- Author:
- Lala, Ramon Reyes
- Publication Info:
-
New York:
Continental publishing company,
1899,
pg 82
Text on page 82
ioo The Philippine Islands.
fearless in the water. I have seen groups of boys diving thirty or forty feet for pennies, dropped into the sea by foreign officers on ships anchored in the bay. Many swim miles with the greatest ease ; and it is no uncommon sight in the outlying districts to see groups of naked men plunging with drawn dagger among a shoal
of sharks, with whom they fight with a fierceness that always results in the victory of the native.
Along the beach at Manila, on a summer evening, at the close of the day's labor, hundreds of hands from the various tobacco factories a men, women, and children, of all ages and sizes, married and unmarriedamay be seen dis-porting themselves, writh peals of laughter and squeals of delight, in the cool surf.
As a result of the stoicism of the native character, he never bewails a misfortune, and has no fear of death. When anything happens he merely says, It is fate, and calmly goes about his business as if nothing had happened.
Europeans often seem to notice in them what they deem a lack of sympathy for the misfortunes of others ; but it is not this so much as resignation to the inevitable. This, it must be confessed, saves them many a bitter pang. The educated native, however, impregnated with the bitter philosophy of the
the igorrotes.the igorrotes.
