14 August 1894

Leitmeritz, Austria

Blumentritt goes on excursions to the mountains or bathes in the Elbe – His wife is like the Hausfra of Schiller – Fritz is promising – Loleng is a good cook and Konrad will study Latin – Prof. Kern affirms that the titles datu, gat, and hari are of Malayan origin, only ladyá is Sanskrit – Geographical dictionary of Mindanao.

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Leitmeritz, Austria

14 August 1894

Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt

Dr. Jose Rizal

My very dear Friend,

I had the pleasure of receiving your most welcome letter of 9 May last. Through it we learned with joy that you, your mother, and sister enjoy good health. We also are in good health; but you already know through my previous letter that my good father died in Prague exactly when he was planning to return to this city of Leitmeritz.

Now in this beautiful vacation season I go on excursions to the mountains that surround the northern horizon of Leitmeritz or I take baths in the crystalline waters of the Elbe River.

My good wife goes on doing what the Hausfrau in the poem Die Glocke of Schiller does – always working and never resting:

Por dentro (la casa) rige

La esposa modesta,

La madre fecunda;

Y manda prudente

A toda su gente,

Y enseña a las niñas

Y al hijo reprime

Y mueve afanosa

La mano industriosa,

Y gira y aumenta

Con orden su renta

Y llena de alhas el cofre oloroso,

Y el hilo retuerce con huso Ruidoso,

Y acopia en armarios que el gusto previno

La esplendida lana, el candido lino

Y a tanto Tesoro mas brillo dar osa,

Y nunca reposa,[1]

We talk about you often. Fritz, our first-born, is already as tall as I am and promises to be a strong lad. He swims like a fish in the river. He is very diligent and has a talent for mathematics and natural history sciences, while the study of languages gives him much difficulty. Loleng has already completed 14 years and will enroll in the first year of the Hohere madchen Fortbildungschule.[2] She is a good cook and helps her Mama in all the work of a Hausfrau. The little lad Konrad will enroll in the first year of the Latin college, if he passes successfully the examination.

You will be interested to know that Prof. Kern in a criticism of Retana’s Estadismo proves that all the titles that the Tagalos gave their rulers – like datu, gat, and hari – are of legitimate Malayan origin and that only ladyá is of foreign origin: Sanskrit.

I sent you by registered mail my Mythological Dictionary of the Philippines, German edition, and I shall send you soon, also registered, a pamphlet, Algo sobre Juan Valera, written in German, and a portable atlas, Spanish edition. You will like this last one very much.

I am continuing the compilation or composition of a Geographical Dictionary of Mindanao, a work that is making slow but sure progress.

Also I give you a thousand thanks in advance for the butterflies.

Sending you the fond regards of my family, put me at the feet of your Mother and sister,

Your faithful friend,

Fernando Blumentritt

02-825 [Blumentritt V.2]