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Updated: June 20, 2025
Speaking of buying and selling women among the Moros, reminds me of an old Maharajah in Bongao who had never seen an American woman until the arrival of the Burnside.
Perhaps some trusting Moro accepted the risk of the marital loan. Perhaps she induced the owner of a prau to row her across. However the distance was accomplished, it is to be hoped she was less reckless in her subsequent gambling, a husband having proved so bad a hostage. Another love story of different import comes from a village on the island of Siminor, just south of Bongao.
On the reverse side of this somewhat suggestive placard was the pleasing gastronomic intelligence, "Chicken to-day," chicken forming the staple of diet at Bongao, as of course fresh meat is to be had only at the rarest intervals.
Balbriggan undershirts, hideously utilitarian, are much worn by these Moros of Bongao in lieu of the skin-tight gaily coloured jacket, which combines so effectively with the snug trousers buttoned up the side with gold or silver buttons, and the bright turban or scarlet fez. But fancy the shock to one's æstheticism at seeing coarse balbriggan allied to barbaric splendour.
West of it Borneo looms up on the horizon, and to the south is Sibutu, for which Spain was paid a good round sum because certain gentlemen on the Paris Commission lacked geographic accuracy; while to the east and north are coral islands belonging to the same group as Bongao. The garrison is situated on a mountainous spur of land running down steeply to the water.
Not long after this the happy couple went to Bongao on a market-day. The lady, being an inveterate gambler, repaired at once to the cockpit, where she lost so heavily that her remaining funds were inadequate for the return trip to Balambing. Then a happy idea struck her.
Over the side of the launch they swarmed, talking excitedly with our interpreter, the chief vigilante of Bongao, and reminding one strongly of their piratical forebears. Many of these very men had been pirates in Spanish days, and not one of them but was a descendant of some marauder of the high seas.
The Moro seemed astonished, but appreciated the reason, and had his first lesson in the apothegmatic saying that all is not gold which glitters. Later the eagle was given to the Bongao vigilante, who pinned it to the front of his fez, for was he not a protector of the peace under the great American government? To one side of Tampakan stood a plot of ground used as a cemetery.
A white mist rose, as if to hide the vinta from the pursuers, but when the fleet reached the river's mouth a yell announced that they had been discovered. The race was for life, for more than life, and the boy seemed possessed of a supernatural strength. Nearer came the smoke, and finally around the point of Bongao, burst the little gunboat.
We called her the Belle of Bongao, and said all manner of nice things about her, which she repaid with a bold stare from under those wonderful lashes, and a contemptuous manner which said as plainly as words that American women were not much to look at, what with their ugly clothes and still uglier faces.
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