The song went on, the lovers married and went North; but after awhile the bride grew heartsick for the old home, so “We journeyed South a spell.”  With this line the moving picture flung at us, head on, a great passenger locomotive and its trailing cars.  To the right there were a country road, meadows, some distant hills, a stake and rider fence, and a farmhouse.  The scene was homely, simple, typically American, and rustic, and it sent every drop of loyal American blood tingling.  The tears rushed to my eyes, and I couldn’t forbear joining in the roar of approbation that went up from the American contingent.  An Englishman who was with our party insisted that I opened my arms a yard and a half to give strength to my applause.  I said I didn’t regret it.  We poor expatriated wanderers had been drifting about for months with no other emotion than homesickness, but we had a lively one then.  The Filipino audience at first sat amazed at the outburst; but their sympathies are quick and keen, and in an instant they realized what it meant to the exiles, and the wave of feeling swept into them too.  The young lady in the pink costume grew perceptibly exalted, and in the effort to be more pathetic achieved a degree of nasal intonation which, combined with her Australian accent, made her unique.

The poorer natives have one source of enjoyment in a sort of open-air play which they call colloquio.  This is always in the hands of local talent, and is probably of Spanish mediaeval origin.  The three actors are a captive princess, a villain, and a true knight.  The villain is nearly always masked, and sometimes the princess and knight are masked also.  The costuming is European.  The performance may take place in a house if anybody is kind enough to offer one, but more frequently the street is the scene.  A ring is marked off, and the captive princess stands in the middle, while knight and villain circle about her with their wooden swords, countering, and apparently making up verses and dialogue as they go along.  When they get tired, the princess tells her sorrowful tale.  The people will stand for hours about a performance of this sort, and for weeks afterwards the children will repeat it in their play.

Once a circo, or group of acrobats, came to Capiz and played for over a month to crowded houses.  The low-class people and Chinese thronged the nipa shack of the theatre night after night from nine P.M. till two A.M.  When a Filipino goes to the theatre, he expects to get his money’s worth.  I myself did not attend the circo, but judging from what I saw the children attempt to repeat, and one other incident, I fancy it was quite educative.