Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

AN OFFICIAL'S WIFE

or they carry squirt guns of bamboo that throw a
stream of water many feet. The small boys and
men with these bowls and sprinklers run about,
chasing girls and women, especially those with
fresh-starched dresses, squirting water over them
and calling out: " I baptize! I baptize! " The
river was full of bathers doing the same thing.
We passed a wedding party in a canoe, decorated
with long wreaths of hibiscus. Beyond the low
banks and over the rice fields, dotted here and
there with banana or palm groves, we saw the blue
mountains.
The Laguna de Bay is not a pretty lake; it is too
big. We crossed to the little port of Binangonan,
but as our tug was too large to go near the shore
we landed in dugouts, long narrow canoes hollowed
out of trees. They are easily upset, and the passengers are obliged to sit in the bottom of the
1)oat, and sit still. The natives paddle with oars
like large wooden spoons. When we reached the
rocky landing the padre came down to meet us, accompanied by the captain in charge of the garrison.
War must develop patience, for the captain was
of the nervous American type, straight nose, good
mouth, tall and spare, whose brother had been governor of Ohio, and who had seen something of life.
He was living in the small village in a nipa hut,
commanding about fifty men, cut off from everything and everybody. Even with company it would

3

27