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

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

ambulance. The road was not very bad, and between Bauang, where we spent the night on the way
up, and San Fernando, we ate the first mangoes of
the season. They were delicious after our diet of
tinned fruit at Baguio. It makes one sad to think
how much of that delicious fruit is going to waste.
On account of cholera no one may sell it in Manila.
It is forbidden because the natives eat it in such
large quantities that they predispose themselves to
cholera. After all, one cannot but wonder if the
authorities are not going a little too far in the matter of food supply. The natives might as well die
of cholera as of hunger.
To return to our trip and mangoes, which started
this discussion. We were not afraid to eat fruit,
for there had been no cholera in Union province.
When we reached San Fernando the Butuan was
just steaming out of the bay for Manila. There
was no hotel or boarding house where we could
spend the night, so we had to go to the governor's.
At all times visiting natives is a trial, but this time
it was especially so, for the wife of our host, a
delicate little creature only twenty-four years old,
the mother of six children, was half ill. The baby,
three months old, had a bad cough. Had they been
willing to give us a room and plain food it would
have been easier for us and them, but in true Fiipino style we must be entertained, so we were received with due formality. I received in state the
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