_Presidentes_ cut no ice,
For they live on fish and rice,
And the soldier sings his evening song."

There is another stanza, but the song about the "Brown Tagalog Girl"
demands attention:

"I've a _babay_, in a _balay,_
Down in the province of Rizal.
She's nice and neat, dainty and sweet;
She's ma little brown Tagalog gal."

The army officers and their families still form the aristocracy of the
Philippines. While army life is not all like Camp Wallace and the gay
Luneta, in the larger posts throughout the provinces, both the officers
and soldiers are housed very comfortably. The clubhouse down at
Zamboanga has a pavilion running out over the water, where the ladies
sit at night, or where refreshments are served after the concert by the
band. Although their ways are not the ways of the civilian; although
to them the possibilities of Jones's promotion from the bottom of the
list seems of a paramount importance, you will not find anywhere so
loyal and hospitable a class of people as the army officers. Whatever
little jealousies they entertain among themselves are overshadowed by
the fact that "he" or "she" is of the "service." And the soldiers,
rough as they are, and slovenly compared to the red-coated soldiers
of Great Britain, or the gray-coated troopers of the German army,
are beyond doubt the finest fighting men in all the world.

Chapter XIV.

Padre Pedro, Recoleto Priest.--The Routine of a Friar in the
Philippines.

It might have been the dawn of the first day in Eden. I was awakened
by the music of the birds and sunlight streaming through the
convent window. Heavily the broad leaves of _abaca_ drooped with the
morning dew. Only the roofs of a few _nipa_ houses could be seen. The
_tolo_-trees, like Japanese pagodas, stretched their horizontal arms
against the sky. The mountains were as fresh and green as though a
storm had swept them and cleared off again. They now seemed magnified
in the transparent air.

All in the silence of the morning I went down to where the tropical
river glided between primeval banks and under the thick-plated
overhanging foliage. The water was as placid as a sheet of glass. A
spirit of mystery seemed brooding near. As yet the sun's rays had not
penetrated through the canopy of leaves. A lonely fisherman sat on
the bank above, lost in his dreams. Down by the ford a native woman
came to draw water in a bamboo tube