RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
ter-of-fact, though cordial, replies into a marvellous flow of Spanish eloquence.
This formality disposed of, the reception committee invited us to step upon the pavilioned raft and be wafted ashore. It sounds like a dignified proceeding, but of course it was not. We had to climb over the rails of the launch and, more or less, slide to a secure footing on the frail floor of the curious craft. Contrary to my secret expectations it kept afloat and we were soon landed at a little fishing village down on the beach, where Army ambulances waited to take us to the town of Balanga, a mile inland. Just outside of Balanga we passed under a great bamboo arch, the sort of thing the Filipinos erect and ornament with great skill and ingenuity. This one was so thickly decorated, however, with small American flags that little of its intricate frame-work was visible. A piece of white bunting stretched across the top of it bore, in large letters, the inscription: “Glory Honor to the Commission.”
We drove into the town and found the place en fete. I never saw so many American flags in one place in my life. Four thousand of them had been bought in Manila for the occasion; and four thousand flags go a long way in decorating a small provincial town. There was not much of the town left uncovered.
When we got to the provincial building where the meeting was to be held, we found all the delegates gathered from the different villages a-tiptoe in an atmosphere of intense excitement. Bataan had never been a rich province and we discovered that few of the Filipinos understood Spanish. They spoke only Tagalog. This was due to the fact that the province had been for generations under the control of the Dominican Friars who did not believe in encouraging the natives to learn Spanish. In consequence, all the speeches had to be translated from English to Spanish, from Spanish to Tagalog, and vice versa. Felipe Calderón, the Manila
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