In the Far East one meets certain expressions the significance of which may be described as adamantine. Each represents a racial attitude against which it is useless to contend. In Japan it is the equivalent of it cannot be helped; a verbal shrug of the shoulders with which the Japanese tosses off all minor and many grave annoyances. "Masqui," down the China coast, has the same import, but with the added meaning of "what difference does it make." In the Philippines the phrase which must be met and which cannot be overcome by any system of reform is "el costumbre del pais"—the custom of the country.
If it is el costumbre del pais it has to be done and there is nothing more to be said about it. The manaña habit—putting everything off until to-morrow—is, perhaps, to Americans, the most annoying of all the costumbres del pais in the Philippines, but it yields to pressure much more readily than do many others, among which is the custom of accumulating parientes; that is, giving shelter on a master's premises to every kind and degree of relative who has no other place to live. This is, I suppose, a survival of an old patriarchal arrangement whereby everybody with the remotest or vaguest claim upon a master of a household gathered upon that master's doorstep, so to speak, and camped there for life.
In my first encounter with this peculiarity of my environment I thought there was a large party going on in my cochero's quarters; and an indiscriminate sort of party it seemed to be. There were old men and old women, young men and young women, many small children and a few babes in arms. We had only Chinese servants in the house, but the stables were in charge of Filipinos and, as I soon discov-
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