Chapter XVII of Dean Worcester’s book The Philippines: Past and Present is titled ”Baguio and the Benguet Road.“ The chapter is an account of Mr. Worcester's travel to Mountain Province. He learnt about the highlands of Northern Luzon from a Spaniard in the forestry bureau, Señor Domingo Sanchez, who described it as a region of pines and oaks blessed with a perpetually temperate climate and even with occasional frosts. As a scientist, Mr Worcester knew that the mere presence of pine and oak trees would mean the occurrence of special bird species feeding upon their seeds, and so determined to investigate. Spanish engineers had previously completed a survey for a carriage road, with estimates of the amount and cost of the necessary excavation and other work.In July 1900 he sailed from Manila on a naval vessel for San Fernando then by road as far as Naguilian, and on horseback to Trinidad and Baguio. It was reported that negro soldiers were stationed at Trinidad and were being kept supplied by an army pack train and that they could not keep warm, calling for all the spare blankets available.
The trail proved to be in execrable condition. No repair work had been done on it since 1896, and its constant use during the then-existing rainy season by a pack train had completed its destruction. Much of the way it was a mere V in the earth, with deep mud at the bottom.
The party stopped for lunch at a little place properly called Sablán, but unofficially known as "The Bells." Aguinaldo had thought at one time of establishing his headquarters in Benguet and had planned to have a gun foundry at Sablán. His troops accordingly stole most of the church bells in the neighboring lowland towns, meaning to use them for gun metal, and compelled the unfortunate Benguet Igorots to carry them up the steep trail. Boiler pipes, which had been used in lieu of carrying poles, had in several instances been badly bent out of shape. There was even an old vertical boiler which had been lugged up entire for some unknown reason.
The labor involved must have been enormous. When the Igorot bearers, prostrated with fatigue, had refused to continue their titanic task without rest, they had been driven to it at the muzzles of Insurgent rifles, and that some of them had been shot as a lesson to the others. At all events, the boiler and the bells were there, and there the boiler and the larger bells have remained ever since!
It was still steaming hot at Sablán, and the whole countryside was buried in the densest tropical vegetation but they were literally dumfounded when within the space of a hundred yards they suddenly left the tropics behind and came out into a wonderful region of pine parks. Trees stood on the rounded knolls at comparatively wide intervals, and there were scores of places where, in order to have a beautiful house lot, one needed only to construct driveways and go to work with a lawn-mower. At the same moment, a delightful cold breeze swept down from the heights.
Just at sunset they experienced a second surprise, coming out on the knife-sharp crest of a ridge, the Trinidad Valley, which is shaped like a huge wash-basin. Its floor was vividly green with growing rice, Igorot houses were dotted here and there over its surface, and the whole peaceful, beautiful scene was illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. The air had been washed clean by the heavy rain which had poured down on us throughout the afternoon, and the sight was one never to be forgotten.
Just at dusk the party reached the little settlement of Trinidad, which had been the capital of the Spanish comandancia of Benguet, finding that its inhabitants were in part Ilocanos and in part Igorots.
On their arrival at Trinidad they received a letter from Mr. Otto Scheerer, the one white resident of Benguet, inviting the party to make their headquarters at his house, a distance of four miles over a pony trail. The country was gently rolling, its elevation ranging from forty-five hundred to fifty-two hundred feet. The hills were covered with short, thick grass, and with magnificent pine trees, which for the most part grew at considerable distance from each other, while along the streams there were wonderful tree ferns and luxuriant tangles of beautiful tropical vegetation. It took but a short time to decide that here was an ideal site for a future city, if water could be found in sufficient quantity.
(to be continued)
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