in which their natural quickness and duplicity of character eminently qualify them.
A young Sooloo chief, whose ambitious or restless temper will not permit him to remain an idle man at home, where his pa.s.sions for cruelty and voluptuous excess could scarcely fail to ruin him in a few years--surrounded as he is there by slavish dependents, and fearless of any higher power, whose authority might act as a check on his temper, or force him to control his pa.s.sions--finds that the activity of his mind and body demand more scope for excitement than exists at home; and having a bias for the sea, he becomes a pirate chief, and scours the neighbouring waters in search of honour as well as gain. Under proper influences these men might be taught to divert their roving propensities into more peaceful channels. Fitting out large and fast-sailing proas, manned by their slaves, and officered by kinsmen, their warlike excursions take a wide range, and on some occasions their audacity has led them up even to the Bay of Manilla, landing on the sh.o.r.es of which, they have plundered the people, and carried off some of them to increase the number of their slaves, who const.i.tute their princ.i.p.al wealth and power--daring to do this when so near as to be almost under the very walls of the capital, on which waves the banner of Castile.
On the coasts of the provinces these predatory inroads were not uncommon, till General Claveria, in the beginning of 1848, determined to punish them severely, and to intimidate them so signally, as to prevent any repet.i.tion of these offences. Accordingly, having secretly fitted out an expedition from Manilla on the 13th February, 1848, the steamer on board of which the Governor himself was, anch.o.r.ed between the islands of Parol and Balanguinguy. Next day the transports arrived, and on that and the following day they reconnoitred the islands, and did all the damage they could, by way of reprisal, demolishing several piers, and destroying a large quant.i.ty of paddy which they discovered concealed in a cave in a retired place.
At daybreak, on the 16th February, the troops were disembarked before Balanguinguy under cover of a fire from the ships, and after a little resistance from the Sooloo men--who were excessively frightened by the appearance of the steamers, whose facility of movement they were quite unprepared for--the fort, consisting of bamboo, was taken by escalade after a brave resistance. The attacking force, consisting of about 4000 men, behaved with great coolness and decision, when exposed to the enemy"s fire and missiles of all sorts, such as arrows, javelins, &c. About eighty of the defenders of the place were slain, many of them with the desperate bravery--or ferocity if you will--of men who neither would give or accept of quarter, having first stabbed their wives, children, and useless old men and women. On seeing the success of the Spaniards, they formed themselves into a band, nearly all of whom perished on the points of the soldiers" bayonets, fighting bravely to the last; when the few survivors, seeing their companions dead and dying around them, with all the desperation of pirates, threw themselves from the walls, which were lofty, preferring certain death to the chance of falling into the hands of their enemies alive. Fourteen pieces of artillery were found within the place, which was destroyed, and preparations were made and acted upon for attacking the forts of Sipac and Sungap, both of which were successful.
The Governor, General Claveria, gained at the time a good deal of reputation from his soldierly management of the forces at his disposal; and when the news reached Spain, he was created the _Conde_ of Manilla, &c.
On his return from this expedition, a great deal of absurd parade was, as is usual with the Spaniards, prepared to welcome him; and the General was forced to march under triumphal arches, &c., all of them bearing the most glowing inscriptions to the conqueror of the three bamboo forts from a race of barbarians, most of whom were unprovided with better arms than bows and arrows, spears, &c.; for although they had some small cannon, they could not make a proper use of them. Truly it was a pity to see the good deeds of the Balanguinguy expedition burlesqued by these ridiculous pageants.
The lesson then taught the Sooloo chiefs did not, however, linger long in their memories; for their old habits of piracy, and kidnapping people for slaves, were resumed almost so soon as the Spaniards returned to Manilla.
In 1850, Don Antonio de Urbistondo, Marques de la Solana, came out to Manilla as Governor of the Philippines. He was a man whose whole life had been pa.s.sed in the camp, but his reputation had been gained during the civil wars in Spain, where he fought for legitimacy by the side of Don Carlos against the present queen. Nor did he give up the cause in which he had drawn his sword, until Don Carlos himself lost heart and forsook it, after which Don Antonio took advantage of the clemency of the queen, and swore allegiance to her as his sovereign. His talents as a soldier, although they had been displayed against herself, were rewarded by a marquisate, and afterwards by the government of the Philippines. A person of his character and military education was, of course, a most unlikely one tamely to permit an insult to be offered to the Spanish flag, or an outrage to be perpetrated in the Philippines by the Sooloomen; accordingly, when an instance occurred near the end of last year, prompt satisfaction was immediately demanded from the Sultan and Datos, who, as usual, accused some of their neighbours, with whom they were at variance at the time, of being the authors of it; and invited the Spaniards to seek reparation from them sword in hand. Accordingly an expedition was fitted out, and, with the Governor at its head, sailed for Sooloo in order to awe them, by the alacrity and force which the occasion at once called forth, and to establish a new treaty which would prevent the recurrence of such acts, and the necessity for such expeditions; and it was proposed to punish with no light hand those Tonquiles and others of the Samales whom the Sultan had accused as the perpetrators of the late aggression.
However, on reaching the princ.i.p.al fort of the Sultan Mahomet Pulalon, he found that the Sooloomen would have no communication with him, and that they even threatened the envoys sent among them; and at last, some guns were, I believe, fired on one of the ships. Immediately after this, measures of retaliation were arranged, and were acted upon at once; the place off which the fleet was, being attacked and taken, and all the forts and villages in the neighbourhood burnt within forty-eight hours after the Spanish flag had been insulted. After this severe lesson the Sultan and Datos fled, leaving in the hands of the Spaniards eight bamboo forts and one hundred and thirty pieces of artillery, besides several other warlike stores. All this took place very recently, no longer ago than on the last day of February of this year (1851). General Urbistondo published to his troops a general complimentary order, dated from the fortified residence of one of the most powerful Datos; and on the 1st of March the Spaniards were in possession of the princ.i.p.al fort of the Sultan. The particulars of this expedition I cannot give, having left Manilla shortly before the preparations for it began, although, I believe, it consisted of three war-steamers and some transports, who carried about 4000 men down to Sooloo.
The loss of the Spaniards in the whole affair was 34 men killed, with 84 wounded. A very unpleasant circ.u.mstance to the army was connected with this expedition. Two field-officers, both of them acting lieutenant-colonels of separate regiments, showed the white feather at the moment of danger; for which, I believe, they have since been cashiered, and not shot, as they might have been, had their chief not been as merciful as he is brave.
Although this chastis.e.m.e.nt to the Sooloo men has been severe, it is unlikely to restrain the chiefs from their predatory expeditions, at least for any length of time; as under the present state of things prevailing among them, they have no other objects to exhaust their idleness and energetic characters upon, than piratical adventure. But were commerce and its emoluments displayed before them, from some place in the vicinity of Zamboanga, or from that place itself, the civilizing influence which the arts of peace always engender would so pervade their minds in a very few years, that their habits would be changed, and the blessings of education, religion, and peace, might be expected to civilize and elevate their minds. Their energies and seamanship would then be in requisition as the navigators of all the Archipelago, and to carry in their native vessels the produce of the fertile inland districts of Mindanao, and of Northern Borneo, to the great mart which Zamboanga would become, should it fortunately be made an open port of trade for the people of all nations.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
The coasting trade, which is a very important nursery for the marine of the Philippines, is carried on exclusively by the national vessels, no foreign ships being allowed to engage in it.
Manilla, being the only port open to the foreign merchants, is the grand emporium or centre to which nearly all the productions of the islands are brought, which regulation gives employment to an infinite number of colonial shipping, in carrying them to that market. Every day there are several arrivals from the various sea-ports of the different districts of the islands, of brigs, schooners, pontines, galeras, caracoas, and pancos, all of them being curious specimens of every variety of ship-building, from the black and low snake-like schooner, or handsome brig, to the most rude description of vessel built. Where iron nails are scarce and expensive, some of these are fastened together apparently in a manner the most unsatisfactory possible for their crews or pa.s.sengers, should they have to encounter a gale of wind during their voyages.
Nearly the whole of the coasting trade is in the hands of the Indians, or Mestizos of Chinese descent, called _Sangleys_, although several Spaniards and European Mestizos at Manilla also own a better cla.s.s of ships than those described, constantly engaged in going and returning from the provinces.