The municipality of Capiz was expecting a woman teacher, for cries of “La maestra!” began to resound before the boat was properly snubbed up to the bank; and when I walked ashore on a plank ten inches wide, there had already assembled a considerable crowd to witness that feat.  They gathered round and continued to stare when I was seated in the principal saloon.  Meanwhile a messenger was sent to find the American man teacher, who had been notified by telegram to arrange for my accommodation.  The saloon was a very innocent-looking one, so that I mistook it for a grocery storeroom.  Such as it was, it represented the best the Filipinos could do in the saloon line.  One sees, in Manila and, for that matter, all up and down the Chinese and Japanese coasts, the typical groggery of America with somebody’s “Place” printed large over the entrance, and a painted screen blocking the doorway with its suggestions of unseemliness.  But the provincial saloon is still essentially Spanish—­a clean, light room with no reservations, the array of bottles on the shelves smiling down on the little green cloth-covered tables where the domino and card games go on.  There may be an ancient billiard table in one corner with its accompanying cue rack, and there is almost sure to be a little hole in the ceiling through which the proprietor’s wife, who resides above, can peep down and watch the card games.  It is a genuine family resort, too, for between four and seven all the town is likely to drop in, the women chaffering or gossiping while their lords enjoy a glass of beer and a game of dominoes.

The proprietor’s wife must have had a fine look at me as I sat mopping my sunburned face.  At last the American teacher came, a pleasant-faced young man who spoke Spanish excellently and was quite an adept at the vernacular.  In due time I was ushered into a room in a house on the far side of the river, the window of which commanded a fine view of the bridge, the plaza, the gray old church, and the jail, with the excitements of guard mount and retreat thrown in.

The room had a floor of boards, each one of which was at least two feet wide.  They were rudely nailed and were separated by dirt-filled cracks, but were polished into a dark richness by long rubbing with petroleum and banana leaves.  The furnishings consisted of a wardrobe, a table, a washstand, several chairs, and a Filipino four-poster bed with a mattress of plaited rattan such as we find in cane-seated chairs.  A snow-white valence draped the bed.  The mattress was covered with a petate, or native mat, and there were two pillows—­a big, fat, bolstery one, and another, called abrazador, which is used for a leg-rest.

I bathed in the provincial bathroom.  Manila, being the metropolis of the Philippines, has running water and the regular tub and shower baths in tiled rooms.  The Capiz bathroom had a floor of bamboo strips which kept me constantly in agony lest somebody should stray beneath, and which even made me feel apologetic toward the pigs rooting below.  There was a tinaja, or earthenware jar, holding about twenty gallons of water, and a dipper made of a polished cocoanut shell.  I poured water over my body till the contents of the tinaja were exhausted and I was cool.  Already I was beginning to look upon a bath from the native standpoint as a means of coolness, and incidentally of cleanliness.