Jose Rizal series Rizal sesquicentennial Rizal the scholar Part III

CEBU, Philippines - On February 3, 1888, Rizal left for Europe via Hong Kong, Japan, the United States and England. In Tokyo, the Spanish Embassy offered him the position of interpreter with a salary of $100 a month, residency at the Embassy and other privileges. This was tempting, but he had other plans. He met O Sei-keio better known as O’Sei-san, a beautiful Japanese girl of noble descent, who became his faithful guide and interpreter.

He left Japan on February 28, 1888 aboard the SS Belgic. He arrived in San Francisco on April 18, 1888, lodged at the Palace Hotel and then took a transcontinental train to the U.S. East Coast via Chicago and the Niagara Falls in Lake Ontario. He stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York for a while and sailed for England aboard the SS City of Rome, arriving in Liverpool on May 24, 1888. He went down to London where he boarded with the Bousted Family at 37 Chalcot Crescent, Primrose. Through Mr. Antonio Ma. Regidor, he met Dr. Rienhold Rost of the London Library and Museum where he came across Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. It is a book published in Mexico sometime in 1609 which related that, among other things, Filipinos had a fairly well-advanced state of civilization long before the Spaniards came. He also read Colin’s Labor Evangelica and another rare book entitled Relacion de las Islas Filipinas by Father Chirino. Since copies of Morga’s book were already rare, he copied and annotated it. As a writer, he also contributed articles to the Trubner’s Record, a magazine which specialized on oriental culture, particularly on Tagalog folklores. In England, he also wrote The Vision of Father Rodriquez in answer to the work of the same priest entitled Questions of Supreme Interest. He also sculpted pieces like Triumph of Death Over Life, Triumph of Science Over Death and Prometheus Bound.

He spoke Spanish, French, German, English, Dutch, Greek, Latin and Tagalog. He had some knowledge of Ilocano, Visayan, Russian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Swedish, Hebrew, Malayan, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian.

He was romantically linked with one of the Beckett sisters, Gertrude. But he did not marry her because duty to his country was far above anything else in his life. In fact, he had fallen in love with other women before he met Gertrude, like Susanne Jacoby of Belgium, O Sei-san of Japan, Nellie Bousted of France, Consuelo Ortiga of Madrid, Leonora Valenzuela of Intramuros, Leonor Rivera of Tarlac and Segundina Katigbak of Batangas.

In March 1899, he left for Paris where he proposed the organization of an International Association of Filipinologists, with Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt as president. This did not materialize. Hoping to live more economically, he left the next year for Belgium but here conditions were the same as those in Paris. He lived in penury and want. The Filibusterismo was ready for publication but he lacked the necessary funds. Valentin Ventura, a rich Filipino advanced him money to print the Fili in Ghent in 1891. In Belgium he also met Jose Alejandrino, Teodoro Evangelista and Abreu who were studying in the University of Ghent.

Depressing news reached him from home. His sweetheart Leonor Rivera married Engineer Kipping; his folks were ejected en masse from Calamba; and the Spanish officials who were sympathetic to the reform movement turned hostile. He took his vacation at Biarritz at the invitation of the Bousteds. While there, brooding over his loss of Leonor Rivera, Nellie Bousted proved to be a balm for his wounded feelings. Later, he left for Paris then went to Marseilles and boarded the SS Melbourne for Hong Kong. With his dwindling funds, he received money for his passage ticket sent him by Jose Ma. Basa, a rich Filipino merchant living in exile in Hong Kong.

Following the advice of his parents, relatives and friends, he resided in Hong Kong and practiced medicine to earn a living. Later some members of his family joined him. Their fare was made possible through the contributions of Filipinos headed by Jose Anacleto Ramos (Ishikawa). In Hong Kong, he became a friend of Dr. Lorenzo Pereyra, a Portuguese and Mr. Frazier-Smith, editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph. To help resettle the Calambeños ousted from the friar lands, Rizal attempted to found a colony in Borneo. With the help of his friends, he took a two-week trip to North Borneo aboard the SS Memnon. The British authorities were already agreeable to a 950-year lease of the proposed Filipino colony in Borneo but Governor General Emilio Despujol disapproved the whole plan.

Desirous of sharing his countrymen’s hardships, he left Hong Kong for home even if he was clearly headed for danger. He arrived in Manila on June 26, 1892 with his sister Lucia aboard the SS Don Juan.

 He was honored by his friends and relatives but wherever he went, the places he visited were searched or placed under surveillance. Even entire neighborhoods were searched. A few days later, he was summoned to Malacañan.

Allegedly found among his beddings which were forwarded later to the customhouse along with his baggage was a leaflet entitled Pobres Frailes, a sarcastic allusion to the friars.

Source: Filipinos in History (Volume 1), a publication of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.  (FREEMAN)