The following excerpt comes from an interesting book,albeit a bit questionable."Where the Strange Trails go Down"by E.Alexander Powell (New York:Charles Scribner's Sons) (1921).The book was written to cash in for the adventure travelogue fad that permeated American publishing immediately following WWI.With the sons of Middle America returning to their one stop light towns after carousing in gay Paree' American youth wanted to be titillated,intrigued.Southeast Asia,especially at that juncture,was the epitome of exotica.Sent by a motion picture studio chief to bring home an impression of the region in the capacity of a producer,Powell got more than he bargained for.Using impeccable connections he was introduced to future-President and then President of the Philippine Senate Manuel Quezon and the American Governor-General of the Philippine Colony,Francis Burton Harrison.It was Governor-General Harrison in turn who was able to get Powell and his entourage a couple of cabins aboard a Philippine Coast Guard cutter,the"Negros."It was Senator Quezon though who was able to field a very creative interpretation to a Philippine Law that allowed deployment of a Philippine Coast Guard vessel far outside Philippine Territorial Waters when the Governor-General insisted on ferrying the expedition throughout the region.
Powell,his lover Margaret Campbell McCutchen whom he only refers to as the"Winsome Widow,"an American physician then in charge of the Manila Quarantine Station,Dr.Edward C.Ernst,a cameraman and an assistant then travelled 9000 kilometers to Borneo,the Malay Peninsula,Siam (now Thailand) and Cambodia.Though by all accounts Governor-General Harrison was a bit of a film-buff,he had three friends in from the States who were keen on joining the"expedition"...so it was that a multi-hued group set sail in February of 1920 and got to spend 3 months travelling in relative style throughout all of Southeast Asia.
Chapter I: Magic Isles and Fairy Seas
Governor-General Harrison believed,by methods that are legitimate,in adding to the American public's knowledge of the Philippines,and it was owing to his broad-minded point of view and to the many cablegrams which he sent ahead of us,that at each port in the islands at which we landed we found the local officials waiting on the pier-head to bid us welcome and to assist us.At Jolo,which is the capital of the Moro country,two lean,sun-tanned,youthful-looking men came aboard to greet us;one was the Honorable P.W.Rogers,Governor of the Department of Sulu;the other was Captain Link,a former officer of the constabulary (PHILIPPINE CONSABULARY,AMERICAN COUNTERINSURGENCY FORCE) who is now the Provincial Treasurer.In the first five minutes of our conversation I discovered that they knew exactly the sort of picture material that I wanted and that they would help me to the limit of their ability to get it.For that matter,they themselves personify adventure in its most exciting form.
Rogers,who was originally a soldier,went to the Philippines as an orderly for General Pershing long before the days when"Black Jack"was to win undying fame in battlefields half the world away.The young soldier showed such marked ability that,thanks to Pershing's assistance,he obtained a post as a stenographer under the civil government,thence rising by rapid steps to the difficult post of Governor of Sulu.A better selection could hardly have been made,for there is no white man in the islands whom the Moros more heartily respect and fear than their boyish-looking governor.Mrs.Rogers is the daughter of a German trader who lived in Jolo and died there with his boots on.A year or so prior to her marriage she was sitting with her parents at a tiffin when a Moro,with whom her father had had a trifling business disagreement,knocked at the door and asked for a moment's conversation.Telling the native that he would talk with him after he had finished his meal,the trader returned to the table.Scarcely had he seated himself when the Moro,who had slipped unobserved into the diningroom,sprang like a panther,his broad-bladed barong describing a glistening arc,and the trader's head rolled among the dishes.Another sweep of the terrible weapon and the mother's hand was severed at the wrist,while the future Mrs.Rogers owes her life to the fact that she fainted and slipped under the table.I relate this incident in order to give you some idea of the local atmosphere.
A few weeks before our arrival at Jolo,Governor Rogers,in compliance with instructions from Manila,had ordered a census of the inhabitants.But the Moros are a highly suspicious folk,so,when someone started a rumor that the government was planning to brand them,as it brands its mules and horses,it promptly gained wide creedence.By tactful explanations the suscpicions of most of the natives were allayed,but one Moro,notorious a bad man,barricaded himself,together with five of his friends,three women,and a boy in his house-a nipa hut (TRADITIONAL HOUSE IN USE IN MOST OF MINDINAO UNTIL THE PRESENT.A SINGLE ROOMED,BAMBOO FRAMED,THATCHED DWELLING) raised above the ground on stilts-and defied the Governor to enumerate them.Now,if the Governor had permitted such open defiance to pass unnoticed,the entire population of Jolo,always ready for trouble,promptly would have gotten out of hand.So,accompanied by five troopers of the constabulary,he rode out to the outlaw's house and attempted to reason with him.The man obstinately refused to show himself,however,even turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the village imam (ISLAMIC PREACHER).Thereupon,Rogers ordered the constabulary to open fire,their shots being answered by a fussilade from the Moros barricaded in the house.In twenty minutes the flimsy structure looked more like a sieve than a dwelling.When the firing ceased a six-year-old boy descended the ladder and,approaching the Governor,remarked unconcernedly,"You can go in now.They're all dead."Then Rogers called up the census-taker and told him to go ahead with his enumeration.
The provincial treasurer,Captain Link,is a lean,lithe South Carolinian who has spent fifteen years in Moroland.He is what is known in cattle country as a"go-gitter"(IS MOTIVATED).It is told of him that he nearly lost his commission,while in the constabulary,by sending to the Governor,as a Christmas present,a package which,upon being opened,was found to contain the head of a much-wanted outlaw.
"I knew he wanted that fellow's head more than anything else in the world,"Captain Link said naively,in telling me the story,"so it struck me it would be just the right thing to send him for a Christmas present.I spent a lot of time and trouble getting it too,for the fellow sure was a bad hombre.It would have gotten by all right,but the Governor's wife,thinking it was a present for herself,had to go and open the package.She went into hysterics when she saw what was inside and the Governor was so mad that he nearly fired me.Some people have no sense of humor."
Atop of the bookcase in Captain Link's study-the bookcase,by the way,contains Burton's"Thousand and One Nights,"the"Discourses"by Epictetus,and President Eliot's tabloid classics-is the skull in question,surmounted by a Moro fez.Across the front of the fez is printed this significant legend:
"This is John Henry
John Henry Disobeyed Captain Link
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"
While we are on the subject,let me tell you about another of these advance-guards of civilisation who,single-handed,transformed a worthless island in the Sulu Sea into a veritable Garden of the Lord and its inhabitants from warlike savages into peaceful and prosperous farmers.In 1914 a short,bespectacled Michagander (FROM THE AMERICAN STATE OF MICHIGAN) named Warner was sent by the Philippine Bureau of Education to Siasi,one of the islands of the Sulu Group,to teach its Moro inhabitants the rudiments of American civilisation.Warner's sole equipment for the job consisted,as he candidly admitted,of a medical education.He took with him a number of Filipino assistants,but as they did not get along with the Moros,he shipped them back to Manila and sent for an Airedale dog.He also sent for all the works on agriculture and gardening that were to be had in the bookshops of the capital.For five years he remained on Siasi,the only white man.As even the little inter-island steamers rarely find their way there,months sometimes passed without him hearing from the outside world.But he was too busy to be lonely.His jurisdiction extended over two islands,separated by a narrow channel,but this he never crossed at night,and in the daytime only when he was compelled to,as the narrow channel was home of giant crocodiles which not infrequently attacked and capsised the frail native vintas,killing their occupants as they struggled in the water.
Warner,who had spent four years among the Visayans before going to Siasi,and who was,therefore,eminently qualified to compare the northern islanders with the Moros,told me that the latter possess a much higher type of intelligence than the Filipinos and assimilate new ideaa far more quickly.He added that they have a highly developed sense of humor;that they are quick to appreciate subtle stories,which the Tagalogs and the Visayans are not;and that they are much more ready to accept advice on agricultural and economic matters than the Christian Filipinos,who have a life- sized opinion of their own ability.When the day's work was over he said,he would seat himself in the doorway of his hut,surrounded by a group of Moros,and discuss crops,and weather prospects,and swap jokes and tell stories,just as he might have done with lighter skinned sons of toil around the cracker-barrel of a cross-roads store in New England (NORTHEASTERN REGION OF US).He added that he was sadly in need of some new stories to tell his Moro protoges,as after six years on the island,his own fund was about exhausted.But he was growing weary of life on Siasi,he told me;he wanted action and excitement;so he was preparing to move,with his Airedale,to Bohol,in the Visayas,where,he had heard it rumored,there was another white man.
Still another of the picturesque characters with whom I foregathered nightly on the after-deck of the Negros during our stay in Jolo was a former soldier,John Jennings by name.He was an operative of of the Philippine Secret Service,being engaged at the time in breaking up the running of opium from Borneo across the Sulu Sea to the Moro islands.Jennings is a short,thickset,powrtfully-built man,all nerve and no nerves.Adventure is his middle name.He has lived more stories than I could invent.Shortly before our arrival at Jolo Jennings had learned from a native in his pay that a son of the Flowery Kingdom,the propitier if a notorious gambling resort situated on the quarter_mile long ramshackle wharf known as the Chinese pier was driving a roaring trade in the forbidden drug.So one afternoon Jennings,his hands in his pockets,and in each pocket a service automatic,sauntered carelessly along the pier and upon reaching the reputed opium den,knocked briskly on the door.The Chinese propitier evidently suspected the purpose of his visit,however,for he was unable to gain admittance.So that night,wearing the huge straw sun-hat (MOUNTAIN HAT AS FILIPINOS CALL THEM TODAY) and flapping garments of blue cotton,of a coolie,he tried again.This time in response to his knock the heavy door swung open.Within all was black and silent as a tomb.The lintel was low and Jennings was compelled to stoop in order to enter.As he cautiously set foot across the threshold there was a sudden swish of steel in the darkness and the blade of a barong whistled past his face slicing off the front of his hat and missing his head by the width of an eyelash.As he sprang back the door slammed in his face and he heard the bolts shot home,followed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the floor and the patter of naked feet.Realising that the men he was after were making their escape by another exit,Jennings hurled himself against the door,an automatic in either hand,it gave way before his assault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky blackness of the room.Taking no chances this time,he raked it with a stream of lead from end to end.Then,there being no further sound,he swept the place with a beam of light from his electric torch.Stretched on the floor were three dead Chinamen and beside them was enough opium to have drugged everyone on the island.That little episode,Jennings remarked dryly,put quite a crimp in the opium traffic in Jolo.
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