WITH WHAT MEASURE YE METE
"The story of the tax collector of Siargao reminds me of an officialof that rank whom I once knew," said a fellow naturalist whom Ionce met at a club in Manila, and with whom I had been exchangingexperiences. "It was when I was gathering specimens in Negros. Theywere a bad lot, those collectors, a set of money-grabbers of theworst kind, but, bad as they were, they had a hard time, too.
"If they did not make their pile, out of the poor natives, and goback to Manila or to Spain, rich, in three or four years, it waspretty likely to be because they had fallen victims to the hate ofthe natives or to the distrust of the officials at headquarters.
"When I first went to Negros, and had occasion to go to the tribunal,as the government house was called, I noticed some objects in one ofthe rooms so odd and so different from anything I had seen anywhereelse that I asked their use. I was told that they were used forcatching men who had not paid their taxes.
"Among the various thorn-bearing plants which the swamps of thePhilippine Islands produce is one called the 'bejuco,' or 'junglerope.' This is a vine of no great size, but of tremendous strength,which, near the end, divides into several slender but very toughbranches. Each of these branches is surrounded by many rings of long,wicked, recurved thorns, as sharp and strong as steel fish-hooks, andnearly as difficult to dislodge. The hunter who encounters a thicketof 'bejuco' goes around it, or turns back, for it is hopeless to tryto go through. While he frees himself from the grasp of one thorn,a dozen more have caught him somewhere else.
"The objects which I had seen in the tribunal guard room were madeof long bamboo poles, across one end of which two short pieces hadbeen fastened. To these cross pieces were bound a great number of the'bejuco' vines, so arranged that the innumerable hooks which theybore could be easily swung about in the air.
"The 'Gobernadorcillo' who was in office at the time was a man whohad no mercy on his people. Negros, with the other islands of thegroup commonly known as Visayan, forms a province which is under thesupervision of a governor who has his headquarters in the island ofCebu, where also the bishop who is the head of the see resides.
"Negros is near enough to Cebu so that the authority of the governmentcould be maintained better there than it could in the more distantislands. When I was there the village of Dumaguete, the chief townand seaport of Negros, contained a stone fort, the most imposingprobably of any outside the capital; while the garrison formed ofhalf-breed soldiers who were on duty there, sent down from Cebu withthe 'Gobernadorcillo,' kept the people in a degree of subjectionwhich in many places would have been impossible.
"The men whom the Governor employed to round up his delinquent subjectswere called 'cuadrilleros.' Sunday was the day he devoted to the sport,for such I think he really regarded it. The 'cuadrilleros' would startout in the morning with a list of the men who were wanted. A housewould be surrounded, and unless the man had been given some warningof their coming, and had fled, he would be driven out. Then, if hetried to escape, or refused to come with them, one of the 'bejuco''man-catchers' was swung with a practiced hand in his direction,and, caught in a hundred places by its cruel, thorny hooks, he wasled to town, the journey in itself being a torture such as few menwould think they could endure. The whipping came later.
"It was not until Pedro fell into trouble that I came to know reallythe worst of all this. Of course I knew in a way, I had seen the'bejuco' poles, and the rattans, and the whipping bench, and sometimes,of a Sunday, when I was in the village and could not go away, I hadheard cries from the tribunal such as white men do not often hear--suchas I hope no one will ever hear again, even from those places.
"Pedro was my Visayan servant, a good worker and a likable fellow inevery way. He came to me one Sunday morning in great distress. Histwin brother had been dragged into the tribunal that morning by the'cuadrilleros,' and was at that very moment being flogged. Could Inot help him? Would I not go to the Governor and tell him that Pedrowould pay his brother's tribute as soon as he could earn the money?
"If course I would. I would gladly do more than that I would pay themoney myself and let Pedro earn it afterwards. The man's last wages,I knew, had gone to pay his old father's taxes and his own. His familylived some little distance inland.
"We lost no time in getting to the tribunal. Pedro told me on theway, and I think he told me the truth, that his brother's tax wasnot rightly due then, else he would have been ready with the money.
"I have always been glad I had Pedro wait outside the door of thegovernment house.
"His brother was bound upon the whipping bench, his body bare to thewaist. A row of stripes which ran diagonally across his bare back fromhip to shoulder showed where each blow of the rattan had cut throughskin and flesh so that the blood flowed back to mark its course.
"'Stop!' I cried, rushing forward to where the Governor wasstanding. 'Stop! I will pay this man's tax. How much is it? Let himup! I'll pay for him.'
"The Governor looked at me a moment, and, excited as I was, I noticedthat his face was set in an angry scowl.
"'You can't pay for him, now,' he said. 'No one can pay for him now.'
"'I'll teach them,' he added, a moment later, 'See that!' holding uphis left arm, about the wrist of which I saw a handkerchief was bound,fresh stained with blood.
"'Go on!' he cried, to the man with the rod.
"At first I could not find out what had happened. Then a soldiertold me.
"The man had been brought in like a snared animal, held by the jungleropes, each thorn of which was agony. When he had cried out that hewas unjustly tortured, the Governor himself had dragged the clinginghooks from out his flesh, and had called him a name which to theVisayan means deathly insult if it be not resented.
"At which Pedro's brother, snatching a knife which was hidden insidehis clothing, struck at the Governor and wounded him in the arm,before he could be caught by the soldiers, disarmed, and bound downon the bench.
"And all the time I had been learning this, the blows of the flog-manhad been falling, laid on with an artistic cruelty across the otherwelts.
"I could not bear it. At the risk of destroying my chances to beallowed to finish my work in the island, perhaps even at the risk ofputting my own life in danger, I tried once more.
"'Unless you stop,' I cried, 'I will report you to your government.'
"The 'Gobernadorcillo' looked at me a moment, and almost smiled--asmile which showed his teeth at the sides of his mouth.
"'Please yourself.' he said. 'But unless you like what I am doing Iwould suggest that you step out.'
"The man died that night, in the prison beneath the tribunal.
"I kept my word, and wrote a full account of the whole affair to theGovernor-general at Manila. It was weeks before I received a curtnote in reply, saying that the general government made it a rule notto interfere with the local jurisdiction of its subordinates.
"Pedro never spoke to me of his brother's death but once. There wasin his nature much of the same grim courage which had enabled hisbrother to bear the awful pain of that day upon the whipping benchwithout a cry.
"'Senor,' Pedro said one day, quite suddenly, 'I would not haveyou think me a coward, that I do not avenge my brother's death. Iwould have killed the Governor at once, or now, or any day, openly,glad to have him know how and why, and glad to die for the deed,only that now there is no one but me left to care for my old father,It is not that I am a coward, but that I wait.'
"I expect that I should have felt myself in duty bound to expostulatewith him, upon harbouring such a state of mind as that, regardlessof what my own private opinion in the matter may have been, had itnot been that before I could decide just what I wanted to say, a manhad come to my house to tell me that the mail steamer from Manila,which came to the island only once in two months was come in sight.
"The coming of that particular steamer was of special interest to me,as it was to bring me a stock of supplies; and Pedro and I went downto the dock at once.
r /> "I remember that invoice in particular, because it brought me asupply of chloroform, a drug, which I had been out of, and for whichI was anxiously waiting. Two months before, a native from far backin the forest had brought me a fine live ape. I could not keep himalive,--that is not after I left the island,--and I wanted his skinand skeleton for the museum, but I hated to mar the beauty of thespecimen by a wound. That night with Pedro's help I put him quietlyout of the way, with the help of the chloroform.
"Afterwards the thought came back to me that as we took away thecone and cotton, when I was sure the animal was dead, Pedro said,'Senor, how like a man he looks.'
"Several weeks later the residents of Dumaguete were thrown intointense if subdued excitement by the news that the Gobernadorcillowas dead. Apparently well as usual the night before, he had beenfound dead in hie bed in the morning, in the room in the 'gobierno'in which he slept. If he had been killed on the street, or foundstabbed, or shot, in his room, the commotion would not have been sogreat. Such things as that had happened in Negros more than once,to other officials. But this man was simply dead.
"The 'teniente primero,' who, as next in authority, took charge ofaffairs upon the death of his superior, sent a man during the dayto ask me if I would come to the tribunal. He was a very decent man,or would have been, I think, under a different executive. Naturallyhe was anxious, under the circumstances, as to his own standing withthe authorities at Cebu, and he asked for my evidence, if necessary,as that of one of the few foreigners in the place.
"In company with him I visited the late governor's room in the'gobierno.' It was a large room, like all of those in the palace,as the executive mansion was sometimes called, built upon the groundfloor, and having several lattice windows. A soldier was on duty inthe room. As we were coming out, this man came to us, and saluting the'teniente,' handed him a small tin can, saying, 'A servant cleaningthe room, found this.'
"The 'teniente' looked at the can curiously, and then, handing it tome, asked me if I knew what it was.
"'It is a can in which a kind of strong liquor sometimes comes,'I said. Then I unscrewed the top. The can was empty, but I showedhim that there was still a strong and pungent odor which lingered init. The explanation satisfied him. The late governor had been knownto be a man who had more than a passing liking for strong liquors.
"I did not feel called upon to explain that the can was a chloroformcan, and that no one in the place but myself had any like it.
"When I went home, though, and counted my stock, I found, as I hadexpected, that it was one can short; and that the cone and cotton whichI had used for giving the drug had been replaced by one freshly made.
"I did not think it necessary, either, to impart the result of myinvestigations to the authorities, or to suggest to them any suspicionswhich might have been roused in my own mind.
"Even if there had not been very decided personal reasons why I wouldbetter not, unless I was obliged to, I had in mind that letter ofa few months before, when these same authorities had informed me oftheir policy of non-interference in local affairs.
"Moreover, I could not but remember what I had seen that day, whenthe man now dead had said to me, 'I'll teach them.' If his teachingshad been effectual, had I any reason to criticise?"