It was easy to see that the Filipinos really had a good deal of money; that they liked to dress was apparent; and that they believed in a table loaded with good things was a fact to which all of us were enthusiastic witnesses. CHAPTER VI. A SKETCH OF LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES. House-keeping in the Philippines presents some interesting phases. Our club of American officials decided to run a mess, so we employed a cook and a house boy, then each of us provided himself with a personal servant, making a total of six servants for four men--it takes about this proportion of servants to live in any sort of comfort in the Philippines--and launched ourselves boldly upon the sea of domestic economy. But there were shoals ahead of us, for the question of regulating servants is one of no small importance in the Philippines, and one of its most disadvantageous features is the long chain of dependents that usually attends it. We gave the cooks so much a day with which to buy supplies in the local market, for our own table, making him render a daily list of expenditures, and a fixed amount besides to purchase rice and fish for himself and the other servants. Of course, if they wished to vary their diet and get chicken and fresh pork, which could be had at far distant intervals, it was wholly a matter of their option, but the allowance was made on the basis of so much rice and fish a day for each. This allowance was about fifteen cents a day in Spanish coin per servant. Thus far all was well. We had agreed to give the cook eight dollars a month in Spanish money, thinking that good wages would procure good service, but the visions of affluence that floated before him on such floods of wealth were so alluring that they drew him from the kitchen to the cooler veranda. In less than a week he had employed an assistant at four dollars a month; in less than another week that assistant had employed him an assistant at two dollars a month; in less than another week that assistant to the assistant had employed him an assistant at the princely salary of fifty cents a month; and from fear that the chain of dependents would end only by our having the whole Filipino race attached to our culinary force, we broke up house-keeping and went boarding again, choosing that as the less of the two evils. Our house furnishings were almost wholly Philippine. The table ware and the food on the table came from the ends of the earth. The knives and forks were made in Germany, the plates were manufactured in England, the glass ware and table cloth, in the United States. The oatmeal and flour came from the United States also. The butter came from Australia, the rice from China, the salt from Russia, and the other eatables from sources about as various as their separate names. Switzerland furnished the condensed milk and Illinois the canned cream. Nearly all of the canned fruit bore labels from Spain.