Travel in the highlands
A friend describes Metro Manila heat best in Spanish, “hace calor como siete demonios (it’s hot as seven devils).” On hot and humid days, I wish I were in cooler climes like Baguio, Tagaytay, and Lipa. One longs for escape from the heat and the ongoing Senate circus. Baguio and the highlands must have appeared like Shangri-La to American colonial officials roasting in Manila. William Howard Taft, all 300 pounds of him, once made a trip to Baguio on horseback. When he reported to the United States secretary of war, the cabled reply read: “How is horse?”
There are a number of books and memoirs of prewar Baguio available to historians, but one that needs to be better known are letters from the highlands written by Nanon Fay Leas Worcester, wife of the infamous Interior Secretary Dean C. Worcester. A transcript of Nanon Worcester’s correspondence to her mother is preserved in the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library. The letters cover three months, from May to July 1909, providing us a glimpse of a Baguio that was, alas, a Baguio that only lives on in memory. I remember childhood trips to Baguio, when the car aircon was switched off on the zigzag road, the windows were rolled down, and we sucked in the scent of pine from the cool mountain air. Nanon Worcester’s description from July 1909 is unimaginable today:
“… we rode five hours through tropical jungle on a mountain—a more beautiful jungle even than that on Polis of which I have told you. Every step of the way was unalloyed joy, and I did not even remember that there was such a thing as getting tired.
“The first thing that attracted our particular attention were the monkeys in the trees, and then the parrots and other bright colored birds, and various warblers. The trees, ferns, vines, orchids, and flowering shrubs were much the same as on Polis, with the exception of some new flowers that interested us very much—one, a shrub with great pompons of fine pink flowers…”
Her descriptions of the landscape, the mountains, the rice paddies, and the people reflect a curiosity and openness that was not common in those days. Before the 1909 trip related to her mother, she accompanied her husband on an inspection trip six years earlier. Before the rough terrain had been tamed by paved trails or even roads, it must have been quite an adventure. Comparing the 1906 and 1909 trips, she recorded: “trails that … now wind in and out on the sides of the mountains, maintaining an almost even grade of seven percent, which certainly makes traveling in the mountains a very different thing from what it used to be.”
The Worcesters did not travel alone, but in a party that included US Military Governor of Benguet William Francis Pack, a photographer, stenographer, “Eduardo, the Ilocano cook from Trinidad, Gregorio as general utility man, and thirty cargadores.” Thirty people on horseback and 30 cargadores on foot must have been an impressive sight.
From Baguio to Trinidad, it took three hours on horseback, a car ride that takes about 18 minutes today. Trinidad to Ambuklao took six hours on horseback (including pit stops to stretch their legs), a trip that takes 60 to 90 minutes by car today. Before each town where they stopped: Bokod, Daklan, Bugias, Loo, Mancayan, Cervantes, Bauco, and so on, they were escorted by the “presidentes” or leading citizens. For example, a party from Trinidad escorted them to the boundary, where officials from Ambuklao took over and escorted them to town. Sometimes they were welcomed by schoolchildren, waving small American flags and singing “My Country.” At places where they stopped to rest overnight, they were treated to different Cordillera singing, dancing, and music. To the uninitiated, the rhythmic sound of gongs sounds the same, but in time, Nanon Worcester could tell the difference between ethnolinguistic groups. At Cervantes, a cañao was laid out for them.
Nanon Worcester and company were safe, and with 30 cargardores carrying supplies from cots, bedding, food, and drink, she remarked, “There is no danger of starvation on this trip.” Much of the work that went into a rest stop was unpacking, setting up sleeping and eating spaces, then packing again for the next leg. For recreation, they played cards at night. “Bridge is certainly a great resource on such a trip as this. We could not carry books enough to keep us in reading, you know, and one must do something, and bridge is such a jolly, good sport.” Most of the time, conversation provided the diversion from the weariness of travel. She noted at one stop, “After dinner, listened to a most interesting discussion between Dean Bartlett and Dean Conant on the comparative merits of Harvard and the University of Michigan.”
Reading through Nanon Worcester’s account of her trip through the highlands, I could not help but compare and contrast with what has been billed as Emilio Aguinaldo’s “flight and wanderings” as he traveled northward from Tarlac to Palanan, Isabela with the enemy in hot pursuit. That is told in detail in the diaries of Santiago Barcelona and Simeon Villa.
(More next week.)
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