3 
 
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 fr-s 
 
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AND THE 
 
 PHILIPPINES 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGHERITA ARLINA HAMM. 
 
 F. TENNYSON NEELY, 
 
 PUBLISHER, 
 LONDON. NEW YORK. 
 
\ 
 
 PRESERVATION 
 COPY ADDED 
 ORIGINAL TO BE 
 RETAINED 
 
 JAN 2.4 1995 
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 
 by 
 F. TENNYSON 
 
 in 
 United States 
 
 and 
 Great Britain. 
 
 All Rights~Reserved. 
 
TO 
 RIZAL AND AGUINALDO, 
 
 THE DEAD MARTYR AND LIVING HERO, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 225811 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS volume is based upon notes made by the au- 
 thor while a resident and traveler in the Far East. 
 Some have been used in newspaper correspondence 
 for the New York Mail and Express, the New York 
 Sun, the New York Herald, the Baltimore American, 
 the Chicago Inter -Ocean, the San Francisco Ex.- 
 aminer, and the Hong Kong Telegraph. 
 
 All has been rewritten and brought down to date 
 as far as it has been possible. The difficulties have 
 been numerous on account of the Spanish official pol- 
 icy of which the chief object apparently is the sup- 
 pression of all information concerning their Colonial 
 possessions. 
 
 The Author has met representatives from the five 
 classes that compose Philippine society: the Church, 
 the Army, the Office-holders, the Merchants, and the 
 Revolutionists, and thus has had the opportunity of 
 seeing Spanish Colonial dominion from as many 
 
 points of view. 
 
 M. A. H. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Routes to the Philippines 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Island of Luzon 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 In Manila 26 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The People of_Manila 89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Manila Architecture Especially Roofs 46 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Stores and Shops 55 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Manila's Daily Bread Tobacco 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Around Luzon 72 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Cavite 84 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Iloilo 89 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Cebu 96 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Sulu City, Island, and Sultanate 102 
 
riii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. PAGE 
 
 Some Historical Notes 118 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Government 120 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Philippine Newspaper World 128 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Natives 134 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Some Native Industries ... 140 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Animal World 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Feathered Population 159 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Fishes and Reptiles 166 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Garden, Farm and Forest 173 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Mines and Metals , 180 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Typhoons 184 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Other Islandsthe Ladrones, the Pelews, the Carolines 188 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 The Story of Rizal 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 The Future of the Philippines , . 213 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 OPPOSITE 
 PAGE 
 
 Main Street, Manila ........ . 22 
 
 A View of Manila , . , 28 
 
 General View, Manila Cathedral 44 
 
 A Half-caste Lady of Wealth. 56 
 
 A Country House, Luzon 64 
 
 A Country Church, Luzon 72 
 
 Catholic Convent, Interior of Luzon. 78 
 
 A Farm Buffalo of Cavite 86 
 
 Cock-Fighter Sulu 110 
 
 A Native College Class 116 
 
 A Mestizo 122 
 
 Main Boulevard, Binonda 130 
 
 Native Hut 136 
 
 Peddlers of Oil Industry 142 
 
 Packing Manila Sugar . 148 
 
 Cock-Fight in Luzon 162 
 
 Native Fishing the Banca 170 
 
 A Buffalo Cart on Runners. 182 
 
 A View of Interior Village 186 
 
 Native Lumbermen at Rest . <,......, 196 
 
 Natural Bridge and Native Vegetation 202 
 
 A Street Restaurant 210 
 
 A Sugar House. .,...,.....,......,,., .,..,, 21 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROUTES TO THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 THE Philippine Islands, roughly speaking, are eleven 
 thousand miles west by south of New York City and four- 
 teen thousand miles east by south. By train and mail 
 steamer they are thirty days' journey going westward and 
 thirty-five going eastward. Though a civilized land 
 they are comparatively difficult of access. The chief 
 way of reaching them is by one of the four lines running 
 regularly between Hong Kong, Amoy and Manila. One 
 of these lines is Spanish and the rest British. There is 
 a small Spanish line which goes directly from Spain, 
 stopping at Singapore as the last station before Manila 
 is reached. There is also a Japanese way which runs 
 from the land of the Mikado via Foo Chow and Formosa. 
 But neither the Spanish nor the Japanese lines have as 
 yet attained the status of excellence demanded by trav- 
 elers. It may be said, therefore, that you begin your 
 voyage to the Philippines at Hong Kong. 
 
 When you buy your ticket you realize very thoroughly 
 that you are going to a country run upon a very differ- 
 ent system from any that you have ever been in in other 
 parts of the world. The company cannot sell you a pas- 
 sage until you produce your passport, vised by your own 
 consul and by the Spanish consul at Hong Kong. Tour 
 
10 * 'MANILA'AN^'^HE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 own consul charges you nothing, but the other one 
 must be paid a nice fee. You must also be identified. 
 If it turns out that you are a missionary on evangelical 
 business bent, you receive immediate notice that you 
 cannot enter the Philippines. If you are a Protestant 
 clergyman traveling for health, you are notified that 
 you are free to come and travel, but that if you endeavor 
 to convert people, or to express opinions at variance with 
 those held by the Spanish government, you will be 
 arrested and deported. 
 
 This sounds strange enough in the last part of the 
 nineteenth century, but is, nevertheless, based upon 
 actual facts in that part of the world. Nor is this all. 
 You are notified in respect to smuggling, to apparel, 
 equipment, literature, and money. If you bring more 
 than a certain amount of clothing there are fees to be 
 paid. If you take a weapon with you, it is subject to 
 confiscation and you to fine. If you carry with you any 
 book, magazine or paper which is heretical, revolution- 
 ary, or anarchistic, or which throws odium upon the 
 Church, or reflections upon the government the matter 
 is liable to seizure and you to fine, imprisonment, and 
 deportation. Should you venture to express surprise at 
 this harsh system, or to indicate doubt as to the enforce- 
 ment of the law, a polite clerk tells you the fate of Dr. 
 Eizal, the Philippine patriot who was arrested and im- 
 prisoned because in his trunk there was found a single 
 pamphlet recommending reforms in the civil and ecclesi- 
 astical administration of his country. Your wardrobe 
 for the Philippines is about the same as what you would 
 take for the West Indies, linen and flannel suits, dress 
 coats made of alpaca or black silk, a straw hat, and a 
 pith helmet for a gentleman ; the lightest and thinnest 
 pongees, silks, laces, and nets for a lady. BDth man 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 11 
 
 and woman should have rubber shoes, a waterproof gos- 
 samer, a sunshade and umbrella, and silk, linen or cotton 
 gloves. A large supply of handkerchiefs, of underwear, 
 and of hosiery is a necessity in view of the climate and 
 the customs of the land. 
 
 A stranger to that part of the world should carry a 
 medicine chest, or in default of that a fair supply of 
 quinine pills, chlorodyne, and sun cholera mixture. The 
 traveler should have been vaccinated within five years. 
 In hygienic matters the Spaniard is a fatalist and laughs 
 at the idea of vaccination. The result is that smallpox 
 is endemic in all Spanish possessions, and in the win- 
 ter months often epidemic. 
 
 An American consul, who was a famous wit, expressed 
 this very epigrammatically by saying "that there were 
 two seasons in Manila, the smallpox season and the 
 cholera season." 
 
 After you have complied with all the formalities de- 
 manded by Spanish law, and have procured the right 
 kind of money for use on the steamer and at your desti- 
 nation when you land, you make your peace with the 
 Lord and embark upon one of the steamers for the 
 Islands of King Philip. 
 
 The trip across the China Sea is alwaj r s pleasant and 
 sometimes very exciting. The steamers are very strong 
 and seaworthy and the captains are men of more than 
 ordinary intelligence and culture. I recall one, Captain 
 George Tayler, of the Esmeralda, who would have been 
 a star in any drawing-room. They speak English and 
 Spanish with a smattering of Chinese, "pidgin English," 
 and Malay. They have to possess much tact and diplo- 
 macy in order to keep on good terms with the Spanish 
 officials, and to avoid the disastrous consequences of 
 violating that extraordinary body of jurisprudence 
 known as Spanish law. 
 
1$ MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 A few illustrations may give a fair notion of this 
 system. If a ship's manifest calls for a hundred barrels 
 of flour there must be one hundred barrels of flour to 
 verify the manifest. If there be one hundred and one, 
 or ninety-nine, the captain is liable to arrest, fine and 
 imprisonment, and the ship to seizure and confiscation. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove any intent in the matter nor 
 can an excuse be legally pleaded for excess or deficiency. 
 At the furthest an excuse or explanation may be urged 
 in mitigation of the offense. In that case the authori- 
 ties may graciously annul the judgment of confiscation, 
 and substitute therefor a heavy fine. If a stowaway, 
 especially one of a prohibited class, is found on board, 
 the same list of punishments await the captain and the 
 ship. If a passenger on board has no passport, or loses 
 it en route, or if it is too old or does not describe the 
 passenger accurately enough, there is another list of 
 penalties awaiting ship and master upon arrival. 
 Of course the principle underlying all this red tape is 
 simply the extortion of money from commerce. It is 
 true that the money extorted is paid back by degrees in 
 the shape of higher freights and heavier charges of all 
 sorts, but this repayment comes from the entire com- 
 munity, and not from the officials, who are entitled to 
 two-thirds of the fines as perquisites of office. The run 
 from Hong Kong to Amoy skirts the China coast, and 
 gives,occasional glimpses of towns and fishing villages of 
 pagodas and joss-houses, in decay. The shore line is an 
 ancient granite formation, which has been beaten by the 
 storms of countless ages into all sorts of fantastic shapes 
 and outlines. Sometimes for miles it is a wall of peaks 
 and cones of a dull yellow-brown, where apparently no 
 life exists or ever has existed. Then again it becomes 
 rolling country with sand and gravel beaches, fields, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. IB 
 
 and meadows beyond, and here and there the mighty 
 banyan tree, in whose shade five hundred people can 
 find comfort and ease. At another place infinite labor 
 has terraced the hillsides until they are seamed and 
 scarred, looking for all the world as if the earth-spirit 
 had started to ornament her outward garment with fine 
 tucks and pleats. 
 
 Then again the shore is broken by some river which 
 announces its restless activity miles away by floods of 
 yellow water slowly mixing with the blue of the sea. 
 There are islands large and small along the route. To 
 the northeast of Hong Kong lies Pedro Blanco, or the 
 White Stone, which rises a noble monolith higher than 
 the tallest mast of passing vessels. On the other side, 
 near to the land, is the famous group of rocks known aa 
 the Nine Pins or the Devil's Nine Pins, which are high, 
 narrow blocks of stone, some straight, some apparently 
 about to fall as if stricken by an invisible giant ball 
 thrown by a genii. Halfway up the coast is Namoa 
 Island, the home of the pirates. Here up to the beginning 
 of this century was a community of freebooters, whose 
 ferocity, daring, and seamanship were celebrated the 
 world over. Even up to 1830, when there were warships 
 on the coast, piracy was a recognized profession. The 
 introduction of steam wrought its end. The steamship 
 was too fast to overtake, and the steam warship could 
 always overtake the pirate craft. Even at the present 
 time there are still pirates on the coast, and every ship 
 in those waters carries at least a dozen rifles, and two 
 dozen revolvers. 
 
 At Amoy the Manila steamers stop a half or a whole 
 day. There is a large commerce between China and the 
 Philippines even in spite of the obstacles and burdens of 
 Spanish law. From Amoy the steamers carry paving 
 
14 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 stones for the streets of Manila and other cities, earthen- 
 ware, china, porcelain, dried fish, provisions, table 
 delicacies, medicines, and many textiles, more especially 
 Chinese silk, and the various kinds of grass cloth made 
 in Formosa, Chang Chow, and Swatow. Here the 
 steamer is visited by the Spanish consul at Amoy, or his 
 clerk. The functionary looks over the manifest, the pas- 
 senger list, and the passports. He vises the ship's 
 papers, and of course receives a fee for his trouble. 
 From Amoy the steamer runs southeast, not for Manila, 
 but for the north end of Luzon. This is done to take 
 advantage of the strong currents of the China Sea which 
 range from one to four knots an hour. There is one 
 current in particular which runs southward, parallel to 
 the coast of Luzon, which is said to reach five miles an 
 hour at certain seasons of the year. 
 
 The China Sea has often been compared with both the 
 Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. It has points in 
 common with both. It appears to be the generating 
 center of a large body of warm water which flows north- 
 ward and eastward, and it is also the scene of very 
 violent storms. The weather of the China Sea is its most 
 extraordinary feature. It may be said to consist of the 
 two monsoons, broken in the summer by typhoons and 
 in the winter by northern gales. The southeast or sum- 
 mer monsoon is a mild, warm, and balmy breeze which 
 blows continuously and scarcely ruffles the water. Tho 
 northeast or winter monsoon is stronger and more fitful, 
 running as high as fourteen and fifteen knots, and pro- 
 ducing at some points a choppy sea, as disagreeable as 
 that of the British Channel, and at others a heavy, ugly 
 sea, which is the dread of all nervous or qualmish trav- 
 elers. The northeast monsoon is broken by occasional 
 gales which play havoc with the largest ships. It was 
 

 
 O Hd 
 
 ffi e 
 
 W -ts 
 
 I! 
 
 I 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 15 
 
 One of tnose storms which disabled the powerful P. & O. 
 steamer Bokhara, October 10, 1892, and drove it as a 
 strong team draws a plow among the shoals and banks of 
 the Pescadores. It is difficult to imagine the force 
 which can drag an ocean steamer of the largest size 
 along a sea bottom of rocks and coral sand, until the 
 plates and even the frames of the hull are ground away 
 in the process of erosion. But the fiercest of these 
 northeastern gales is a child alongside of the typhoon, 
 the scourge of the China Sea. Old travelers pronounce 
 the cooking on these Manila steamers to be the best in 
 the world. The chefs are Chinamen, who are cooks by 
 both education and inheritance, and their training has 
 made them masters of Spanish, French, English, Hindu, 
 and Japanese cooking, as well as of their native styles. 
 Upon the table may be found curries, green, red, and 
 white; chutneys, preserved and green; pressed fresh Ma- 
 cassar fish; Bombay ducks, which are not ducks, but a 
 kind of cartillaginous fish ; gauvas, fresh or in the form of 
 jelly, jam and paste; alligator pears, served with sherry 
 wine, or removed and made into a wonderful salad ; the 
 white hearts of the tops of young cocoanut trees slivered 
 into fibres an inch in length, and then served as either a 
 salad, a vegetable, or a sweetmeat; golden mangoes, which 
 are simply unapproachable; mangosteens, the daintiest 
 fruit this side of paradise ; and glorious ramputas, nick- 
 named by godless youths, "white-whiskered straw- 
 berries." 
 
 Here the epicure can find the Celt-Iberian delicacies, 
 bacalao a la Biscayeuse, chile Carne, rojo viejo, and frijolas 
 con farina. As if to show how closely the world was 
 tied up together one can eat prepared by a Chinese cook 
 the delicious pilau of Manila, which the Spaniards 
 learned from the Malays, which the Malays learned from 
 
16 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 their Mohammedan conquerors centuries ago, which thesd 
 learned from their ancestors in India. These in turn 
 from the people of Persia, and they from Armenia when 
 Armenia was an opulent, powerful and luxurious empire. 
 The coffee, whether of Java or Manila, is admirable and 
 the tea puts to shame that which is served in the great 
 hotels and restaurants of either New York or London. 
 Then there are delicacies which are unknown to the 
 Western world, the Canton rice bird, only an inch and a 
 half in length, and a half an inch in thickness. These 
 are stuffed with a curried stuffing, and then roasted or 
 fried, or else they are brochettedwith alternating layers 
 of bacon and of mushrooms. There is stewed terrapin 
 made from either the marsh terrapin of Luzon or the 
 mountain terrapin of the Chinese hills, either of them 
 equal to the diamond backs of the late John Chamber- 
 lain. Then there are curious confections made from 
 tropical fruits, some dried, some smoked, some preserved 
 with honey, others with molasses, and still others with 
 white sugar, and then as if to stir up the happiest of 
 all mental complaints, homesickness, there are canned 
 Bartlett pears from California, peaches from Delaware, 
 succotash from Maine, and strawberries from New York. 
 The Anglo-Saxon genius is undermining the globe. In 
 the loneliest waters of the Philippines may be found the 
 British tramp steamer and in the smallest village Ameri- 
 can canned vegetables and on both a Waterbury watch. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ISLAND OP LUZON. 
 
 ALL voyages come to an end, and on the second day 
 from Amoy there is a cry of "Land ho!" and there upon 
 the horizon lies an irregular dark purple wall, making a 
 royal contrast in color with the sky above and the sea 
 below. As the ship approaches the color changes and at 
 last resolves itself into a green, richer and deeper than 
 that of the Emerald Isle. On the deck of the ship it is 
 easy to see that Luzon and the other members of the 
 Philippines are the result of ages of volcanic action and 
 much longer ages of erosion and weathering, of coral 
 building, and the growth and decay of swamps and 
 forests. Such, indeed, has been its history. Its vol- 
 canic features are almost numberless, and remind one 
 partly of Japan and partly of that long line of desert 
 rocks known as the Aleutians. On the other hand the 
 coral reefs and beds suggest the great barrier reef 
 of northeastern Australia. Strangely enough, too, the 
 fauna and flora are equally ambiguous, if that term may 
 be applied to the living kingdom. Unlike the mainland 
 'there are no wild members of the cat family in the 
 Philippines. On the other hand there are many types 
 which are Australian in character, and which are not 
 found upon the Asiatic mainland or even upon Formosa. 
 
 The floral world has in it features of both Australia 
 and Asia, and even the human world has in it types as 
 low if not lower than the aborigines of Australia, and 
 
18 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 other types as high as those of the Malay states. It 
 would seem, therefore, that the Philippines represent 
 the results of two different epochs. One was the epoch 
 which formed the long axis which begins in the Aleu- 
 tians, runs through Japan, the Loo Choos, and Formosa, 
 and the other epoch which brought up from the deep 
 Australia and parts of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and 
 Celebes. The combination in the case of the Philippines 
 is a very happy one. The volcanoes produce mountains 
 many of which are now nine thousand feet high, and in 
 some geologic age must have been a mile higher. These 
 mountains supplied soil, sand, gravel, rocks, and ores. 
 The coral polyps built numberless walls and plateaus 
 which were elevated until they reached the air, and then 
 served as walls and breakwaters behind which pools, 
 shallows, marshes, and finally meadows rich and fertile, 
 came slowly into being. 
 
 From the steamer one can see the endless variety of 
 scenery and topography which resulted from this dual 
 cause. Here is a mountainous district and around it is 
 another district which may be compared with Holland, 
 or even the city of Venice. Lakes and lagoons beyond 
 number bays and harbors, landlocked gulfs, fiords, 
 streams and canals are everywhere, and then again come 
 hilly districts, followed by meadows and mountain dis- 
 tricts, ranging all the way from Cape Bojeador down to 
 Serangani Point in the far south. 
 
 The process of land-making is still going on. Many 
 of the volcanoes are still active, and the patient coral 
 polyps never cease their labors. It increases the beauty 
 of the landscape to have mountains that smoke by day, 
 and glare like titanic lanterns by night. At the same 
 time it is not altogether comfortable. Such instrumen- 
 talities of nature are usually accompanied by earth- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 19 
 
 quakes, and earthquakes are certainly the most disagreea- 
 ble visitors known to civilized man. 
 
 Luzon is the most important of all the Philippines. 
 It is the most populous, having about five million people 
 within its shores, and it is also the richest and most civil- 
 ized. It is as large as New York, Massachusetts, and 
 Ehode Island, and has a shore line which if rectified 
 would reach from the Bay of Fundy to Key West. Of 
 its resources but little is thoroughly known. Spanish 
 policy has been toward discouraging all enterprise by 
 native as well as by foreigner, and the territory of to- 
 day is the same as it was a century ago, so far as investi- 
 gation and exploitation are concerned. This much, 
 however, is known. It contains large quantities of gold, 
 and undetermined amounts of silver, mercury, iron, 
 copper, lead, brown coal or lignite, petroleum and true 
 coal. It has an immense supply of hard, tropical woods, 
 and is fertile beyond all belief. 
 
 The Chinese and Tagal gardeners raise seven, eight 
 and even ten crops a year upon their little farms. This 
 is due to a rich, loamy soil, an unfailing supply of water, 
 good natural drainage, and bright, sunny weather nine- 
 tenths of the year. Everything grows as if by magio. 
 A yard left unoccupied for a few months becomes a wil- 
 derness of flowers and weeds. If left a year untouched 
 it becomes a jungle. All of this is suggested to the 
 observer on the steamer's deck. The rocks are green 
 with moss, heavy masses of creepers and vines hang upon 
 the face of every cliff, thick forests are visible near the 
 shore and far away in the interior. 
 
 Scarcely a tilled field is brown or shows the earth. 
 The sprouting time is so short that the plowed field 
 of to-day takes a greenish tinge to-morrow, and has a 
 rich tint the day .after. There are other indication!* 
 
20 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 of prosperity and fertility. There are many native boats 
 along the shore, little Spanish steamers puffing noisily 
 as they creep from place to place. There are wagons 
 drawn by buffaloes on every road. There are huts and 
 hovels in every direction, and through a glass human 
 beings can be seen engaged in their daily vocations. 
 Further down the coast the steamer passes Cape Bolinao, 
 a bold promontory which runs out into the sea. Here is 
 the signal station from which the ship's approach is 
 telegraphed to Manila. Here also is the cable station 
 which sends the messages under the China Sea to far- 
 away Hong Kong. Near them is the lighthouse, that 
 ever welcome sight to navigator and passenger alike. 
 The station is very picturesque, the mountains and 
 forests, the great gulf of Lingayen, and the thousand 
 and one shades of green tend to make a tableau of 
 memorable beauty. From here it is but a few hours to 
 Manila Bay, which on account of its vast size ought to 
 be called a gulf. The opening is quite narrow and is 
 made all the smaller by one large rocky island in the 
 center of the passage known as Corregidor and some 
 smaller ones between Corregidor and the mainland. 
 Upon Corregidor is an ancient fort of more beauty than 
 utility, but giving a very pretty effect to the rocky walls 
 and the dark-green vegetation which surround it. Once 
 past the line of islands the great bay opens up as if the 
 explorer was starting into a new ocean. It must be 
 thirty miles in one direction and thirty in another. 
 Even then the figures are misleading, because at many 
 points the bay passes into shoals and salt marshes which 
 are part land and part water, and reach for miles up into 
 the interior. Streams run into the bay in every direc- 
 tion. In the rainy season they bring down huge bodies 
 of silt and even gravel and bowlders, so strong is the 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 21 
 
 force of the running water. It is this detritus which 
 has made the marshes, the shoals, and banks of the bay, 
 and which is gradually converting that- great body of 
 water into a swamp, to change ultimately to noble 
 meadow land. The progress of the change is indicated 
 by the yellow water of the bay, which at some points 
 looks like liquid mud, and by scores of buoys, some 
 floating and others driven into the mud beneath, which 
 indicate the rising of the bottom toward the surface of 
 the sea. 
 
 It takes a skilled navigator to run Manila Bay at full 
 speed. Nearly every ship which comes there slacks or 
 stops with signal flags thrown out for one of the official 
 pilots who make an excellent living at their trade. As 
 the ship goes on Cavite comes into sight and then 
 Manila. Cavite is a town on a small peninsula which 
 runs out from the mainland in a general northwestern 
 direction, inclosing a fine bay a little larger than that of 
 New York. On the other side of the bay lies the capital 
 of the Philippines. At Cavite is the government arsenal, 
 shipyards, docks, forges, and repair shops. There are 
 forts facing both west, north and northeast, formida- 
 ble in appearance, and seemingly armed with powerful 
 guns. The steamer passes, slackens its speed, and finally 
 drops anchor anywhere from a half-mile to two miles 
 from the city proper. The voyage is done, and the trav- 
 eler is now under the shadow of the red and yellow ban- 
 ner of Spain. The anchor is scarcely down when a 
 vicious little steam tug, laden with customs officials and 
 soldiers, dashes up to the side and makes fast to the 
 companion ladder. Then a small regiment of men pour 
 out of the craft on board the steamer. There is an in- 
 spector, proud and imperious, who goes immediately to 
 the captain's private room, He receives the ship's 
 
22 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 papers and the passports of all the passengers, which 
 must be taken to the government house, and there be 
 entered and again vised. There is another inspector 
 whose duty apparently is to see that the ship is in good 
 sanitary condition, and that there is no contagious 
 disease on board. There is a third inspector whose 
 duties are seemingly to keep a sharp watch upon the 
 officers of the ship lest these should take wings and fly 
 away. A fourth inspector, and a fifth, stand on either 
 gunwale to prevent wicked passengers or seamen from 
 passing dutiable goods out of the portholes, or dropping 
 them with telltale floats into the water below. Then 
 there are several inspectors or searchers who go through 
 the ship. Most important of all is a small company of 
 soldiers who belong to the Spanish army of the Philip- 
 pines. Ifc is considered a great privilege to do customs 
 work, and to get an occasional cup of coffee, table deli- 
 cacy, or cigar, from some one on board of the steamer. 
 So the thoughtful Spanish general assigns his best men 
 to this branch of the service. 
 
 In seeing these soldiers, therefore, you see the best of 
 the Spanish infantry in the far East. They are not a 
 bad-looking set. They are nearly all young, ranging 
 from sixteen and seventeen years of age to about thirty. 
 Some are Spaniards, some are Malays, and some are 
 half-breeds, whom it is difficult to determine. The 
 Philippines from time immemorial have been the bat- 
 tleground of many races. On Luzon there have been a 
 Negroid race, a Papuan race, two Malay races at least, 
 Chinese settlers, Japanese, and Spanish. None of these 
 races have kept themselves aloof from others, and each 
 and all have blended and reblended, until in the course 
 of time men and women have been produced in whose 
 veins was the blood of at least six different ethnic or 
 anthropologic types. 
 
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 W -2 
 
 g :- 
 
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 ^ 
 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 23 
 
 The commonest are the Spanish Malay half-caste, next 
 are the Chinese Malay, and then the Chino-Spanish, or 
 Eurasian. All three mixtures are satisfactory physically 
 and mentally, if not morally. There is in Manila the 
 same prejudice or superstition that is found in many 
 parts of this country, namely, that half-breeds generally 
 combine the vices of both parent races. 
 
 The assumption is probably as true there as it is here, 
 that is to say not true at all. The real meaning is one 
 that pride forbids to confess (namely) that the half-breeds 
 represent the unrighteous living of the men who make 
 the declaration. As a matter of fact these half-breeds, 
 poor, ignorant, and uncared for, make very good soldiers. 
 They are sober, faithful, and obedient. When it comes 
 to action they are brave, patient, and enduring. They 
 are not very neat in their appearance, their clothing is 
 old and shabby, their trousers a little bit fringed at the 
 bottom, and many go barefoot, or wear shoes through 
 which the brown skin is painfully visible. They are 
 small in stature, thin, lithe, and sinewy. They are 
 graceful and many of them quite comely. Their weapons 
 are in fair condition, but are not of the latest pattern. 
 But all from the highest to the lowest are exceedingly 
 polite. Everbody bows to everybody else, everybody 
 smirks, everybody is perpetually expressing an interest 
 in the health and welfare of everybody else. If you be- 
 longed to the same family as your visitors you could 
 not receive greater attention. Everyone with whom 
 you have any official transaction hopes that you have 
 had a good voyage, and have enjoyed the trip, the ship, 
 and the courtesies of the officers. He hopes that your 
 health is faultless, that all of your relatives are in good 
 spirits, that you will grace Manila and the Philippines 
 for many years, and that you will take the same delight 
 
24 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 in the pleasant people of your nationality ashore that he 
 and all of his circle do, and that the climate will prove 
 agreeable in every respect. There are twenty kind ques- 
 tions and thirty friendly hopes expressed by each inspec- 
 tor, searcher, and soldier. You are expected to smile 
 and thank him at each pause, and at the end to ask a 
 similar seiies in return. 
 
 It is a very pleasant system, but oh, it does so delay 
 travel! After the first steam launch goes away, leaving 
 soldiers and a few other officials on board, another 
 launch comes, bringing health officers and more soldiers; 
 then comes a third launch bringing the agent of the con- 
 signees. Then come cargo and passenger boats of various 
 sizes and kinds. The passenger boats are called bancas 
 and are long, heavy, clumsy craft about two and a half 
 or three feet wide, and thirty or forty feet long. A 
 large part is hooded over, the hood, with a boat, forming 
 a dark tunnel into which you crawl. If you are not 
 careful in stepping into the banca, or if you are too 
 careful, you go into the water, and have to be fished 
 out. The banca combines many virtues. 
 
 It can be rowed like a shell, paddled like a canoe, and 
 poled like a canal boat. It can also be sailed like a cat- 
 boat. In each capacity it is extremely uncomfortable 
 and wearisome. It is undoubtedly a survival of the ship 
 of the prehistoric man, which consisted of a large log 
 hollowed out, and the most charitable desire on the part 
 of a Christian is that it may be buried with the aborigi- 
 nal gentleman who invented it. 
 
 You get into the banca in prayer and trembling, and 
 then sit there calmly doing nothing until the boatman, 
 the steamer steward, and the customs officials, and the 
 soldiers allow your baggage to be transferred from your 
 stateroom to your side. If you are shrewd you will give 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 25 
 
 every man a tip or you will give the captain of the 
 soldiers a large Mexican dollar. This investment saves 
 considerable time. With it your baggage is put on 
 board in about five minutes; without it the time varies 
 from a half-hour to a full hour. When everything is 
 on board, the banca pushes off, and moves leisurely to 
 the city. It passes into the river which flows between 
 walls of stone and is more truly a canal, and finally stops 
 at a landing, where it is made fast in due fashion. You 
 and your baggage alight, and you are again on terra 
 firma in the good city of Manila, 
 
26 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 IN MANILA. 
 
 MANILA, strictly speaking, has three meanings. It is 
 the ancient walled city, which is the legal meaning. It 
 is the walled city and its suburbs, which is the popular 
 meaning, and it is also the province, district, or county, 
 of the Island of Luzon, where the city is situated. The 
 walled city lies on the southern bank of the Pasig River, 
 and is walled in a way that suggests the towns and cities 
 of the middle age. The walls are of gray stone lined 
 with brick or rubble, and have parapets, bastions, and 
 machicolations. They look picturesque and even impos- 
 ing. On the northern side the river serves as a moat, 
 and on the west the sea, or more properly speaking, the 
 bay. On the east and south there are well-made moats, 
 paved on the bottom and faced with stone on the out- 
 side, which can be filled with water in the event of 
 assault by an enemy. They are filled by large oluice- 
 ways, equipped with heavy gates which connect the east 
 moat with the river. 
 
 The last time they were employed was in the war with 
 Britain, when General Draper, with a strong naval and 
 military force, attacked and captured the city. These 
 fortifications were built three hundred and eight years 
 ago (1590) by General and Governor Gomez Perez Das- 
 marinas. They were built partly by forced labor, and 
 partly by coolies brought over from China, The walls 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 2? 
 
 altogether are about two miles and a quarter long, and 
 from ten to twenty feet thick. All along the top are 
 ancient cannon, some dating from the latter part of 
 the fifteenth century, and others being breech-loaders of 
 the present period. 
 
 None of them are high-power guns, and none would 
 be of use against modern weapons, -whether of warships 
 or of siege batteries. The masonry was good honest 
 work. It withstood the onset of war without showing 
 any particular damage, and what was a greater test of 
 its merit, the shocks of hundreds of earthquakes, large 
 and small. They left telltale marks of their enormous 
 force. That of 1880 threw down an arch in one of the 
 gates, and others fractured walls here and there, produc- 
 ing crevices which are utilized by mouse and rat, bat 
 and lizard, and occasionally by a snake. A large part of 
 the moats are in a revolting condition, being half-filled 
 with a hideous mixture of vegetable matter, stagnant 
 water covered with slime, mud, and the refuse of a large 
 city. It is known to produce fever and malarial diseases 
 and for that reason the Spaniards are afraid to clean it, 
 lest by disturbing the foul matter the evils are suddenly 
 increased. 
 
 "While the fortifications are no protection in modern 
 warfare, they might be of use in the event of a riot, or 
 possibly of a rebellion. It would depend entirely upon 
 the arms possessed in such a case by the insurgents. 
 The medieval idea is still further carried by having a 
 garrison composed of Caucasians, half-breeds and Malays, 
 which guards the gates, patrols the walls, and keeps up 
 the make-believe of war. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the Philippines have 
 never been thoroughly civilized by the Spaniards, and 
 that as late as 1849 piratical craft from Mindanao and 
 
28 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Sulu came up to within a few miles of the city walls. 
 They afterward retired to their inaccessible harbors in 
 the south without particular molestation from the Span- 
 iards. Nearly all of the destruction of piracy in those 
 seas has been accomplished by British gunboats, which 
 may be said to have done more for the protection of 
 Manila than both its walls and fleets combined. Against 
 these freebooters of the sea these fortifications would be 
 always serviceable. 
 
 The walled city has eight gates, each one of which is 
 provided with a clumsy drawbridge. All of them were 
 provided with portcullises, but these are no longer used. 
 Up to 1852 the drawbridges were raised every night at 
 eleven, and lowered every morning at four. Inside the 
 walls are many government offices, the branch post 
 office, telegraph office, the old custom house, some col- 
 leges, convents, a weather observatory, an arsenal, a cathe- 
 dral, and eleven churches. There are seventeen streets 
 crossing at right angles, and many shops and small 
 stores. In the past ten years there has been an attempt 
 to beautify both the city and suburbs by the establishing 
 of little parks and public gardens. On the other side of 
 the river is the island and district known as Binondo, 
 which is the great trading center of the city, and the 
 site of the foreign merchants and the Chinese quarter. 
 
 The streets are quite wide and well paved, and here 
 and there are the beginnings of attempts to construct 
 boulevards. Taken as a whole the district looks very 
 prosperous, but both neglected and unfinished. The ex- 
 port and import business is chiefly in the hands of the 
 British, the retail business is controlled by the Chinese. 
 There are twenty-four Chinese merchants of great wealth 
 and position, who receive the social and political recog- 
 nition denied to the average member of their race in 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 9 
 
 Manila. Although Chinese labor is supposed to be dis- 
 countenanced, yet a large part of the hardest work in 
 the metropolis is done by that race. In every part of 
 both city and suburbs the commonest sight is that of 
 half-naked coolies carrying loads upon their heads and 
 shoulders, driving carts, and performing the most servile 
 work. They also control, but they do not monopolize, 
 such industries as boot and shoe making, furniture-mak- 
 ing, cabinet work, blacksmithing, iron casting, metal 
 smithery, tin-working, tanning and dyeing. The 
 working classes live in a district of the city called 
 Tondo. It is well worth visiting ; but no one should go 
 there without taking a good dose of quinine, and spray- 
 ing the body and clothing with disinfectants. The 
 houses are hovels, packed close together, and alive with 
 human beings and animals, not to speak of vermin. 
 There are no sewers. The drainage, garbage, and silt 
 lie upon the ground, forming noisome pools or- slowly 
 oozing into open ditches, always choked up, which are 
 found in every street and ally. 
 
 In this district the death rate is often two hundred to 
 the thousand, and here every year starts the epidemic 
 fever, which carries off tens of thousands. The other 
 suburbs are more rustic, cleaner and beautiful. 
 
 The land is low and the waters of the river and of the 
 sea form long arms, canals, ponds and lakes in endless 
 variety. This "part of Manila has often been compared 
 to Venice, and might, if treated by capable landscape 
 gardeners and engineers, be made into an earthly para- 
 dise. 
 
 On the shore is a narrow park or driveway called the 
 Lunetta, where, every evening during the season, a fine 
 concert is given by a military band. Americans encoun- 
 ter a familiar spectacle in a horse-oar line, which runs 
 
30 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 through the city and suburbs, and which terminates 
 near the station of a small railway connecting Binondo 
 with the pretty village of Malabon. In Manila every- 
 body has his own vehicle and horse. The vehicles are 
 a queer collection. The best consists of a small and 
 cheap victoria or barouche, while the cheapest and poor- 
 est is a square box with a ladder at the end set upon 
 two wheels, without strings, and drawn by a dilapidated 
 horse. The rates charged for the use of the conve- 
 niences are very reasonable. For a good barouche and 
 team the tariff is about twenty-five cents for a short 
 trip, while for a little box cart it is ten cents if you 
 engage all the accommodation, and five cents if you are 
 one of a party of three or four. The drivers are very 
 polite, and also kind to their animals. They have an 
 odd habit of keeping up an extended conversation with 
 their horses, and prefer to direct them by voice rather 
 than by pressure upon the reins. The same thing is 
 done by the driver of the buffalo cart, so that a street 
 crowded with vehicles is quite a noisy assemblage. 
 
 There are many drug stores in both the city and the 
 suburbs. The largest and best is an enormous English 
 establishment run as a branch by a Hong Kong corpora- 
 tion. One or two are conducted by Germans, while the 
 rest are managed by natives, half-caste and Chinese. 
 Many years ago the apothecaries of the Philippines were 
 nearly all Germans; but the progress of education in 
 that part of the world introduced the study of pharmacy. 
 The opportunity was immediately embraced by half- 
 castes and Chinese, and these in the course of time drove 
 the Europeans out of business. 
 
 The poorest-paid German drug clerk usually receives 
 ten dollars a week, while the Chinese and half-breed 
 drug clerks are glad to work for that sum a month. On 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 31 
 
 account of the climate the busy hours are in the after- 
 noon and evening, when two or three clerks are neces- 
 sary, so that the difference in expense in clerk hire 
 alone would put the German establishment at a serious 
 disadvantage. 
 
 The people of Manila are not good patrons of the stage 
 and the opera. There is no theater in the city proper, 
 nor opera house, and there are but three places of amuse- 
 ment in the suburbs. At the Teatro Filipino, the build- 
 ing is largely an open framework so that the performance 
 can be seen from the yard or garden beyond it, and 
 partly from the street outside. At the Teatro del Prin- 
 cipe, there is a stock company which gives low comedy, 
 dialect entertainments, and rather dreary farces; while 
 the third house, the Teatro de Tondo, is situated in what 
 we would call the slums, and gives popular melodramas. 
 Now and then the city is visited by dramatic companies, 
 the Italian opera, or a good concert organization, and 
 patronizes its visitors in a very handsome manner. The 
 most popular amusement is the American circus. No 
 matter what the manager or performers, every circus in 
 the far East is known as "American," and in fact most of 
 them, as a matter of business enterprise, own the rights of 
 some American organization. 
 
 When these go to Manila they receive an almost royal 
 ovation, Europeans and natives alike flock to the per- 
 formances, of which two are given a day. Crowds of 
 country people will ride or walk in, sometimes taking 
 journeys of ten and fifteen miles to see the show. No 
 company plays a shorter term than three weeks, and 
 many play eight weeks. These visits are profitable, as 
 the board of man and beast is very cheap, the cost of 
 laborers small, and a band of Malay or Manila musicians 
 oan be secured for twenty-five cents a performer a night. 
 
8* MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Barnum is not the first to charter a steamer and cross 
 the sea to give a circus performance in another land. It 
 has been done for twenty years in the far East, the ships 
 going from Hong Kong or Amoy to Manila. 
 
 There is a bull ring in the suburb of Paco, and here 
 the noble sport of torturing and killing bulls for human 
 amusement sinks down to its lowest depths. No self- 
 respecting Spanish toreador will come out to the Philip- 
 pines, so that the artists are "native talent." In place 
 of the fierce Andalusian bulls which are bred for ring 
 purposes, they have the low-spirited and decepit animals 
 of the Philippines. European cattle do not thrive in 
 that part of the world, and although they manage to 
 exist, they are sorry specimens compared with the origi- 
 nal stock. Beside being small, poorly developed, and 
 timid they are also lazy and slow. The ring performers 
 take advantage of these peculiarities in order to win 
 cheap applause from the audience. The heroic toreador 
 frequentb' catches hold of the bull's tail and has the 
 affrighted animal pull him around the ring. An agile 
 bandillerist will vault over the bull in motion or will 
 dodge under him when at rest. The poor quadruped 
 seems in a daze and does his best to escape. The bipeds 
 chase him about the place, striking him with spear 
 points or with the butts of lances, pricking him with 
 various instruments, kicking him at times with their feet, 
 and after a disgusting entertainment of fifteen or twenty 
 minutes they murder the animal in cold blood. The 
 local aristocracy declines to patronize the institution 
 upon the ground of the inferiority of the sport, but the 
 Spanish lower classes, the half-breeds, and a few natives 
 attend the performances, partly to gratify their cruel 
 nature, and partly to imitate the example of their supe- 
 riors in Spain. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 33 
 
 If the bull-fighting is bad at Manila, the cock-fighting 
 is of the best quality. The Spaniards are monomaniacs 
 on the subject, and the natives have been trained to 
 imitate their masters. It is a source of revenue to the 
 Spanish government, which not alone taxes it but rents 
 out the tax to the highest bidder. In this way the gov- 
 ernment gets a nice income from the sport, and a shrewd 
 speculator is enabled to feather his financial nest. 
 
 There is a legal code of cock-fighting which is as well 
 known to the people as the code of civil procedure is to 
 a New York lawyer. Among the regulations is one 
 which confines the sport to Sundays and feast days. 
 Another regulation extends the time for Manila alone, 
 where Thursdays are also set aside. Each place has the 
 official gallery or cockpit, and if the fighting is held any- 
 where else all participants are liable to arrest, fine and 
 imprisonment. The laws or rules of the pit are strict,and 
 are amended by the government every year or two, so as 
 to increase the interest or excitement in the sport. All 
 people are allowed to bet, but no one may bet more than 
 fifty dollars on one contest. A cock may wear one metal 
 spur, but not two. The spur, however, is made of the 
 best steel, and is ground and pointed until it may be 
 compared, in a small way, to a first-class bowie knife. 
 The fight is held to be terminated on the death of one or 
 both cocks, or when one of them turns and runs away. 
 The code on this subject contains no less than one hun- 
 dred specific sections. Wealthy men breed fighting- 
 cocks on a large scale, while poor enthusiasts will buy 
 the eggs and hatch and raise one or two for their own 
 benefit. The birds are very handsome, in fact, hand- 
 some than those of Spain or the United States. This is 
 due, according to connoisseurs, to crossing the breed with 
 the wild cock of the Philippines, which is the most beau- 
 
34 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 tiful, muscular, and agile member of the gallinaceous 
 family. 
 
 The clergy are among the best patrons of the sport. 
 They are successful breeders skillful handlers, and regu- 
 lar bettors. The officers of the army and navy are good 
 patrons, but confine themselves chiefly to betting. 
 Wealthy men back their own entries at the fight, but 
 consider it undignified to handle or assist at the fight- 
 ing. The gallery is well patronized at all times. On 
 Thursday the place is well filled, but on Sundays and 
 feast days it is often crowded to suffocation. 
 
 There is much music, public and private, at Manila, 
 and some of it is of more than average quality. The 
 friars make music a part of the school curriculum and 
 also regard it as a means to a livelihood. There must 
 be several thousand natives and half-castes who have 
 been thoroughly educated in the use each of one or more 
 instruments, and after that as a member of a band or 
 orchestra. The Spanish army is provided with good 
 regimental bands, and each ol the native regiments in 
 times of peace has a small band attached to it. The 
 commanding officers by picking the individual perform- 
 ers will often establish military bands which will com- 
 pare favorably with the more famous organizations of 
 the United States. Beside the public performances 
 there are private concerts, and also musical entertain- 
 ments given by staff officers, schools, churches, and other 
 institutions. 
 
 The Malays take kindly to martial music and display 
 enthusiasm over a brass band. On the other hand, the}' 
 do not seem to care for fine music, especially that which 
 requires stringed and wooden instruments. The Span- 
 iards have no very great love of it either. They are 
 crazy over dance music, popular operatic airs, and light, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 35 
 
 and comic opera, but manifest no interest in the higher 
 compositions. Nearly all concerts in Manila consist of 
 marches, overtures to famous operas, familiar arias writ- 
 ten for a full band, dances, popular songs, and war 
 music. 
 
 There is a good jockey club in the city, which holds a 
 race week every year, and does creditable work, consid- 
 ering the conditions of the place. The president is 
 usually a Spanish nobleman, while the working members 
 are Englishmen, Americans, and Spaniards who have 
 been educated in England. The club has a tine track, 
 and by offering an extraordinary number of prizes, in- 
 cluding consolation rewards, makes it possible for young 
 men, who are well to do, but not wealthy, to become 
 patrons of the turf. 
 
 During the race week from fifty to one hundred and 
 fifty horses are entered in, the various events. The rid- 
 ing is done by gentlemen jockeys, there being no profes- 
 sionals in the country. The best animals are Chinese 
 ponies, and next to them the Timor ponies. As the 
 animals are very small and the riders are usually well 
 built young men, the times made in the races are exceed- 
 ingly good. The strength of these little animals, their 
 endurance and vitality, are truly remarkable. The 
 pony will enter three races in one day carrying a man 
 weighing a hundred and thirty-five pounds, will run at 
 full speed the entire distance, and will be seemingly as 
 fresh and alert at the end of the last race as at the be- 
 ginning of the meeting. The races are popular, and 
 bring out the social world much more than do races 
 around New York City. In place of a grand stand, and 
 long boards, the practice in the Orient is to have a small, 
 handsome stand for officers of the club and invited 
 guests and numbers of private stands, each belonging to a 
 
36 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 member. The stands are two stories high, the lower 
 one being used as a stable, and the upper, which is open 
 on three sides, as a place where the owner entertains his 
 friends. Lavish hospitality is shown during race week, 
 every stand owner keeping open house. The table is set 
 at the back part of the stand, and is supplied with cold 
 meats, salads, biscuit, cake, sweetmeats, coffee and tea, 
 and also champagne, vino tinto Bordeaux, brandy, 
 Scotch whisky, ale, beer, and soda. The festivities last 
 all day, both eating and drinking running on con- 
 tinuously. 
 
 Social pleasures are few and small, consisting chiefly 
 of formal visits, or an interchange of courtesies between 
 carriages. As for hotels, but little can be said in com- 
 pliment to Manila. There is only one hotel worthy of 
 the name, the Hotel de Oriental. It is very small meas- 
 ured by American standards, having only eighty-three 
 rooms for public service, and accommodations for 
 twenty-five horses. It is clean, neat, well ventilated, 
 and attractive. The service is first class, and the cook- 
 ing admirable. Beside the leading dishes of the French 
 cuisine it serves the national dishes of Spain so as to 
 captivate the most fastidious eater. Its chicken, chile 
 peppers and rice are a revelation to those who have 
 never eaten that ancient Barcelona dish. On occasions 
 it serves tamales larger than the Mexican article with a 
 filling made of game instead of chicken, as is the case 
 with the latter. Most notable of all, it dispenses a curry 
 equal to the finest productions of Bombay or Calcutta. 
 Its most popular curry is one made of camerones or large 
 prawns, and the side dishes served with it include the 
 Bombay duck, the Macassar red fish, fried breadfruit, 
 fried onions, granulated roast peanuts, Spanish anchovies, 
 grated young cocoanut, green and red chile ribbons, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 37 
 
 mango chutney, green chutney, English pickled wal- 
 nuts, English mustard pickles, and palm farina. It is 
 the most elaborate curry east of India, and is superior to 
 anything in either the United States or even in Europe 
 itself. 
 
 The punkahs, or huge broad fans suspended from the 
 ceiling, and swung with a rope by a coolie in an ad- 
 jacent corridor, are spotlessly clean, and very artistic in 
 design. The hotel floral decorations are elaborate and 
 very sightly. The Hotel de Madrid in Intramuros, the 
 Hotel del Universa, and La Catalanta have good Spanish 
 cooking, bad rooms, and very inferior service. La 
 Esperanza Intramuros has the best cooking of all the 
 Spanish establishments, and the worst lodging accommo- 
 dations. There are others of which the reputation has 
 traveled far and wide. They are said to be inferior to 
 the vile inns of the Mongolian steppes where men, 
 camels, horses, pigs, and goats, sleep together in the 
 same room. 
 
 At some period in the past a governor-general with a 
 little more intelligence and less dishonesty than most of 
 his class started a botanical garden. It opened with a 
 flourish of trumpets and made a very attractive spot for 
 citizen and visitor alike, but the next governor-general 
 gave it no attention, and the poor garden has gone on 
 from bad to worse, until it is now a very mournful 
 spectacle. 
 
 The annual budget shows that it is provided 
 for by the authorities, and that several eminent gentle- 
 men of scientific accomplishments take care of it, and are 
 paid therefor by the state. They are never seen at the 
 garden, and according to popular rumor are to be found 
 at the colonial office in Madrid, where it is to be believed 
 they draw or discount their salaries with official prompt- 
 
38 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ness. A few policemen-soldiers are detailed to the 
 garden to prevent British travelers from running away 
 with the trees and a handful of beggars monopolize the 
 prettiest spots in the place, where they whine and howl 
 for alms at the approach of every comer. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PEOPLE OP MANILA. 
 
 WHILE Manila covers a large territory it is not as popu- 
 lous as other cities of the same size. It grows steadily, 
 and with a wise administration would be one of the first 
 cities of the far East, but it is already surpassed by Hong 
 Kong and Shanghai in population, and by both these 
 cities as well as by Yokohama, Nagasaki, Singapore, and 
 Batavia, in commerce, wealth, beauty, power, and civili- 
 zation. The Spaniards who come out there do so with 
 the intention of making a fortune, no matter by what 
 means, in as short a time as possible, and of then return- 
 ing to their native land. Thus the governing class is 
 forever changing, and the institutions in which, by 
 reason of their official position, they take a leading part, 
 have no opportunity of developing in legitimate manner. 
 The houses built by the government, or built at the gov- 
 ernment's expense, make fine residences and add a cer- 
 tain dignity to the place, but they are few in number, 
 and do not accommodate more than a tenth of the transi- 
 tory office holders. These having no local interest ex- 
 cepting that of greed and rapacity, live the best they 
 can and make no improvements in the country of which 
 they ought to be the chief supporters and aids. Many 
 of the officials have a room or two, a little bungalow, 
 and live and eat in the Spanish club, or at the cheap 
 restaurants in the citadel or the suburbs. The 
 
40 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 thing applies to a large extent to the foreign merchants. 
 Even if they like the place well enough to remain, the 
 attitude of the governing classes is such that each and 
 all are desirous of leaving the country at the earliest 
 moment. Nevertheless, these men have far more public 
 spirit than the officials. 
 
 They build fine homes, create beautiful gardens, erect 
 substantial and even luxurious business establishments, 
 subscribe for improvements and co-operate in measures 
 for the public welfare. The Spaniards who live there 
 are very poor, and through either the climate or heredity 
 are slothful, unambitious, and unenergetic. The natives 
 are sufficiently industrious to earn a comfortable living, 
 but go no further for fear that they might be robbed by 
 the official classes. The busiest people there are the 
 Chinese and the Chinese half-breeds. These are always 
 working, no matter what the weather. They bring the 
 thrift and patience of Canton across the China Sea, and 
 although they are "squeezed" and blackmailed, they gen- 
 erally manage to accumulate a competence. These 
 varying tendencies express themselves in the growth and 
 character of the population. A careful study of the 
 census indicates very clearly the direction in which 
 Manila is growing. The present population has, of 
 course, been diminished by the war with the United 
 States and the insurrection of Kizal and Aguinaldo. 
 It is estimated to be about three hundred thousand, of 
 which natives, chiefly Tagals, number two hundred thou- 
 sand, the Chinese, forty thousand ; and the Chinese half- 
 breeds fifty thousand, the Spaniards, including officials 
 and Creoles, five thousand; the Spanish half-breeds about 
 twelve thousand, and Europeans and Americans, about 
 four hundred. 
 
 The number of Spaniards is very little larger now than 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 41 
 
 it was forty years ago. The number of foreigners is 
 about the same. The number of Chinese increases 
 slowly, of natives more rapidly, and of both Spanish and 
 Chinese half-breeds more rapidly still. These half-breeds 
 tell an eloquent tale of the condition, both social and 
 political. The Chinese half-breeds are an evidence of 
 polygamy. A Chinese merchant usually has a Chinese 
 wife, and one or more native slaves, servants or wives, 
 the legal status being very vague. It is contrary to 
 Spanish law and has to be paid for accordingly. The 
 state of affairs, however, is not as bad as the statistics 
 seem to indicate. To the Chinaman these half-breed 
 children are generally as dear as those by his Chinese 
 wife. He educates them carefully, and brings them up 
 in his own business. They inherit from their mother 
 the qualities which fit them for the climate, and from the 
 Chinese side of the house the perseverance and indomi- 
 table will which mark that race. They become prosper- 
 ous merchants and wealthy men. The Spanish half- 
 breeds on the other side represent a very different condi- 
 tion. They are usually the children of Spanish officers 
 and officials by native women, and are viewed with no 
 affection by their male parents, but, on the contrary, 
 with dislike and even aversion. The father goes home 
 to Spain after three or four years, making no provision 
 for the unfortunate offspring. These grow up with 
 no advantages, and with a stigma about them which is 
 bound to hold them down through life. 
 
 From this class the dangerous element of Manila is 
 largely recruited. Some of them, it must be confessed, 
 are remarkably handsome. They inherit the oval face 
 and regular features of the Spaniards, the magnificent 
 eyes, smooth velvety skin, and the supple grace of the 
 Malay. They have the courtesy of the one, the sweet- 
 
42 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES, 
 
 ness and kindness of the other. They have a small moral 
 nature, and a weak will power. The men become gam- 
 blers and the women usually drift into the ranks of the 
 lost. 
 
 If things were left to themselves it is only a question 
 of time when Manila would become a Chinese city, and 
 it seems probable that under free access to the land the 
 Philippines themselves would in a hundred years be- 
 come a territory as thoroughly Chinese as Formosa itself. 
 
 In regard to costumes the streets of Manila afford a 
 pleasant study for the traveler. The Spanish men dress 
 either in their national style or imitate their next door 
 neighbors the French. Even in the tropics ^they wear 
 at times, the unlovely stovepipe hat, the black frock 
 coat, and the black patent-leather shoes which seem to 
 have a perpetual fascination for many branches of the 
 Latin race. Some of them modify this costume with 
 comfortable results. The black cloth coat is replaced by 
 one of silk, alpaca or mohair, the vest and trousers are 
 of white or yellow linen, and the shoes are of black or 
 white cloth and cut very low about the ankle. Some of 
 then dispense with the vest and display a spotless linen 
 shirt of the finest quality. 
 
 It may be said at this point that the Spanish linen 
 goods of Manila are equal to anj'thing in the world. 
 They are made by old-fashioned methods and are a trifle 
 heavier than those worn by Americans, and they are also 
 three times as strong and durable. The half-breeds 
 usually follow either their Spanish parent or else take after 
 the foreigners. The foreign fashions are led by the Eng- 
 lish. The hat is a soft felt known as a terai, a light pith 
 helmet covered with white or gray cloth, and sometimes 
 a straw hat of either Manila or Panama. 
 
 The clothing is of white linen, white cotton, Japanese 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 43 
 
 crepe, thin cloth, Nankin karkee, or seersucker. The 
 cotton is the military sack buttoned close up to the neck. 
 Under it is worn a singlet, but no shirt or waistcoat. 
 The Chinese wear proudly the costumes of Canton. The 
 Chinese coolies wear a mere breech-cloth, or else a pair 
 of cotton overalls reaching to the knee. The Chinese 
 clerks wear dark blue blouses and light blue baggy 
 trousers, while the Chinese merchants wear handsome 
 robes of silk and satin, oftentimes richly embroidered. 
 Many of the half-breeds and the poorer Spaniards have 
 an odd trick of wearing the shirt over the trousers. 
 This funny practice is adopted likewise by many of the 
 natives, some of whom make it all the more ridiculous 
 by wearing over the shirt, which is of white linen or 
 yellow pina cloth, a dark colored short tailors' coat or 
 jacket. The soldiers who are Spaniard and half-castes 
 wear their uniforms. 
 
 Neither Spanish women, nor women of other nationali- 
 ties, are seen much on the street. Under Spanish 
 etiquette it is bad form for a woman to go out walking 
 alone, or with one of her own sex, and it is also bad form 
 for them to be escorted by any man excepting their 
 brother, husband, or father. When they do go out it is 
 in a vehicle of some sort. They then dress for the occa- 
 sion, and display good taste and a well-developed love of 
 color in their apparel. The Chinese women's servants 
 go about the streets with long coats of glazed brown, black 
 or blue cotton cloth, and trousers of the same material. 
 Chinese ladies are never seen in the streets, unless it be 
 in a half-closed carriage. They are then attired in silk 
 in all the colors of the rainbow. The native women 
 have all the Malay love of color. The skirt is usually in 
 two or more colors, the favorite tint being red, next to 
 that white, and next to that green. They do not wear 
 
44 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 corsets, but a low white chemisette and a neckcloth or 
 collarette, which meets the chemisette both at the front 
 and back. The chemisette is finished by two immense 
 baggy sleeves, and the head is often covered with a 
 mantle or mantilla in thin material. They wear no 
 stockings, but slip their feet into a queer little slipper 
 which consists of a small, flat sole with a little band or 
 strap which goes across the foot. The peasant women come 
 into the city every day with fruits and vegetables, eggs, 
 and chickens, wear a short skirt which is covered in turn 
 by a serong, or long piece of goods wrapped around the 
 lower half of the body. The Visaya women wear a 
 serong and a kind of wrapper starting at the shoulders, 
 and belted in at the waist. On holidays the native 
 women wear gaudy gowns of silk or satin when the 
 wearer is well-to-do, and of cotton or mixed goods when 
 they are poor. Spaniards and natives alike are passion- 
 ately fond of jewelry. They wear it upon all occasions 
 whether festive or mournful, and on the great church 
 holidays they wear every article of adornment which 
 they can attach to themselves. The intense activity of 
 northern cities is unknown to Manila. Everybody goes 
 slowly and takes his ease. Business is done leisurely. 
 Even the street peddlers sit motionless by the hour chat- 
 ting, smoking, or dozing. The only healthful activity 
 noticeable is that of the Englishman or American at one 
 extreme, and the Chinaman at the other. On account of 
 the climate, which is conducive to indolence, nearly every- 
 body who can afford the time takes a nap or siesta in the 
 middle of the day. The hours are not onerous in any 
 calling. Coffee and fruit are served in the early morn- 
 ing. Breakfast is had about eight o'clock, tiffin, which is 
 a substantial luncheon with several hot dishes, is taken 
 about noon, and dinner is served at about eight at night. 
 
I 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 45 
 
 The theatersopen at half-past eight or nine. The influ- 
 ence of one race upon another is well illustrated in Manila 
 by the funerals. To one accustomed to the silent de- 
 corum observed in northern lands, the Manila practice is 
 a queer combination of grewsome levity and bad taste. 
 In place of a hearse there is a hideous bier on wheels, 
 decorated with all sorts of cheap and tawdry ornaments. 
 The team which draws the affairs must be of white 
 horses, and the driver, a tall Malay, must wear black 
 cloth, and the highest variety of stove-pipe hat. In 
 front of the bier is a band of native musicians, whose 
 numbers depend upon the wealth or the generosity of the 
 bereaved family. They play dance music, the latest 
 songs, and the most popular airs from Europe, and never 
 anything solemn or serious. Behind the bier is a long 
 line of carriages, the longer the most fashionable, and in 
 the carriages everj'body is talking, smoking, and having 
 a good time. If it were not for the bier the procession 
 would be mistaken for a very jolly picnic party, and even 
 the bier itself with its ridiculous assortment of orna- 
 ments and decorations, and the driver with stovepipe 
 hat, solemn coat, trousers to the knee, and bare legs and 
 feet, present a spectacle at which the traveler must 
 smile. 
 
4:6 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MANILA ARCHITECTURE ESPECIALLY ROOFS. 
 
 A TRAVELER arriving in Manila is impressed strongly, 
 and at first unconsciously, by the buildings. He sees 
 around him a large, populous, and wealthy city, the evi- 
 dences of an extensive commerce, and everywhere the 
 resources which in all other lands produce palatial edi- 
 fices, grand churches, and noble public buildings. But 
 here it is all different. The only high buildings are the 
 churches, and these are built with monstrously thick 
 walls, strong enough to serve as fortifications. The 
 towers, instead of rising in straight lines, go up in a 
 series of steps ; the roofs are squat, heavy, and resemble 
 the roofs of factories where vast machinery is in motion, 
 and furnaces are ever pouring out flame and smoke. 
 The few public buildings are heavy, gloomy and jail-like 
 in their exterior and interior. In the business quarter 
 the houses are two stories, with enormously thick walls 
 and partitions, and with beams and floors, cut with an 
 apparently spendthrift hand, out of the choicest woods. 
 In the suburbs are Malay bungalows supported on tiles 
 or stone foundations, one-storied, and covered with 
 thatch. In the Chinese quarter the buildings are chiefly 
 one-storied, and where two-storied have the lower one as 
 solid as the everlasting hills, and the upper one light, 
 and seemingly fragile. Here and there are buildings in 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 47 
 
 sheets of galvanized iron. At other places are edifices 
 which seem to be a cluster of cells, such as might have 
 been a cloister for monks in long-gone years. Every- 
 thing is flat, horizontal, squat, and heavy. Barring the 
 grace of the bungalow, there is nothing cheerful and 
 artistic in any direction. 
 
 The feeling of weight grows upon the visitor and 
 probably gives a tinge of melancholy to his thoughts. 
 It is not until a few days or weeks have passed by that 
 he realizes the meaning of this flattened-out architec- 
 ture. The truth comes upon him suddenly, and then his 
 feelings are changed from dislike to admiration. This 
 architecture represents surrounding conditions. The 
 architect and the builder have tried time and again to 
 reproduce the beauty of European and Asiatic structures 
 in this land but have failed. They were fighting against 
 nature and nature was too strong for them. He who 
 desires to put up a house in that country must contend 
 against many terrible foes. There is first the heat of 
 the climate and its heavy rain. These forbid light and 
 flimsy construction. He must make preparation for the 
 typhoon, which in its might will shatter an ordinary 
 building like a house of cards. He must make allow- 
 ance for the earthquake, which comes and goes as regu- 
 larly as the revolving moon, and last of all he must fight 
 from the day he sets a beam until it crumbles a mass 
 of dust and sawdust the white ant, the worst plague of 
 civilized life in the far East. 
 
 Imagine for a second the strength and cruelty of these 
 conditions. A twenty-four inch brick wall is considered 
 extra strong for a two-story house in the United States, 
 but in earthquake and typhoon countries, it collapses im- 
 mediately. The average beam in American dwelling 
 houses is three inches thick. A pine beam of those 
 
4$ MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 dimensions will be eaten through and through by whitd 
 ants in the tropics in a single year. A beam consisting 
 of the trunk of a tree fifteen inches in diameter may be 
 eaten through at one or more points within two years 
 by these voracious insects. It is therefore evident that 
 the less wood used the better for tha safety of the 
 occupant. The people of those lands have tried every 
 conceivable experiment to overcome the white ants. 
 They have tried varnishing the woods,and painting them 
 with poisonous paints, but these seem to excite the ap- 
 petite of the insects. They have tried and compared 
 every kind of wood which can be used for building pur- 
 poses. There is not one but what may be attacked by 
 the ants. 
 
 The insects manifest preferences, however. They attack 
 pine, hemlock, chestnut, cherry, cedar, larch, and beech 
 with every seeming indication of delight, while, on the 
 other hand, they rarely approach ebony, teak, ironwood, 
 mahogany, and lignum-vitse. They like black walnut, 
 but are indifferent to bamboo. They like apple and ash, 
 but dislike oak-bark and pitch-pine. The people in 
 those countries, when they can afford it, use those 
 woods in their building operations which are the least 
 pleasing to the white ants. 
 
 "Where a ceiling is employed, it is nearly always of 
 wood, and around it is a border of hatch-work. The 
 openings allow light and air to enter the space between 
 floor and ceiling, thus serving as an obstacle rather than 
 a preventive of the ants. At the present time many of 
 the roofs of city houses, and formerly nearly all, were 
 tiled. So many accidents occurred from the collapse of 
 a rocrf by the ants' eating out a beam or two that the 
 iron roof was introduced, and thereafter the roof of cor- 
 rugated and galvanized iron. This is proof against in- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 49 
 
 sects, and is also, when well-constructed, an impregnable 
 defense against typhoons and tropical rainstorms. So 
 popular has this use of the metal become that many 
 business edifices, storehouses, and factories, are now 
 made of a framework of hard wood and iron, walled and 
 roofed with the corrugated metal. It is employed also 
 for the roofs of churches, and frequently for church tow- 
 ers and spires. Not much can be said in favor of it on 
 the score of beauty. The climate brings out rust in a 
 short time, so that the general effect is cheap, inartistic, 
 and dirty. 
 
 It is a good conductor of heat, so that the iron houses 
 in summer are about as hot as the stoke room of an ocean 
 steamer. Iron stairs, banisters, balconies, railings, and 
 sills, are replacing wooden ones in Manila and a few of 
 the smaller cities. In many factories, business build- 
 ings and private residences, stone stairs and even stone 
 balustrades are not uncommon. The conditions men- 
 tioned render cellars dangerous and even deadly. There 
 are a few made of stone in Manila, but they are heir- 
 looms of antiquity. Neither tenant, buyer, nor builder 
 will have them. They will never come into vogue in 
 the islands until house materials are confined to iron, 
 steel, stone, brick, slate and terra-cotta. On account of 
 the white aats, brick and stone are used as far as possi- 
 ble in house building. The beams of floors, and espe- 
 cially of roofs, are thick and often massive. They are in- 
 spected regularly in order to ascertain if the insects have 
 effected an entrance into the interior. The inspection 
 consists in examining the ends of each beam, and strik- 
 ing it at intervals along the surface with a light hammer 
 or mallet. If the ants have begun to consume the inte- 
 rior, the blow is followed by a hollow dead sound. The 
 beam is immediately replaced by a new one. To hare 
 
50 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 every facility, the average room is not ceiled, and more 
 curious still, the beams go through the walls, the enda 
 being flush with the exterior of the wall. In modern 
 constructions of the better class, iron and steel beams, 
 girders, and posts are employed, but the cases are rare 
 exceptions to the general practice. 
 
 The planks of the 'flooring are very thick and wide. 
 In the houses and offices of the prosperous, they are 
 made of teak, ironwood and other hard timbers. In a 
 few mansions they are of ebony and other precious woods, 
 and are cleaned and polished every day, producing a rich 
 and beautiful effect. As the floors age and shrink with 
 weathering, they are worn thinner, and knots and pieces 
 are loosened and fall to the floor below. At the United 
 States Consulate in Manila it was possible to look through 
 the door of one of the rooms and see people in the drive- 
 way beneath, while the main stairway was so perforated 
 by wear, tear, and knotholes that it resembled those 
 structures made of cast-iron lattice work used in front of 
 office buildings in New York. 
 
 The earthquakes and typhoons are reinforced in some 
 parts of the Philippines by volcanoes. No one builds in 
 those territories without taking these factors into her 
 calculation. Of the terrors, the earthquake is probably 
 the most formidable. That of 1627 obliterated one of 
 the highest mountains in the Archipelago. It fell in 
 with a roar which was heard for hundreds of miles. In 
 1675, an earthquake split in half a high mountain near 
 the coast of Mindanao. The crevice must have reached 
 far down into the interior of the earth, because the ocean 
 rushed in with such force as to inundate the country be- 
 yond over many square miles. Even in the present gen- 
 eration there have been several tremendous seismic dis- 
 turbances. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 51 
 
 One began on September 16, 1852, and lasted for 
 twenty-six days, during which period over ten thousand 
 houses were shaken down. In 1863 was another power- 
 ful series of shocks which did great damage. In 1880 
 one-third of Manila was wrecked as if it had been bom- 
 barded by modern artillery. The visitor can obtain 
 good ideas of the enormous force of these convulsions of 
 the earth at many points in the more crowded portions 
 of the city. Not far from the river Pasig are the foun- 
 dation walls of a handsome church, which was utterly 
 ruined by an earthquake many years ago. It had been 
 built to withstand a very strong shock. The walls were 
 nearly ten feet thick, and were made of well-cut rock set 
 in the best mortar and cement, and yet the portion that 
 remains is marked and marred by crevices from an inch 
 to two feet in width, and the stones, many of them of 
 large size, which were split in half during the catastrophe, 
 not only are separated by a wide breach between the 
 halves, but the levels have been changed in many re- 
 spects by several inches. It must have been that during 
 the occurrence, the earth behaved more like a mass of 
 liquid than like a solid. At different points it exhibited 
 different kinds of motion. At one place it lifted every- 
 thing, at another it sank a foot or more downward; at a 
 third it slid laterally, and at a fourth it appeared to pro- 
 ject objects upon the surface obliquely upward. The 
 gloomy cathedral of Manila is said to have been much 
 handsomer originally than it is to-day. When first built 
 in 1578, it was on a par in size and beauty with many 
 cathedrals in Europe. It had a high roof and towers, 
 buttresses, and considerable ornamentation, but the first 
 earthquake that came along leveled it to the earth. It 
 was rebuilt with walls twice as thick, heavier and lower 
 towers, and broader and stronger buttresses. Again 
 
52 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 the earthquake brought it a mass of fragments to the 
 ground. It has been rebuilt entirely four or five times, 
 and repaired thirty or forty. 
 
 It is a fine-looking building to-day, but it is more 
 massive and gloomy in its appearance than the immortal 
 temple of Luxor on the Nile. In the old walled city of 
 Manila there are many ancient buildings belonging to 
 both the government and the Church. Many of them 
 possess considerable architectural merit, especially when 
 allowance is made for their surrounding conditions. 
 Yet all of these are marked by the same heavy, stolid, 
 and dismal feeling. The walls are reinforced by oblique 
 buttresses, and in many cases are slightly oblique them- 
 selves. There is little external ornament, and none of 
 the class which can be dislodged by movements of the 
 earth's surface. The doors and windows are small; 
 many of the former have strong iron bars, and the latter 
 iron bars and gratings. All show the marks of neglect 
 and decay, and many of them bear the telltale marks of 
 ancient earthquakes. They impress a person in the 
 same way as the great ruined temples of Egypt, Italy, 
 and Greece. 
 
 The interior arrangement of the houses tends to follow 
 the example of houses in Spain. In the interior of the 
 house is an open quadrangle, or else there is a driveway 
 through the house with a small courtyard in the interior 
 or at the rear of the building, or the house sets back from 
 the street, from which it is secluded by a high wall. 
 These private houses are neat, and in view of all the cir- 
 cumstances, comfortable and attractive. The ground 
 floor is flush with the street or raised one, two or three 
 steps. Rooms, halls, carriageway, and the little quad- 
 rangle in the interior, are usually well paved with blocks 
 of gtone brought, strange to say, not from their own 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 53 
 
 quarries, but from far-away Amoy in China. Nearly 
 every steamer of the local lines brings, as an important 
 part of its cargo, a thousand or more well-trimmed blocks 
 of granite, or paving stones from that ancient and in- 
 dustrious city. The stone walls are bare or covered with 
 whitewash. The thick surfaces of lath and plaster, 
 familiar to American eyes, are practically unknown out 
 here. The reason is very simple; the first earthquake 
 that came along, the smallest member of the earthquake 
 family, would shake it loose and down upon the floor. 
 Whitewash is just as clean, and involves no such danger. 
 
 Stone stairways with an iron balustrade leads up to 
 the second floor, which is scarcely any cosier or brighter 
 than the ground floor. Overhead is a tile or iron roof, 
 often doubled in order to have an air chamber between 
 the two roofs. Windows and doors are left open as 
 much as possible, and a good breeze, cool and refresh- 
 ing, prevails in the night and early morning, and often 
 throughout the day. The ground floor if it be gloomy, 
 is comparatively cool and comfortable, although the land 
 is naturally low and marshy. Manila and Ilo-Ilo, and, in 
 fact, in most of the civilized settlements there is very 
 little malaria. This is probably due to the enormous 
 animal and vegetable life forever preying upon itself, the 
 liberal use of whitewash, the cleanly habits of the natives, 
 and the dry heat of the climate. 
 
 It is a common error that the Philippines are damp. 
 Many of the neighboring lands are noted for their rain- 
 fall, and the reputation has been extended to the Philip- 
 pines. Not far away is Singapore, of which Sir Stamford 
 Raffles said: "It has two seasons, the dry and the wet. 
 In the former it rains every fifteen minutes; in the latter 
 it rains all the time." 
 
 In the Philippines the rainfall is modsrate, being 
 about one hundred and twenty inches a year; that at 
 
54 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Luzon averaging about ninety-five, and at Mindanao 
 about one hundred and thirty. When it does rain the 
 fall is very copious and rapid. It thus combines the 
 advantages of heavy rains which clean the country, and 
 a moderate rainfall -which does not permit of the decay 
 and decomposition found in Borneo and New Guinea. 
 With the exception of the few buildings noticed the 
 cathedral, the governor-general's palace, the custom 
 house, one or two church colleges, some monasteries and 
 hospitals, there are practically no handsome buildings 
 in the Philippines. There are many which are very 
 comfortable and pleasant to the eye. Chief among these 
 are the bungalows, which are wooden houses with a 
 heavy thatch, and small European buildings, half-covered 
 with vines and flowers. It requires no exertion on the 
 part of an owner to make a home and house beautiful. 
 Nature will do it all for her. Mosses and moulds form 
 on every shaded wall and niche; vines and creepers 
 spring from the soil and climb over every facade. Flow- 
 ers spring from the earth, and even from the walks in 
 the yard, and trees sprout everywhere, as if endeavoring 
 to bring back the wonderful forests which once covered 
 nine-tenths of the islands. This beautifying force of 
 nature makes the newer portion of the city and the 
 suburbs a spectacle which always affords profound 
 pleasure to the traveler's eye. Trees of every kind from 
 the statuesque palm to the marvelous banyan and artistic 
 bamboo, blazes and splashes of floral color at every place 
 expected and unexpected ; the air full of birds and but- 
 terflies, each tree populated with a little colony of ani- 
 mals; the brownish-green color of the thatched roofs, the 
 moss-grown walls of the older houses; the level roads 
 where the grass and weeds forever fight the pedestrian 
 and the vehicle, all tend to make a picture of exquisite 
 beauty. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE STOKES AND SHOPS. 
 
 IN its retail stores, Manila offers an interesting combi- 
 nation of Spanish, Chinese, and native characteristics. 
 As the Spanish themselves imitate the French, the mix- 
 ture is all the more striking. There are attractive cafes 
 like those of Madrid, and restaurants which are like, but 
 still a long distance from, those of Paris; there are tailor 
 shops and shoe stores, shirt stores, and dry goods em- 
 poriums, which are almost copies of French and Spanish 
 originals. There are hundreds of Chinese stores which 
 are weak imitations of those in Hong Kong and Canton. 
 
 The curious system of taxation pursued by the Spanish 
 government bears so heavily upon trade that it does not 
 pay to employ enterprise, or to carry large stocks of 
 goods. The tax assessor regards goods and wares as in- 
 vested wealth, the same as paintings, bank accounts, and 
 gems. In fact, he prefers them for official purposes, be- 
 cause they cannot be concealed like the other things 
 mentioned. It makes no difference that goods may be, 
 and generally are, bought on credit; that the only interest 
 of the merchant is a small percentage of the value which 
 will pay the expenses of his transactions, and yield a 
 small profit that is beyond the taxgather's intelligence. 
 The tax comes down like the rain upon the just and un- 
 just alike. The result of this system is that the mer- 
 chant carries as small a stock as is possible in his sales- 
 
56 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 room and leaves the rest in a bonded warehouse. He 
 also makes as little display as he can, because all dis- 
 play means money, and all money is taxed. The condi- 
 tion is a profound surprise to American and English 
 women accustomed to the large establishments, the 
 numerous clerks and the wide assortment of goods which 
 mark the dry goods, millinery, boot and shoe trades of 
 the Western world. 
 
 The evil has its good side. If the stores carry small 
 stocks of ready-made goods they are eager and prompt 
 in making things to order. A man gets measured in his 
 own room in the hotel for shirts and linen clothing, select- 
 ing the goods from a little book of samples. The tailor, 
 who may be a Chinaman, half-breed native or foreigner, 
 and scarcely ever a Spaniard, may have the goods at 
 home or in the storehouse. He gets them out, makes 
 them up in his own house, and delivers them with a 
 promptitude worthy of being followed by American 
 dealers. A woman has a similar experience. The dealer 
 brings samples, or, if necessary, large pieces of the goods, 
 for her to exercise a wise selection. Silks and pongees, 
 laces and linens, nets and cotton goods; ribbons and 
 passementeries, each has its price fixed and the price of 
 the labor very low, by the way is given by the dealer. 
 She has her measure taken just about the same as in a 
 tailor-made garment store in the largest cities of the 
 United States. 
 
 The goods are brought to try on, and within a brief 
 period not less than twenty-four hours they are 
 returned finished. This system compels every woman to 
 exercise her own judgment, and produces a far greater 
 variety in costumes and styles than what obtains in most 
 civilized communities. It is very pleasantly visible on 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 57 
 
 supposed to come and "show themselves in dress parade. " 
 The Spanish woman has a fine artistic taste, inheriting 
 the Spaniard's love of rich goods, the Moorish love for 
 color, and acquiring the French love for contrast and 
 decoration. In the audience there will be three hun- 
 dred costumes, all different, and each worthy of the seal 
 of approval by a fastidious critic. One costume will be 
 of a softly-tinted silk or satin, with bare arms, low neck 
 and back, with an over-garment from neck to wrist and 
 throat to slippers, of old Spanish lace and passementerie, 
 or net and bars of ribbons. Another striking costume is 
 an underwaist and skirt of golden grayish pongee and a 
 glove-fitting over-garment of black lace trimmed with 
 black velvet applique. Through the meshes the rich 
 olive skin of the wearer's arms and throat gleams out in 
 delightful contrast. A fourth delightful costume will 
 consist of a low, glove-fitting waist in bright satin, pink* 
 blue or light green, embroidered with gold or silver braid 
 and over it a lace and satin bolero, caught at the neck 
 with a single jewel, or fastened there with a light chain 
 of silver or of gold. 
 
 There will be stately duennas in black velvet, dark 
 maroon, olive, or the deepest blue rich materials. The 
 traveler who attends the opera in Manila expecting to 
 see people in queer or cheap attire is bound to be griev- 
 ously disappointed. 
 
 The jewelry stores in Manila are interesting and ex- 
 cellent. The Spanish artificer learned his trade from the 
 Moors, and like a true Bourbon has forgotten none of 
 its good qualities. He has taught the natives in turn, 
 and here, strange to say, the native women have sur- 
 passed the men in taste, creative power, and workman- 
 ship. In fact, the jewelry made by the Philippine women 
 is famous throughout the East for its excellence, Span- 
 
58 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ards love a profusion of such ornaments as chatelaines, 
 watchchains, necklaces, belts, bracelets and rings, and in 
 the making of these the native women exhibit wonderful 
 skill. They do not limit themselves to one or two types, 
 but display ever-changing novelty in each design. At 
 the jewelry stores it is possible to buy chains of which 
 each link is seemingly made of golden hair arranged in a 
 tiny coil and tied with a true lovers' knot, with the ends 
 BO as to prevent its unraveling, or else with the seeming 
 hairs braided into an exquisite and flexible braid. The 
 little women do all this work, starting with the crude 
 gold from the mines of the country, making their own 
 alloys, drawing out the gold wire, beating it with ham- 
 mer and anvil, and using every process, even the most 
 scientific, known to the metal-smith. They set gems, 
 but here they confine themselves chiefly to Spanish 
 styles. The latter imbed the precious stones in metal 
 rather than raise them on frames so that the light can be 
 reflected and refracted at every facet and angle. 
 
 Silver is still popular as an ornamental metal, and for 
 such purposes as belts and heavy necklaces is as popular 
 as gold, and in some instances is preferred to the latter 
 metal. The women jewelers are also extremely skillful 
 in making hatpins, hairpins, stickpins, and breast- 
 pins. Here they follow nearly every school of ornament, 
 using Spanish, Italian, French, English, Chinese, and 
 Japanese models, and at times producing what are proba- 
 bly modifications of the ancient savage ornaments of 
 their own race. Of the latter may be mentioned pins 
 whose heads represent creeses, with pearl or mother-of- 
 pearl handles, and rubies, garnets, or red coral set in 
 the blade to give the impression of drops of blood. 
 Equally savage, but quite pretty, are jeweled and in- 
 crusted lizards, half an inch, or even an inch in length, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 59 
 
 which are decorated with such a view to chromatic con- 
 trast that the little figures seem irridescent in a strong 
 light. 
 
 The shops and stands where the natives sell different 
 kinds of basket-work are well worthy of visit and even 
 study. In their savage state they were very skillful in 
 preparing all sorts of vegetable fibers for braiding pur- 
 poses, and made hats, mats, clothes baskets and household 
 utensils, which were of remarkable strength, durabil- 
 ity and finish. The Spanish occupation has been of con- 
 siderable benefit in this field. The Sisters of the various 
 Orders have taught their pupils the artistic designs of 
 Europe, as well as many secrets in dyeing, mottling, and 
 enameling straws and the other materials employed. The 
 Manila straw hats are famous even in New York and 
 London for their lightness and beauty. They are equal 
 to the finest Panamas, and the best qualities, which sel- 
 dom reach the market, command as high as fifteen and 
 twenty dollars gold apiece. The fiber employed in mak- 
 ing these hats is the outer skin of a family of rattans. 
 Only those canes are employed which are smooth, 
 healthy, and free from discoloration. They are washed, 
 dried, kept for a brief period in which they undergo 
 some sweating treatment, and then the outer skin is re- 
 moved with a sharp knife. It is softened with water 
 and cut into filaments, some as thick as a match and some 
 as thin as strong sewing thread. The mats made from 
 this material are about the best covering for a mattress 
 in warm weather that is known. The fibers are not cut 
 particularly small, ranging from a quarter of an inch to a 
 sixteenth. After they have been cut they are steeped in 
 strong dyes, the object being first to color the tissues, 
 second to make them stronger, and more durable, and 
 third and most important, to make them disagreeable to 
 
60 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 all forms of insect life. The favorite colors are black, 
 dark scarlet, dark green, and dark yellow, deep gray, 
 and olive. They are then woven into mats ranging 
 from two feet to seven feet square, the favorite size 
 being five feet square. When spread upon a bed they 
 permit the air to circulate through their interstices as 
 well as to allow any perspiration to escape in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Their fiber is a non-conductor of heat and electricity, 
 and possesses a hard polished surface, which is extremely 
 grateful and cooling to the skin in warm weather. 
 These bed mats are found in nearly every house, and are 
 carried about by travelers both rich and poor. 
 
 Wealthy people with artistic tastes use this handsome 
 matting to wainscot and to upholster rooms. It is also 
 employed upon lounges, sofas, chairs, hassocks, cush- 
 ions, and even pillows. 
 
 There are many bakeries and candy-makers, and their 
 products are inviting to the eye as well as to the palate. 
 Sugar is very cheap in the country, being made by 
 European methods, and various kinds of flour are obtaina- 
 ble from both European and Chinese merchants. The 
 Castilians have a very sweet tooth, and use cakes, candies 
 and preserves more, probably, than any other people in 
 Europe. They show the same tastes in their Eastern 
 colonies. At every meal a standard dish is a paste or a 
 very hard and firm sweet fruit jelly, boiled down until it 
 is almost solid. It is made from guava, loquot, and other 
 fruits and is very good eating. Even it is the native 
 women who do the best work. They learned the indus- 
 try from the Spaniards, but have surpassed their teachers 
 in the purity, uniformity, and excellence of their goods. 
 
 There are a few art stores in Manila, but their wares 
 are apt to produce a smile on the part of a critic. There 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 61 
 
 are poor paintings from Europe, and still poorer copies 
 of these by Chinese and native artists. Poorest of all 
 are gaudy and hideous religious chromolithographs im- 
 ported from Europe and intended for the ignorant 
 whites and natives. The favorite is also one of the most 
 terrible. It is the picture of the Virgin with reddish, 
 yellow hair, a blue robe, long emaciated hands holding 
 in them a bleeding heart nearly as large as her head, and 
 from the heart are leaping tongues of yellow flame, and 
 little clouds of white and black smoke. The picture is 
 so ghastly as to be funny, but it appeals to the instinct 
 of many human beings, and so probably does its own 
 little work of good, no matter how unpleasant the impres- 
 sion it may produce uprn the tourist's mind. 
 
 The restaurants of Manila are, as a class, not up to the 
 standards of other cities in that part of the world. 
 There are one or two patterned after the French which 
 may be recommended; there are several in the Chinese 
 quarter which are models of cleanliness, neatness, and 
 good cooking; but the rest are cheap, none too clean, and 
 redolent of salt codfish, onions, garlic, poor oil, and 
 other reminders of the Celt-Iberian Peninsula. It must 
 be remembered that in Manila there are many poor 
 Spaniards. They are compelled to work like those 
 about them, and having no political influence they are 
 unable to get even one of the poorly-paid clerkships in 
 the government offices. They are obliged to compete 
 with half-castes, half-educated natives, and with young 
 Chinamen ambitious to learn the principles of European 
 commerce. In such a competition wages sink to the 
 lowest Asiatic levels, and hundreds of clerks, Spanish, 
 half-breeds and natives alike work for less than what 
 is paid to an office boy in the United States. Clerks can 
 be secured for twelve and ten dollars a month, and even 
 
62 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 nine and eight. Upon this they manage somehow to 
 support themselves and families. Their daily fare is of 
 the simplest kind, consisting of much rice, a little pork, 
 a little fresh and salted fish, a fair amount of onions and 
 garlic, and a large amount of cabbage, yam, and [other 
 cheap vegetables. 
 
 These are the patrons of the cheap restaurants, at some 
 of which the meal, such as it is, can be secured for five 
 cents. 
 
 The fans of the bazaars deserve passing notice. Every- 
 body uses that handy little article and the supply is 
 large, cheap, and varied. The ordinary palm leaf costs 
 but a fraction of a cent. The woven palms made by the 
 Tagal women are a trifle more costly, ranging from one 
 to five cents apiece, but are light, pretty, and durable. 
 They are related apparently, to the fans of Siam and the 
 Malay states. There are handsome fans from Madrid 
 made of ivory, bone, lancewood, ebony, teak, and sandal 
 wood, trimmed with silk, or laces and often ornamented 
 with paintings, beads, spangles, and even jewels. These 
 are as expensive in Manila as they are in America. Both 
 natives and Chinese imitate the imported Spanish fans, 
 and do their work so well that none but an expert can 
 distinguish the difference. There are also rich fans from 
 Canton in which ivory plain and carved is decorated 
 with the tips of peacock feathers, or with quills dyed 
 into a thousand flaming hues. There are very neat fans 
 made with sandal-wood handles and eagle plumes, and 
 the plumage of other birds. These seem very fragile, 
 but in reality are more durable than the palm leaves. A 
 pretty fan, half Spanish and half Malay, is manufactured 
 of silk stretched upon an elastic wooden frame fastened to 
 a handle, the silk being decorated with seed pearls, 
 silver and gold spangles, and sometimes embroidery in 
 colors, silver and gold. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 63 
 
 There are almost no book stores in Manila. There are 
 said to be two in the business district, and these carry a 
 stock of a few cheap novels in French and Spanish, and 
 a small assortment of prayer books and religious works. 
 All the foreigners and the well-to-do Spaniards import 
 what reading matter they use. In the case of the Span- 
 iards it does not seem to be a very large quantity. 
 
 The hot climate renders parasols and umbrellas a nec- 
 essity as well as a luxury. Every man and woman owns 
 at least a couple of umbrellas, and every woman an 
 assortment of parasols. A few are imported from France 
 and England, but the larger quantity are made by native 
 artificers. Economy is relished in Manila more, per- 
 haps, than in the big cities of the world. Both parasols 
 and umbrellas when shabby or injured are promptly re- 
 paired or recovered, and thus do duty for a long time. 
 The cheapness of both labor and silk renders these re- 
 pairs inexpensive, so that even the working classes are 
 frequently the owners of umbrellas that in the United 
 States would cost several dollars apiece. The china and 
 earthern market is supplied from many sources. 
 
 The well-to-do import their table ware from England, 
 France, and Germany, and also patronize Chinese and 
 Japanese goods. The middle classes use cheap Chinese 
 articles, while the poorer classes employ the earthenware 
 and pottery made by natives and half-breeds. This is 
 well made, and some of it is notably neat and attractive. 
 All of it is strong and very cheap. There is an abundant 
 supply of good clay on the islands, and an inexhaustible 
 amount of fuel wood, and lignite or brown coal. These 
 enable the native potters to turn out cheap clay cooking 
 and eating utensils in any desired amount. The most 
 useful of these products are the "monkeys" or water 
 jars. These are unglazed earthenware bottles with a very 
 
64 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 large body, a broad neck and a clay stopper. They ard 
 usually plain, but a few are decorated with line work 
 and geometrical figures. When filled with water they 
 are placed on the window sill or a table in the line of a 
 draught. The water percolates very slowly through the 
 earthenware forming a light perspiration on the surface. 
 This is evaporated by the draught, absorbing heat from 
 the monkey and its contents and thus cooling the water 
 several degrees below the temperature of the surround- 
 ing air. 
 
 It was the only cool water that was had in Manila 
 until American ships brought out cargoes of ice, and 
 afterward an enterprising capitalist established ice- 
 making machinery in that city. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MANILA'S DAILY BREAD TOBACCO. 
 
 JUST as the stockyards of Chicago are the first attrac- 
 tiono which is offered to the stranger within its gates, so 
 the cigar factories of Manila are regarded by its citizens 
 high and low. The view is justified by the facts. The 
 tobacco industry is the chief source of revenue to both 
 state, church politicians, and merchants. To the 
 state it brings in at least eight million dollars a year; to 
 the church about two million, to politicians a million, 
 and to merchants about two millions. It gives employ- 
 ment to several hundred thousand people, starting with 
 the field laborers on the tobacco plantations to the opera- 
 tives in the factories, and the makers of cigar ribbons, 
 cigar box labels, and other trade supplies. "While there 
 is a native tobacco which grows in the Philippines it is 
 never used for commercial purposes. It belongs to the 
 same family as the Chinese and Japanese leaf, which is so 
 harsh and penetrating as to be exceedingly offensive to 
 European nostrils. The famous Manila tobacco is a de- 
 scendant of plants taken from Mexico by missionaries in 
 the latter part of the seventeenth century. The plants 
 thrived remarkably in their new home, and in a few 
 years grew numerous enough to make several large plan- 
 tations. In 1686 the navigator Dampier found its cul- 
 tivation carried on upon a large scale, and great multi- 
 tudes of natives passionately addicted to the weed. At 
 
66 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 that time it was a rarity in Europe, and it had not yet 
 been selected by financiers as a leading support for gov- 
 ernmental treasuries. The Spaniards, strange to say, did 
 not realize the opportunity in this respect until 1781, 
 when by a royal decree the entire tobacco business was 
 made a state monopoly. This lasted until 1882, during 
 which time the government paid little or no attention to 
 the scientific culture of the plant. Its uniform excel- 
 lence during that long period is convincing evidence of 
 the richness of the Philippine soil. During all this time 
 the Spanish government paid no attention to anything 
 but the raising of aa large an income as was possible. By 
 one expedient after another, by laws of remarkable 
 cruelty, they succeeded in raising the revenue from about 
 two millions in 1840 to about five millions in 1859, and 
 to about eight millions in 1870. The story of this legis- 
 lation and political work will probably never be known 
 in full; but the fragments which may be found in 
 Spanish official publications reveal a system of tyranny, 
 injustice, and inhumanity, so terrible as to be almost in- 
 credible. In 1846, for example, the natives in Mindoro 
 refused to bring in their crops, because they had not 
 been paid for two years. 
 
 Soldiers were sent into the tobacco district, and the 
 ringleaders of the disaffection were shot. Others were 
 flogged, imprisoned, and otherwise maltreated, partly to 
 punish them for their contumely, and partly to frighten 
 them into complying with the government's wishes. 
 This was the straw which broke the camel's back. The 
 natives set fire to their plantations, and ran away to the 
 mountains, and the tobacco industry of Mindoro was 
 practically annihilated. Laws were passed authorizing 
 compulsory labor, and the natives in the northern prov- 
 inces of Luzon were compelled to plant tobacco where 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 67 
 
 before they planted maize and rice. All refusing to 
 obey the commands were treaded as malefactors and 
 punished according to the enormity of their disobedi- 
 ence, and the dicretions of the military officer of the 
 district. The poor creatures planted the tobacco so as 
 to comply with the law, but then spent most of their 
 time in making small clearings elsewhere, and raising 
 food for their families. This pitiful attempt at self-sus- 
 tenance was promptly met by the authorities with an- 
 other law. Every family was compelled to raise at least 
 four thousand plants per annum under a penalty of fine, 
 dispossession, imprisonment, or all. This not bringing 
 enough yield, another law was passed whereby any land 
 not cultivated in tobacco was appropriated by the gov- 
 ernment, and given to any appointee upon condition that 
 he would devote it to the precious leaf. 
 
 When under the pressure of this frightful tyranny 
 and of actual starvation the natives left their farms and 
 went into the fastnesses of the interior, the government 
 sent colonies from the middle islands of the archi- 
 pelago up to the deserted fields, and there put them to 
 work with a company of soldiers within a day's march- 
 ing distance. "When it was found that some philan- 
 thropic Spaniards had helped the disobedient planters, 
 an ancient law was revived whereby a native could not 
 be held responsible for a debt exceeding five dollars; and 
 all emigrants, colonists and tobacco farmers were per- 
 mitted to liquidate them out of their earnings at tobacco 
 planting. There appears to be no connection between 
 these two things, but nearly all the Spaniards who did 
 these things were creditors of the natives, advancing to 
 them moneys for their support and that of their families 
 to be repaid when the tobacco was sent in. The new 
 laws enabled every dishonest native to evade his debts, 
 
68 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 and gave the officials the power to cut down his govern- 
 ment credits, so that the outside creditor would be un- 
 able to receive anything upon the debt. There is a cer- 
 tain diabolic ingenuity about this which is worthy of the 
 Sublime Porte. 
 
 In 1880 the condition of affairs had grown so bad that 
 even the Spanish landowners began to protest. If a 
 landowner, for example, dared to smoke a leaf of tobacco 
 growing on his own land, cultivated by his own hand, at 
 any place excepting inside the tobacco shed he was liable 
 to arrest, and a fine with costs of seven dollars and 
 thirty-seven cents for one cigar, and one dollar and 
 eighty-seven cents for a cigarette. When it is remem- 
 bered that a cigar in the Philippines costs about one 
 cent in our money, and a cigarette one mill, the severity 
 of the fine can be imagined, and yet in one province 
 alone the annual average of fines for this kind of offense 
 rose from the passage of the law up to seven thousand 
 dollars. Another law gave the officials the right of 
 domiciliary search. The officers were allowed to enter a 
 house at any time from sunrise to sunset to examine every 
 part of the building, and the furniture, including trunks, 
 boxes, barrels, and bales, and to strip men, women and 
 children, and examine their clothing after it had been 
 removed. In more than one thousand cases justly indig- 
 nant husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, attacked the 
 officers of the law for their indecent treatment of the 
 women of the household and killed them. In over one 
 thousand cases they wounded the officials, but all those 
 who displayed true manhood in this way were hunted 
 down and shot as wild beasts. 
 
 Finally the government began to pay treasury notes 
 instead of money for the tobacco, and starvation threat- 
 ened the poor planters throughout the islands. In 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 69 
 
 1883 the monopoly was at last abolished by law, and 
 against the protests of many of the leading statesmen of 
 Madrid. It was not the cruelty and inhumanity which 
 caused the abolition of the system, but the certainty that 
 the vast scheme would collapse and bring nothing to the 
 state. Since that time the tobacco industry of the 
 Philippines has prospered, using the term in a relative 
 sense. 
 
 The annual output has grown from year to year, and 
 there has been some attempt made to improve the quality 
 of the leaf. The exports the first year, 1883, were one 
 hundred and ninety millions of cigars, and seven thou- 
 sand tons of leaf tobacco, while in 1895, the last year of 
 which there is any published record accessible, the 
 cigars had leaped to two hundred millions, and the 
 tobacco to fifteen thousand tons. At the present time 
 the business is conducted without any interference on 
 the part of the government. The Spanish law tends to 
 favor its own citizens at the expense of foreigners, and 
 the largest establishment is a huge corporation styled 
 The General Company of Tobaccos of the Philippines. 
 There are a number of Chinese manufacturers who do a 
 very excellent business, and many smaller Spanish and 
 native houses. Strange as it may seem to the govern- 
 ment at home, the royal treasury at Madrid receives far 
 more money under the present system than it did in the~~~~r~ 
 cruelest days of the monopoly. The tobacco factories in 
 Manila range from small shops to establishments employ- 
 ing hundreds, and even thousands of operatives. They 
 are large, roomy buildings, well ventilated, and kept 
 clean and well sanitated. The trade itself is healthful, 
 emanations of the leaf being very distasteful to all forms 
 of insect life, and acting as a germicide of some effi- 
 ciency. The operatives are mainly girls and women. 
 
70 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 mostly half-castes and natives. They are industrious, 
 well-behaved, neat in their appearance, and aa a class 
 attractive. They compare favorably with the cigarette 
 girls of the eastern cities, and like them are fond of 
 light social recreation when their work is done. 
 
 In the same factory all branches of work are carried 
 on. In one section cheroots are produced, in another 
 cigars, in a third, rolls similar to American stogies, in a 
 fourth folded cigarettes, in a fifth pasted cigarettes, in 
 a sixth picadura, or short-cut smoking tobacco, and in a 
 seventh prepared leaf for exportation. There is also a 
 box-making department where improved American 
 machinery turns out cigar boxes, in a never ending 
 stream, a paste board box division, a packing box de- 
 partment, and a printing department for labels and 
 wrappers. 
 
 " Everybody smokes in the islands, native and foreign, 
 man, woman and child. The market-woman whiffs her 
 cigarette and the Tagal grandmother may be seen draw- 
 ing upon a huge cheroot. The tobacco is milder and 
 not so well flavored as the Cuban. It comes close to the 
 Mexican leaf from which it is descended, but according 
 to experts is a trifle better than the latter. Under good 
 local government the industry would quickly double and 
 treble its present proportions. The fields are not prop- 
 erly cultivated owing to the lack of efficient imple- 
 ments. 
 
 The greater burden upon it is the absence of not only 
 railroads, but of even decent thoroughfares. While 
 there are many good roads on Luzon they only serve to 
 make the other and more numerous ones look worse by 
 comparison. Good roads running through the tobacco 
 district, and, better still, well-managed railways, would 
 open up splendid districts now unavailable, and reduce 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 71 
 
 the expense of transportation to a quarter, and even less, 
 of what it now is. 
 
 For some mysterious reason the United States has not 
 thus far been a good customer of the Philippine tobacco 
 industry We take enormous quantities of sugar and 
 hemp, but of their cigars, cigarettes and tobacco, we 
 took according to last advices, only about five thousand 
 dollars' worth in a year, not so much as any one of the 
 leading European nations, China, Japan, India, Egypt, 
 Australia, or even New Zealand. The only explanation 
 which can be offered is that the American palate has 
 been spoiled by the Vuelta Abajo leaf of Cuba, and the 
 golden leaf of Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. 
 
72 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 ABOUND LUZON. 
 
 THE absence of proper railway facilities is not a great 
 drawback in the Philippines, the wonderful coast-line 
 enables the traveler to do her journeying in a much more 
 pleasant fashion by water. There are little light- 
 draught steamboats which go almost everywhere, and 
 which charge very low fares and upon every navigable 
 steam, lake, and bay, are bancas, canoes and other boats 
 which can be hired for an insignificant sum. Thus to 
 reach the northern part of Luzon, you take a broad- 
 bowed and fat-bellied steamboat which looks for all the 
 world like the hull of an American ferryboat fitted with 
 the upper works of an English channel steamer. It goes 
 from port to port, stopping apparently at any place where 
 it can pick up a passenger, or a piece of freight. It 
 goes as far as San Fernando, which is not far from Cape 
 Bojeador, where it lands at a wooden pier similar to the 
 dilapidated wharves that are found at decaying towns on 
 the Long Island Sound. 
 
 There is no hotel at the place, not even an inn of the 
 lowest type, the people, however, are hospitable here as 
 they are throughout the country. It should be said to 
 the credit of the Spaniard that he is always hospitable 
 as well as always courteous. This hospitality does not 
 mean generosity, because he expects the same hospitality 
 when he goes to any other town. Thus, in the course of 
 
v 
 
 8 y 
 
 C <U 
 
 5. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 73 
 
 a year, the number of people he has entertained is just 
 about the same as the number of times he has been 
 entertained. 
 
 From here the favorite route for the tourist is to the 
 little town of La Trinidad. The country is mountainous 
 and picturesque. In its general appearance it suggests 
 the Catskills, although the mountains probably average a 
 little higher. The official surveys give a few summits at 
 four thousand feet and a great many at three thousand. 
 The valleys are sharp and well defined, and even in the 
 dry season there are numberless waterfalls of extraordi- 
 nary beauty. Vegetable growth is more than luxuriant, 
 and prevents a passenger from riding out of the road or 
 beaten path even if she so desires. 
 
 There is very little danger to the traveler in this part 
 of Luzon. The natives are docile, and seldom run 
 amuck or join the oath-bound organization known as the 
 juramentada. There are no wild beasts worthy of men- 
 tion, the only animals from whom aught can be feared 
 being the crocodile and the anaconda. The former is 
 large and ferocious, but seldom goes out of his lair to 
 attack human beings, having learned in all probability an 
 unconscious respect for the two-legged animal which 
 carries a long and noisy metal tube The anaconda is a 
 crafty reptile, and when very hungry will attack man 
 as well as beast. It grows to enormous size in the 
 Philippines, one captured by the Ann Arbor expedition 
 a few years ago being thirty feet long and more than a 
 foot in diameter. Another one which was killed in the 
 sixties is Btill seen in the form of a well-tanned hide 
 in Manila. A part of the tail has been lost, and pieces 
 of the skin have been cut or torn away, but even as it 
 remains it is twenty-three feet long, and forty-eight 
 inches wide at the widest point, indicating a diameter of 
 about fifteen inches. 
 
74 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 These monsters have a mode of attack which, so far as 
 is known, is not employed by the snakes of North 
 America. They constrict like all snakes of their family, 
 but in addition they also strike a blow, using the head 
 and neck as a projectile, with four or five feet of the body 
 as the impelling instrument. The blow is extremely 
 rapid, and as the part employed will weigh from fifty to 
 a hundred pounds the shock is so great as to knock 
 down, and even render unconscious, a man, deer, horse, 
 or even young buffalo. 
 
 The attack is followed up instantly, and before the 
 luckless victim regains consciousness all life has been 
 crushed out by the folds of the great serpent. 
 
 In traveling, the athlete can walk, but is bound to 
 have his shoes cut by the sharp angles and edges of the 
 broken volcanic rock which crops out every here and 
 there in the roadway. The favorite mode of locomotion 
 is on the back of a Philippine pony. This pretty little 
 animal suggests the Shetland of Great Britain. It is 
 very small, patient, affectionate, sure-footed, and intelli- 
 gent. Though the climate is very warm it is quite 
 shaggy, and from the rocky environment it is almost as 
 sure-footed as the mountain goat. They look too small 
 for a person to ride, and yet, by the wisdom of nature 
 they are so adapted to their country, that they will out- 
 last an imported horse of twice their size and seemingly 
 ten times their strength. A tall man can only ride them 
 by bending his knees, otherwise his feet would be on 
 the ground all the time. The natives, who are like most 
 orientals, kind to their brute creatures, ride the ponies 
 on the level and going uphill. In going downhill they 
 invariably alight and walk. 
 
 This is due as much to caution as to regard for the 
 animal. The Philippine pony in going down a rocky 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 75 
 
 bill puts its head down quite close to the round as if to 
 examine the texture of the soil and rock. The angle 
 made is sharper than the angle of the hill, and nine 
 riders out of ten signalize the event by shooting precipi- 
 tately over the pony's head. The harness is quite 
 unique. The saddle is a modified Spanish saddle with 
 less wood and leather than those employed in our South- 
 west. Everything else is made of Manila twine, or 
 Manila native-made rope the stirrup straps, belly-band, 
 bridle, and even the extra girth, are made of hemp 
 twisted or braided into a cord scarcely a quarter of an 
 inch in diameter. Some of the more prosperous natives 
 have straps made by braiding or weaving the twine or 
 by fastening together four, five, or six cords so as to 
 lie parallel in a flat surface. When well made this har- 
 ness is strong and serviceable. It is also cooler and 
 pleasanter for the animal than heavy straps of leather; 
 but most of it is not well made, and much of that which 
 is well made is so worn as to be frayed, and at places 
 half rubbed through. Where your harness is of the 
 latter variety it breaks with extraordinary regularity, 
 and you spend considerable time in getting off tying the 
 ends together in hard knots, readjusting the strap and 
 getting on again. 
 
 The land under cultivation in this district belongs to 
 the church, rich landed proprietors, or to nobles and 
 politicians at Madrid. It is kept in good condition, the 
 fields being well plowed and finely cultivated, and each 
 field being walled in as it were by a low embankment of 
 sod and clay from one to two feet in thickness. 
 
 These walls serve as boundaries, and also as dams for 
 retaining the rainwater which falls and that which 
 trickles from fields lying upon higher levels. The farm- 
 ers are almost as careful as those of China, where every 
 
76 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 drop of water is utilized to the utmost. The fields are 
 very productive, giving noble crops of rice, tobacco, and 
 other vegetable growths, and where, when set aside for 
 poultry raising, or grazing, support the animal charges 
 with great ease. 
 
 Everything produced belongs to the landlord, and the 
 peasants who raise them are allowed a daily stipend of 
 rice, one pair of trousers a year for a man, and one skirt, 
 and one scarf per year for the woman. Every day the 
 buffalo carts pass you, carrying huge loads of rice, to- 
 bacco, and grain, or fresh vegetables, or herds of 
 buffaloes, cattle, and ponies, but all goes to distant cities, 
 or ports for the benefit of absentee landlords, and almost 
 nothing remains for the wretched people who have pro- 
 duced them. 
 
 These people are too poor to use meat of any sort, 
 poultry, or even eggs. For animal food they depend 
 upon the fish in the sea, and upon the buffalo milk, which 
 their white employers look down upon with disgust. 
 And yet, despite their poverty and degradation, they are 
 extremely polite, and as you pass, the men raise their 
 hats, and the women courtesy with all the grace of the 
 Spanish grandee from whom they have learned their 
 manners. The carts, not only here, but all through the 
 Philippines, are very funny. They are strong, heavy, 
 and clumsy, and their wheels are solid circles or disks 
 of hard wood, ranging from two to six inches in width. 
 They squeak as they move, and make a discord so un- 
 earthly that in clear, calm weather, they can be heard 
 several miles. The carts are drawn by the Philippine 
 buffaloes which seem a connecting link between a cow 
 and an elephant. They have a livid pink skin, spattered 
 with huge bristles, wide spreading and powerful horns, 
 and a body that seems fully a yard in diameter. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 77 
 
 As you progress further south you encounter the coral 
 formation. It is met with on low levels, seldom more 
 than twenty feet above the level of the sea. Ages of 
 weathering have compacted it so that it makes very good 
 building material. It is used as a foundation for the 
 houses of the well to do, of public buildings and of 
 churches, but the labor expended upon it is too valuable, 
 although it amounts to but a few cents a day, for the 
 coral rock to be used by the comon people. 
 
 Through this part of Luzon an observant traveler will 
 be surprised at the decay of the church. Nearly every 
 building used for church purposes is more or less dilapi- 
 dated, and many are half ruined. In the handsomer 
 ones there are still evidences of great wealth; but these 
 on examination prove to be of the last century, and not 
 of the present one. The reason of the decay is not far to 
 see. When the church began its work the land belonged 
 largely to the natives, who were prosperous and free 
 handed with their gains. They gave liberally to the 
 church, and in many instance built edifices which would 
 be a credit to any country, but the industrial political 
 system undermined all this prosperity. The lands 
 passed from the natives to the church and to private 
 owners, to officials, and finally to nobles in Madrid, and 
 to bankers and usurers in both that capital and Paris. 
 
 The former owners became peasants, and year after 
 year their lot became harder and harder. As they grew 
 poorer their contributions necessarily ceased, and the 
 church itself disposed of many of its estates to private 
 citizens. So it went on, from bad to worse, until to-day 
 the lot of the peasant in the Philippines is much worse 
 than that of the coolie in the poorest district of the 
 Province of Canton in China. 
 
 When a man has only one pair of trousers a year, and 
 
78 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 like to appear neat and attractive on high days and holi- 
 days, he is very apt to put that pair aside when he is at 
 work. This is what occurs throughout the Philippines. 
 Hundreds of thousands go about perfectly naked, and an 
 equally large, and perhaps larger number, wear the small- 
 est possible breech cloth, held in position by a rope tied 
 round the waist, serving both as a garment and a pocket. 
 To a visitor from a western civilization there is no more 
 striking spectacle than a group or caravan of carriers in 
 the mountainous districts of Luzon. The first man, 
 usually the head man, wears a loin cloth and a home- 
 made straw hat about the size and shape of an archery 
 target. Behind him comes a long line of naked, bronze 
 human beings, each with a bamboo frame on his back, 
 fastened to his body by narrow shoulder straps, and a 
 broad band of either leather or Manila rope around the 
 forehead. Nearly ail the weight is thrown upon the 
 forehead, a mode of carrying entirely unknown to Eng- 
 land or America. In this district the roads exist only 
 in name. They are hardly bridle paths. Many of them 
 are what in western vernacular would be termed 
 "blazes." 
 
 This northern district of Luzon deserves thorough ex- 
 ploitation by competent specialists. It is up here, not 
 far from La Trinidad, that they have found a large out- 
 crop of gold-bearing quartz, which is worked by the 
 natives in the most primitive style possible. They break 
 off a piece of the quartz comminute it upon a rock with a 
 round piece of the same material, and then grind it to a 
 powder sweeping this into a basin of water, and there 
 washing away the particles of stone until nothing is left 
 in the bottom, but a few grains of gold. Some of the 
 more intelligent natives heat the quartz rock in a bonfire 
 and throw it, when red hot, into a pail of water. The 
 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 79 
 
 rock behaves as glass does under the same circumstances, 
 crackling and crumbling into a mass of brittle and fria- 
 ble fragments. Working this way a man and his wife 
 can make a dollar's worth of gold a week which they 
 sell to the Spanish speculators, at one-half of its real 
 value. But fifty cents a week makes a very good living 
 for a man in that part of the world. He can have two 
 pair of trousers a year, and his wife can have two skirts. 
 The gold country is situated between Kapouga and La 
 Trinidad, and the main ledge, what would be termed the 
 mother lode, has been traced off and on for ten miles. 
 There is also placer gold, but the only ones who have 
 ever worked it with any profit have been Chinese miners 
 who had received their training in California. Neither 
 the natives, nor the Spaniards have ever attempted the 
 task upon a large scale, or have made a sufficient profit 
 upon a small one. Near Kapouga there is another for- 
 mation of quartz carrying silver-bearing lead. It has 
 been used for the production of the latter metal, but the 
 difficulty in transportation has been too great an obstacle 
 for the energy and enterprise of the inhabitants. For 
 the benefit of miners it may be added that there is an 
 unlimited supply of fresh water, with a fall sufficient to 
 run a thousand turbines. There is an inexhaustible 
 amount of wood, of the toughest and strongest kind, 
 suitable for timbering mines and for supplying fuel. 
 The mining country is on very high land, ranging from 
 three to six thousand feet above the level of the sea. It 
 is free from malaria, and provides excellent shooting and 
 fishing for those who care for sport, or who like to im- 
 prove the ordinary food supply of the district. The 
 province is also interesting in respect to its population. 
 This is very much mixed. The most prominent, if not 
 the most numerous type, are the mountain Indians, or 
 
80 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 mountain Malays, who are tall, dark, muscular men 
 averaging about five feet four, and some reaching a 
 high as five feet eight inches. They are active, ener 
 getic, but are said to be untruthful and dishonest 
 Those on the coast and. in the lowlands are mucl 
 smaller, averaging about five feet in height, of thinne: 
 build, and smaller muscular development. They are no 
 very strong, but are very lazy. They work half-heart 
 edly, and get tired quickly. They are good natured 
 taking nothing seriously. They make poor workingmen 
 but, on the other hand, they are said to be singularly 
 affectionate, loyal, truthful, and honest. A third typ( 
 is a brown race, known as the Garoti. These are be 
 lieved to have been the race that immediately succeeded 
 the original negroid stock, and preceded the Malay stock 
 They resemble the Papuans, and preserve, even to-daj 
 many, if not most, of their savage rites, ceremonies, anc 
 superstitions. Both men and women are tattooed, th< 
 men decorating the arms and hands, and the women th< 
 upper arm, shoulders, and neck. They have queer musi 
 cal instruments, consisting of copper gongs which ar< 
 struck with small sticks, and wooden drums with snak( 
 skin heads three feet long, but only five or six inches ir 
 diameter. 
 
 This odd affair gives a double note when struck, 
 There is first the tang of the skin, sharp and short, and 
 then a muffled roar from the wooden body, which serve* 
 partly as a sounding board, and partly as a generator oi 
 sound. The men are rather well built, and the young 
 women are very attractive and exquisitely shapely. 
 From the age of thirteen to about twenty their forme 
 will compare favorable with classic models. Then they 
 age rapidly and soon become wrinkled and unattractive. 
 At stated seasons of the year they hold feasts, whose 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 81 
 
 exact object and nature they conceal, or else which the 
 Spaniards do not understand. These festivals last two, 
 and even three days, continuously. No one is supposed 
 to sleep, but is in duty bound to keep up the programme 
 of eating, drinking, smoking, dancing, and singing. 
 
 The feast is opened by killing and cooking a young 
 buffalo, several pigs, and a score of chickens. These are 
 served with boiled rice, and a little salt, and are washed 
 down with a weak fermented liquor that is supposed to 
 be a rice beer, flavored with barks and fruit. It has not 
 been anaylzed, but cannot contain more than two or 
 three per cent, of alcohol. It is a little stronger, there- 
 fore, than ginger pop, but not quite so strong as small 
 beer. The women use it by the quart, and the men by 
 the gallon, and as none of them seem inebriated, the 
 beverage is probably quite harmless. The singing and 
 dancing reminds one of similar performances by the 
 Indians of the plains. The time is good, but the melo- 
 dy is simple and somewhat wearisome. The dance is be- 
 gun by one or two pairs, each pair consisting of a man 
 and a woman. They move forward and back, and in 
 separate circles, both to the right and the left, using 
 arms and legs at the same time. 
 
 The steps are three in character, one being similar 
 to the waltz step, another being a flat shuffle, and a third 
 being a hop such as marked the old fashioned hop waltz. 
 With the arms there is greater variety and freedom of 
 movement, the woman surpassing the man in this re- 
 spect. The latter has his arms stretched outward, mov- 
 ing them forward and back, up and down, graduating 
 each movement with the step of his feet. The woman 
 moves her arms from a bended position over the head, a 
 full demicircle to a bended position behind the back. 
 She also sways her body forward and back, and side- 
 
82 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ways, and has a curious hitch or twist of the hips, some- 
 thing like that of the houlah houlah dancers of Hawaii. 
 Frequently the man will snap his fingers like castanets, 
 or clap his hands. After the first pair or two get 
 tired, they step backward from the dancing space, and 
 are immediately congratulated, thanked, and rewarded 
 with immense bowls of the native beer. In the mean- 
 time their places have been taken by others. Toward 
 the early hours of the morning the pairs are increased 
 until thirty or forty are in full movement, with a hun- 
 dred beating time with their hands and feet, and hum- 
 ming, or even chanting rude melodies, whose tempo 
 coincides with that of the dance. There is a fire burn- 
 ing day and night, which throws wavering light upon 
 the throng; smoky torches burn here and there, and in 
 some corner the familiar kerosene lamp recalls the far- 
 off civilization. The man's costume is a light blanket, 
 and a pair of trousers, and the woman's a smaller blanket 
 and skirt, from the waist to halfway below the knee. 
 On the second day they looked haggard and exhausted, 
 but they keep on as if impelled by a religious duty, 
 until they reach the appointed time for closing, and 
 then most of them are so worn out that they sink down, 
 and are immediately sound asleep in the very center of 
 the hall or place of meeting. 
 
 These Garotis are braver and more feared than the 
 peasantry further north, or the coast dwellers and men 
 of the lowlands. They, therefore, are not so poor, and 
 have more enjoyment in life. The well-to-do usually 
 possess one shirt, which they wear upon the great religi- 
 ous festival, and the women will own a shawl and a few 
 a coarse lace mantilla. The last-named owner is looked 
 up to as an almost unearthly being by her less fortunate 
 sisters and neighbors. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 83 
 
 The houses are small huts made of wood leaves and 
 thatch, and contain but one room. There is a bed in 
 the corner, and some wooden contrivance serving as a 
 table or stand. The fireplace is in the middle, and is 
 used for smoking meats as well as for cooking. All of 
 these savages understand the preservative nature of 
 smoke and apply it to fish, flesh, and fowl, with good 
 practical skill. Overhead the cross beams and girders 
 are utilized as a storage in which are kept rice, corn, 
 dried animal food and such vegetables as do not decay 
 readily. It is clear that in this part of Luzon at least 
 there has been but little racial change in many centuries. 
 The mountain men, the peasants, the men of the coast 
 and lowlands, and the Garotis each occupies his own 
 neighborhood, acknowledging the rights of the others to 
 theirs. While they are not particularly friendly, they 
 are not at feud, but each carries on his own way of living 
 without reference or thought as to those of his neigh- 
 bors, The Spaniards declare that this was the condition 
 of Luzon when they first took possession of the island, 
 a nd that the people are about the same in every respect 
 as they were three hundred years ago, with the excep- 
 tion that two-thirds have been nominally, if not actually, 
 christianized. Even the Spaniards themselves admit 
 that these races, brown, yellow, and yellow brown, have 
 not improved greatly in the three hundred years, and 
 that at heart many of them still cherish the savage prac- 
 tices and superstitions which have always been pro- 
 hibited by Spanish law. No attempt worthy of mention 
 has been made to educate them. They keep up their old 
 languages, and many understand scarcely a word of the 
 legal tongue of the country. 
 
84 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CAVITB. 
 
 SOUTHWEST of the province of Manila lies that of 
 Cavite, one of the most important in the island of Luzon. 
 At the northern end the territory runs out in a long 
 peninsula, whose end turns and splits into two small 
 penisulas pointing toward the mainland. This is the 
 site of the city of Cavite which, beside being the capital 
 of the province, is also the northern naval station of the 
 Philippine government. The northwest coast of Cavite 
 forms one of the shores of Manila Bay. On the south it 
 is shut in by a high range of hills or mountains, and on 
 the east it is bounded by La Laguna, or Lake Countj r . 
 At its extreme northwest it touches the famous lake 
 known as Laguna de Bay, whose beauty and picturesque 
 scenery have made it a favorite place for visitors as well 
 as natives. The province of Cavite is traversed by many 
 small streams running from southeast to northwest, and 
 breaking through what was once a line of low hills. The 
 bay of Cavite is shaped something like a shoe, of which 
 the upper part lies between the arsenal at the point and 
 the Manila mainland : the heel runs into the latter dis- 
 trict and the toe runs out into the peninsula, so that at 
 one point the latter is practically an isthmus. The prov- 
 ince is very fertile, and is in a high state of cultivation. 
 It is well populated, the natives being very good types of 
 the Tagal race. The town is fortified, and within its 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 85 
 
 walls are some substantial houses, a theatre, several toler- 
 able hotels, four good cafes, two well-built churches, and 
 the government works at the navy yard. There are no 
 sewers, and the poorer districts of the city are very 
 filthy. During the hot season the city dirt decays, pro- 
 ducing vile odors and more or less malaria. There are 
 both fevers and choleraic disorders during this portion 
 of the year. In the rainy season, and in winter the 
 place is quite healthful, although the streets are often 
 too muddy for comfortable locomotion. The surround- 
 ing country bears the evidence of an industrious com- 
 munity. These appearances are not deceptive. There 
 are many farms and plantations, and the harvests are 
 large and valuable. There is an extensive coast traffic, 
 the passengers going by small light-draft steamers, and 
 produce of all sorts is carried in part by steamers, but in 
 chief by sailing vessels. 
 
 The bay of Cavite is a good place to study the naval 
 architecture of that part of the world. There are always 
 several warships in port, ranging from ancient Spanish 
 gunboats to the latest output of the British shipyards. 
 There are many steamers plying between Manila, Japan, 
 China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These are usually 
 small, or medium-sized vessels ranging from five hundred 
 tons to about two thousand. The average is about a 
 thousand tons burden. Here is one of the few places 
 where the American flag can still be seen. The old clip- 
 per ships have not entirely passed away, and two or more 
 are almost always at Cavite waiting to load with hemp, 
 sugar, hard woods, dye woods and other products of the 
 soil. Now and then a light-draught Spanish gunboat 
 built for these waters comes into port. It looks like 
 nothing seen at home. It is armed with several small 
 cannon, usually two or three rapid-fire guns. There 
 
86 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 is a main deck well shut in, and an upper deck partly 
 covered with awning and partly with a half deck over the 
 officers* quarters. Here the meals are served, the ham- 
 mocks swung at night, and visitors received in the even- 
 ing. If there be any breeze it is bound to be felt on this 
 deck, which makes it very popular with the navy. 
 
 These gunboats draw from three to eight feet of water, 
 and can ascend many of the smaller rivers to the towns 
 or rendezvous of refractory natives. The native craft 
 are quite numerous, and range from canoes and long 
 bancas to wide, round bowed, flat-bottomed freight boats. 
 These boats carry two or three masts with lateen sails 
 stiffened by bamboo ribs. They sail very well before the 
 wind, and are perfect!}' safe. They make excessive lee- 
 way when the wind is abeam, and are slower than the 
 proverbial snail when the wind is ahead. In stormy 
 weather the Malay crews throw a drag from the stern, 
 which steadies the vesseel to an extraordinary extent. 
 The anchor is generally of European make, but some- 
 times of native build, consisting of the hard and tough 
 timber of the forests loaded with lead or with iron bolts 
 and rings. Occasionally these boats will have small 
 cabins, but the majority have have semicircular mov- 
 able hood roofs running from the helmsman's afterdeck 
 to the forecastle, where the anchor windlass and heavy 
 poles and sweeps are carried. 
 
 While these boats look clumsy and even uncouth, they 
 are remarkably strong and seaworthy. Some of them 
 have an extra planking of a native wood which has the 
 same quality as the cellulose used on modern warships. 
 It yields when a shot is fired into it, and immediately 
 closes again, keeping all the water out. This is a relic 
 of the pirate days when the Malays astonished European 
 war sloops by sailing away unconcernedly after the.ir 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 87 
 
 craft had been shot through a dozen times. The fisher- 
 men are very skillful, and make use of every known 
 device in their calling. They have a drop net which is 
 stretched on a frame of bamboos ten feet square. They 
 also use long nets and huge scoop nets suspended from a 
 heavy rope fastened to the sterns of two smacks. The 
 vessel sails before the wind with just enough divergence 
 of the helm to keep the rope taut. The net hangs from 
 this pouching downward and backward, and coming up 
 to a second rope drawn parallel and nearly below the 
 first. This style of fishing is employed when there are 
 schools of fish running on or near the surface of the sea, 
 and in such instances it will often take a catch of several 
 tons. 
 
 Another pleasant feature of the bay is the number of 
 ateam launches darting hero and there. There are no 
 wharves at Cavite. The only places where a ship can 
 touch the land is at the navj r yard in Cavite, and in the 
 Pasig river at Manila. 
 
 The people of the province are noted for their intelli- 
 gence, and also for the revolutionary spirit. It is in this 
 district that no less than twenty uprisings have occurred 
 within the present century. Many of the natives have 
 had the advantages of education, as have a larger per- 
 centage of the half-breeds. They detest Spanish rule, 
 and have an unrelenting hatred of the friars, to whom 
 they ascribe most of their misfortunes. The many water- 
 courses and the thick underbrush and jungle make the 
 country difficult of invasion and easy of defense. During 
 the rebellion in 1896-97 the men of Cavite, under the 
 leadership of Aguinaldo and other revolutionists, held 
 Spanish arms at bay with only one-half as many follow- 
 ers as there were troops, and during the trouble killed 
 and wounded more than nine thousand of their enemies. 
 
88 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Cavite was settled at about the same time as Manila, and 
 it was only through the personal preferences of the first 
 governor-general that the capital was located at the lat- 
 ter city. It was captured by the Chinese in the seven- 
 teenth century ; by the British in the eighteenth, and by 
 the Americans in the nineteenth. It affords an excellent 
 base of operations, both naval and military. "Without 
 ships a small force can hold the peninsula against an 
 army. And even with ships Cavite has more advantages 
 than any other small bay or harbor within a hundred 
 miles of Manila. It is about six miles and a half from 
 Manila, and is connected with that city by steamboats 
 and steam launches. There is also a road from Cavite, 
 running southward along the peninsula to the mainland, 
 and thence northward through the province to the south 
 gate of Manila city. This road is fair riding, and is re- 
 markably picturesque. It is very serpentine, and is said 
 to be about twenty miles long. This is used chiefly by 
 poor natives who cannot afford to pay the fares demanded 
 for the water trip. 
 
 In the hill country of Cavite province there are many 
 sights of great beaut}". On the east there is a glorious 
 view of Bay lake, and on the west the hills, fields, for- 
 ests and beyond them again the blue sea. The woods of 
 the hills are aromatic, and the hills themselves quite free 
 from fever and malaria. Some of these mountain sites 
 are utilized for summer residence, and one or two enjoy 
 considerable local repute as sanitariums, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 89 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ILOILO. 
 
 THE second city in importance in the Philippines is 
 Iloilo, capital of the province of the same name and of 
 the island of Panay. It is about two hundred miles from 
 Manila as the crow flies, and three hundred odd by 
 water. There is a steamer from Manila to Iloilo, which 
 runs the distance in thirty-six hours. The accommoda- 
 tions are good and the trip a pleasant one. Panay is not 
 so pleasant as Luzon. It is much wilder in aspect, and 
 the natives are not so civilized. There is a range of high 
 mountains running nearly north and south on the west- 
 ern side of the island, which is a rough triangle in out- 
 line, and another range in the northeast corner. This 
 part of the island is not entirely explored, and is covered 
 with magnificent forests. There are many small streams, 
 but fewer lakes and arms of the sea than in Luzon. 
 There are many marshes and much malaria and fever. 
 The capital is situated near the southeastern point of 
 Panay on the border of a shallow arm of the sea running 
 between Panay and the large marshy and mountainous 
 island of Guimaras. At some time in the past the chan- 
 nel has been wider and deeper, but the rainfall and 
 storms are ever washing down the land and from beneath 
 the surface cosmic forces are undoubtedly producing a 
 slow upheaval. The city is built upon the bed of an 
 ancient marsh, and is extremely unprepossessing. The 
 
90 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 harbor is a capital one, being well protected against the 
 fierce winds and typhoons of those latitudes. The major 
 part of the harbor has deep water. The city itself is 
 remarkably cool and healthy, considering its natural dis- 
 advantages. As the steamer approaches the island of 
 Guimaras the traveler can see a well-designed but uncom- 
 pleted lighthouse. It was built in the middle of the 
 eighties, and although the money has been collected three 
 or four times over it has never yet been finished. Funni- 
 est of all, every ship especially the foreign owned 
 which enters the port has to pay a large bill for light- 
 house dues. The province of Iloilo is very populous, 
 containing nearly five hundred thousand citizens. It is 
 the center of the sugar trade of the archipelago, the 
 annual exports being about one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand tons a year. It also does a large trade in hemp, 
 sapanwood, tobacco, coffee, and mother-of-pearl. 
 
 The sugar exported by Iloilo is not all raised in the 
 province, some of it being brought across from the rich 
 plantations of Negros island. When the price of sugar 
 is high the city and island are very prosperous. The 
 bounty system of European governments upon home- 
 made beet sugar has so reduced the demand for cane 
 sugar that the trade in Iloilo has hardly paid expenses 
 for seven or eight years. On several occasions they have 
 exported large quantities to San Francisco, but the bulk 
 goes to Hong Kong, China and Japan. Since sugar has 
 proved so unprofitable much attention has been paid to 
 tabacco, and the product is increasing annually in both 
 quantity and quality. It is sent to Manila, where it is 
 mixed with the Luzon tobacco in order to make the lower 
 grade of Manila cigars. These are ridiculously cheap, 
 being sold sometimes as low as two and three for a cent. 
 Biqe is cultivated with success, the industry having beeu 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 91 
 
 introduced and developed by enterprising Chinamen. 
 Tha natives conduct two successful manufactures under 
 Spanish or Chinese direction; one of pina or pineapple 
 cloth, and the other jusi or silk cloth. The entire 
 island is in but a moderate condition, owing to the enor- 
 mous taxes and imposts levied by the government, the 
 profits and prosperity of the merchants and planters being 
 absorbed by the officials, priests and politicians. The 
 Spaniards have no hesitancy in extracting the last possi- 
 ble cent, because the business of the place has passed 
 into the hands of Chinese and mestizos. Although the 
 island of Panay is very near Luzon, it is almost entirely 
 free from earthquakes. But, on the other hand, it is 
 subject to frequent visitations from typhoons. The larg- 
 est business house is an English firm, of which the local 
 manager is consul for Great Britain and Hawaii, his 
 assistant is consul for the United States, and the firm 
 itself is agent for all sorts of companies and corporations 
 in every part of the world. The firm extends lavish hos- 
 pitality to all visitors, especially to Englishmen and 
 Americans. As there is but one cheap hotel in the place, 
 this courtesy is certainly worthy of being recorded. 
 There are no public carriages in the city, no places of 
 amusement, and what few restaurants there are, are of the 
 cheapest and lowest description. The streets are un- 
 paved, and in the wet season are a foot deep in mud ; in 
 the dry, they are ankle deep in dust. If the city is 
 uninteresting, the country round about is royally pictur- 
 esque. There are forests where the trees rise one tower- 
 ing over another until they terminate in the green tops of 
 monarchs of the woods a hundred and fifty and a hundred 
 and eighty feet high. There are mountains in the dis- 
 tance some sharp and clearly cut like sugar loaves, and 
 some magnificent masses of rock rising thousands of feet 
 
92 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 into the air. Everything is green, and has a sheen as if 
 it had been coated with velvet. The city faces the chan- 
 nel on the one side, and a muddy creek on the other. It 
 is slack and small in the dry season, but in the wet sea- 
 son it has a good current and often overflows its banks 
 on both sides. There is a small public square which 
 nature keeps beautiful with flowers and weeds, and the 
 streets are wide and regular. There are many good 
 houses; that is to say, comfortable ones. The two finest 
 buildings belong, one to an American firm, in which they 
 do business on the ground floor and live on the second, 
 and the other is a large Swiss commercial house. 
 
 There is a church on the square, which might be mis- 
 taken for a sugar refinery or a jail. It was apparently 
 built by natives with no knowledge of architecture, and 
 these in turn were doubtless directed by some priest from 
 Manila, who imagined that he must take the same pre- 
 cautions against earthquakes in his new home as in the 
 old one. Not far from the church is a small courthouse 
 looking very cheap and dirty; a convent, somewhat 
 dilapidated, and a few small houses built of stone below 
 and wood above. The right-hand side of the square has 
 the best row of houses in the Philippines outside of 
 Manila. They are built very solidly, being of brick and 
 stone in the lower floors, brick and wood in the upper 
 ones, and all having corrugated iron roofs fastened by 
 wrought iron rods to the masonry below. The other 
 houses are of all sorts and kinds. Some are handsome 
 Indian bungalows, some are what is known as typhoon 
 houses (built of solid stone walls one story high with 
 brick and iron roofs) ; others are the cheapest kind of 
 Malay bungalows and insignificant habitations occupied 
 by Chinese and mestizos, while hundreds of others are 
 filthy hovels inhabited by the poor natives. At the far 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 93 
 
 end of the main street in the government house, built of 
 stone and wood, and once very handsome, but now so 
 neglected as to be in an almost ruinous condition. Over 
 one third of the town site is land reclaimed from the 
 swamps. The territory on the other side of the creek 
 facing the city is a low marsh, which becomes a swamp or 
 a watery waste at very high tides, or at ordinary high 
 tides during the rainy season. The place is very dull 
 indeed. One English business house has a bowling alley 
 and one American house a billiard table. The Swiss firm 
 has a tolerable piano, and a mad Spaniard is pleased to 
 conduct what he calls a cafe. He would starve to death 
 but for the courtesy of the foreign merchants and of the 
 merchant marine who visits the place. Once a year or 
 once in two years a dramatic company comes from 
 Manila to Iloilo to replenish its treasury. As there is 
 neither theatre nor hall, they give their entertainment in 
 a shed. Nevertheless, this is so glorious a distraction to 
 the citizens that they crowd every performance, and 
 beside paying good prices for their seats get up benefits, 
 extend every courtesy which can please or be of advan- 
 tage to the Thespians. Among the sights of the town 
 the most striking is the spectacle of a well-to-do half- 
 breed woman and her daughters going from her home to 
 church. Her house would be dear at a hundred dollars. 
 The furniture within is not worth twenty-five, but each 
 of the women will gleam and sparkle in brilliant silks 
 and have at least a thousand dollars' worth of jewelry 
 and gems apiece. Another sight is the making of sina- 
 may or fine hemp cloth by the natives. They work in 
 the open air under a shed, or in the shade of a tree, and 
 in rainy weather in their own homes. They are slow, 
 methodical, their weaving implements being of the most 
 primitive sort. Somehow or other, though, they turn 
 
94 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 out very nice fabrics, and make enough money even at 
 the low rate paid for wages in that part of the world, 
 they manage to live in more than comfort. From Iloilo 
 small steamers communicate with other important points 
 in that part of the Archipelago. They are subsidized by 
 the government, which uses them to transport its soldiers 
 whenever the natives are refractory and need a little 
 blood-letting. The lines run to the city of Antique, in 
 the province of Antique; to the city of Conception in the 
 province of that name, and to ports on Negros Island. 
 
 Not far from Iloilo are the cities of Jaro and Molo. 
 They are situated upon much higher ground, being in 
 the hill country rather than the marsh, and are charming 
 residential settlements. Jaro is the cathedral city of the 
 district, and has in it quite a neat, though small and well- 
 proportioned cathedral. In Molo is a very handsome 
 church whose altars are famously rich in gold, silver and 
 jewels. Both of these cities have wide thoroughfares, a 
 wilderness of gardens, well-built schools, and many at- 
 tractive villas. 
 
 There are very few Spaniards in either city, the upper 
 classes consisting of wealthy Chinese, natives and 
 mestizos. Here also are the summer retreats of many of 
 the Iloilo merchants. There is fine shooting in the neigh- 
 borhood, and the markets are well stocked with vege- 
 tables, fruits, poultry, meats, and game. Living is a 
 trifle dearer than in Manila, while rents are cheaper. 
 The bishop has a small palace at Jaro, and the govern- 
 ment officials occupy well-constructed edifices erected 
 especially for them. In the central districts are many 
 natives in a still savage state, and these give trouble to 
 the government whenever the tax farmers put in an ap- 
 pearance. They receive nothing from the authorities, 
 and they cannot understand why they should be called 
 
^r - 
 
 * 
 
 
 CO 
 
 
 
 3 8 
 
 u -| 
 
 2 f 
 

MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 96 
 
 upon to give up what little property they possess. Many 
 of them are bitterly opposed to the church on account of 
 the abuse of the civil and religious rights which the friars 
 possess. As late as May, 1898, there was an uprising in 
 one of the districts, and the troops promptly sent to the 
 scene of trouble slaughtered some eight or nine hundred 
 nativei. 
 
96 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CEBU. 
 
 CEBU is the last and smallest of the three treaty ports. 
 It is the capital of the island of the same name, and is a 
 close rival to Iloilo in commercial importance. It lies 
 southeast of Iloilo on the other side of the Island of 
 Negros. A line of steamers make the run from Iloilo to 
 Cebu in about twenty hours, while a larger line runs from 
 Manila to Cebu direct. The island is long and narrow, 
 being in dimension about one hundred miles in length 
 and about fifty at its greatest width. It has a population 
 of about six hundred thousand, and carries on a com- 
 merce in sugar, hemp, sapanwood, and other products. 
 Its output of sugar is about twenty thousand tons a year. 
 Years ago Cebu was the administrative center or capital 
 not only of the island itself, but of all of the Visaya 
 group. But the governmental seat was removed to 
 Manila in 1849, pursuant to the system of centralization 
 which Spain has followed in her government of the archi- 
 pelago. The city is situated upon an arm of the sea like 
 Iloilo, made by an island lying to the southeast of Cebu. 
 The harbor is excellent, and the anchorage safe. The 
 city is well built, with wide thoroughfares, and possesses 
 many houses above the ordinary. At one time, when it 
 was the seat of administration, it is said to have been a 
 very lively place. To-day this is all changed, and its 
 only characteristic is commercial activity, and none too 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 97 
 
 much of that. The old government buildings are falling 
 into decay, the convent shows the ravages of time, and 
 many of the streets are mossy and even grassy. 
 
 It is the metropolis of the district, and from it are 
 shipped not only the sugar and hemp grown there, but 
 also the hemp and other produce of the islands of Leyte, 
 Mindanao, Camiguin, and Bohol. On the island are 
 large deposits of coal, sulphur, and many other minerals; 
 but the government has never utilized these resources 
 with the one exception of the coal. Neither has it per- 
 mitted any one else to take advantage of an opportunity 
 which might pour wealth into the territory. Beside the 
 amount of sugar exported, Cebu sends away about fifteen 
 thousand tons of hemp every year. The trade of the 
 place has passed almost entirely into the hands of the 
 Chinese and half-breeds, the extortions of the officials 
 having driven out nearly all foreigners. 
 
 The foreign community in Cebu consists of agencies of 
 two English, one German, and three Spanish houses. It 
 is so small that the managing clerk of one of the English 
 houses is consul for Great Britain, the United States, 
 Italy and Hawaii. The two main houses represent all 
 the insurance companies and banks as well. The odd- 
 est thing about Cebu is the coal; the coal beds appear 
 to have been acted upon by a volcano in some past age, 
 which forced fumes of sulphur through all the strata de- 
 positing solid particles in irregular masses. Some of the 
 coal is quite free from sulphur, but other portions are 
 yellow from the quantity forced into them. This coal is 
 very handsome to look at, with mottlings of black and 
 yellow. It is, however, very dangerous. Left exposed 
 to the air for some time it takes fire spontaneously. 
 When ignited, the amount of sulphur is so large that the 
 fumes and smoke are filled with acid, rendering it dan- 
 
{> MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES* 
 
 gerous if not deadly to all animal life in the immediate 1 
 neighborhood. A German chemist tried at one time to 
 obtain a concession for making sulphur from these beds. 
 His estimates showed that he could produce it more 
 cheaply than the brimstone mines in Sicily. These esti- 
 mates were the ruin of his project. They so inflamed the 
 avarice of the politicians that the unhappy chemist found 
 that the concession would cost him all of the profits of 
 the establishment for the first ten years. The surround- 
 ings of Cebu are very quaint. In front is the historic 
 island of Magtan, where Magellan, the great navigator, 
 was killed, and back of it are ranges of high hills, some 
 with rolling outlines and others with comparatively sharp 
 peaks and crags. There are many good roads, and a few 
 marshes as well. The soil is porous, allowing thorough 
 natural drainage, and the atmosphere is remarkably dry 
 and pure for the tropics. There are many fine forests 
 upon the island and a wonderful display of cacti. The 
 latter are utilized by Spaniards and natives for hedges 
 and fences, and when well grown make a most invulner- 
 able wall. In the city is a cathedral, a rather fine-look- 
 ing church, a Paulist and a Jesuit chapel, and the Church 
 of the Holy Child of Cebu. Of this personage the fol- 
 lowing is the story. 
 
 On July 28, 1565, an image of the Holy Child, was 
 found on the shore by a soldier who was sick and ailing, 
 and who had gone walking along the beach in the hope 
 that a little fresh air and exercise would do him good. 
 He had no more touched the image than he felt better, 
 and by the time he returned to the camp his strength 
 had been restored, and the next morning he was in a 
 beter condition than he had ever been before. The news 
 of the miracle spread through the camp, and the friars 
 immediately held special services in commemoration of 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 99 
 
 the event. The image was given to them and a church 
 built to commemorate the fact. 
 
 In the sacred inclosure, not far from the altar, the 
 image was placed in the special niche of honor. In 1627 
 the church was burned down, but when the soldiers and 
 priests went through the ashes in order to save relics and 
 such melted metal as they could find, lo, in the middle 
 of the debris entirely uninjured was the image. It was 
 then placed in another church which was ruined by both 
 earthquake and typhoon without any damage to this 
 wonderful statuette. Another church was built for the 
 Holy Child alone, and there it has remained ever since. 
 Fires have started in the building and have gone out of 
 their own accord; typhoons have torn down the houses 
 on either side, but have spared the sacred edifice, and 
 even the earthquake has never disturbed the vigils of the 
 little figure. To prevent theft and the transfer of its 
 virtues to other localities, the saint is kept in a strong 
 room under many a bolt and bar, lock and key. It is 
 made of wood, a little over a foot high, and is either 
 ebony or else is so dark with time as to pass for that 
 wood. The features are Mongolian, and to a skeptical 
 eye the figure looks like a clumsy carving out of some 
 Philippine wood by an ignorant soldier or lazy native. 
 It is highly venerated and is completely covered with 
 little pieces of jewelry which have been presented by 
 grateful patrons who have been cured through the saint's 
 mediation. It is now worshiped in the Philippines with 
 great solemnity, and on all public occasions it enjoys all 
 the honors accorded to a field marshal of the first rank. 
 Its feast day is the 20th of January, when the church is 
 crowded with worshipers from Cebu and from the outly- 
 ing islands, even as far as Luzon itself. In the same 
 room are two immense tin boxes (made of that metal to 
 
100 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 keep out insects) which are filled with the arms, legs, and 
 heads of saints, with their robes all ready for adjustment 
 and use on feast days. On such daj r s these are setup on 
 concealed framework, placed in vehicles, and drawn or 
 driven around the city. 
 
 In Cebu is a small colony of Catholic Chinese. They 
 have a patron saint, St. Nicholas, who is not the legen- 
 dary hero of our Christmas, and to him a church was 
 dedicated which is still flourishing to-day. Up to the 
 eighteenth century the many Chinese in Cebu remained 
 wedded to their heathen idols. They resisted all efforts 
 at christianization, and proved superior to the tortures of 
 the inquisition. A good priest who was sorely exercised 
 over their spiritual darkness, prayed so vehemently to 
 St. Nicholas that the latter took pity upon him and said 
 that his prayers should be answered. The most influen- 
 tial man among the Chinese merchants in Cebu at the 
 time was a Cantonese named Wong though some legends 
 say that he was an Amoy merchant named Ong. He 
 worshiped Buddha and Confucius and his ancestors, 
 but in other respects was a good citizen and a fine man. 
 One night, after he had received a large payment for 
 goods, Wong, or Ong, heard a noise in his counting- 
 room, and looking up saw that he was beset by five armed 
 robbers. They had smeared blood upon their foreheads, 
 meaning thereby that they neither asked nor gave quar- 
 ter, and each had in his sinewy right hand a wicked- 
 looking creese. Wong turned to seize a sword which he 
 kept for such guests, but to his horror found that it had 
 been taken out of the scabbard, and that he was defense- 
 less. As the robbers advanced toward him he heard 
 strange sweet music, and through the wall came St. 
 Nicholas with his hands outstretched. "lean save thee, 
 Wong/' said the saint, "if thou will believe in the true 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 101 
 
 God, and not in thy vain idols." "Wong being a sensi- 
 ble busines man accepted the proposition immediately. 
 The saint waved his hand and the robbers fell into a 
 swoon during which Wong, with characteristic Chinese 
 thoughtfulness, seized the knife of one and cut the 
 throats of all. The next day he summoned his family, 
 neighbors, and friends, and told them of the providential 
 escape, and from that time on he and his were worthy 
 sons of the church. 
 
 A Spanish critic says that as a Chinaman cannot con- 
 tract a valid marriage in the Philippines, nor perform 
 many other important acts unless he is a Catholic in good 
 standing, business enterprise may have had as much to 
 do with the conversion as good St. Nicholas himself. 
 
102 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SULU CITY, ISLAND AND SULTANATE. 
 
 UPON Spanish rule in the far East has always fallen 
 the shadow of Islam. The same fierce and fanatical force 
 in that part of the world as in every land where the cres- 
 cent has ever held sway. In the lottery of nations both 
 Christianity and Mohammedanism unknowingly com- 
 peted for the Philippines. The cathedral and the con- 
 vent won three-fourths, and the mosque and the minaret 
 the remainder. From a very early period there had been 
 a movement of population from Borneo, Java and Suma- 
 tra, northward and eastward into the Philippines. Each 
 wave which came into the archipelago met with resist- 
 ance from those already settled there. Weak or small 
 invading parties were defeated, and defeat in those years 
 meant death to the vanquished, while the stronger and 
 larger parties defeated the inhabitants, and slew, captured 
 or disbursed them. 
 
 The traveler in going through the archipelago, notices 
 that the people in the southern islands are larger, 
 stronger, and less docile and servile than those of the 
 north. The most independent of all the tribes or races 
 are those who inhabit the large island of Mindanao and 
 the smaller ones of Basilan Sulu, or Jolo, Tapul, Tawi 
 Tawi, and the numerous smaller pieces of land which 
 compose the Sulu Sultanate or Archipelago. 
 
 About the time that Magellan, then in the employ of 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 103 
 
 Spain discovered the Carolines and the Philippines, the 
 people of Borneo were suffering or enjoying internecine 
 war of the bloodiest sort, a practical consequence was an 
 extensive exodus of weaker tribes northward to Balabac 
 and Palauan, and eastward to the Sulu islands and Min- 
 danao. The troubles in Borneo culminated in a tremen- 
 dous war between two Borneo sultans, who were brothers, 
 and who fought with the frenzy that only brothers can. 
 The unsuccessful sovereign whose name was Paguian 
 Tindig, fled with his followers to Sulu and Basilan. 
 Here the host settled and began a Mohammedan civiliza- 
 tion, which by degrees became a strong power in that 
 part of the world. A cousin of the sultan settled on 
 Basilan, and soon became its sole ruler. 
 
 He was loyal to the sultan at first, but after a time he 
 married the Princess Goan, daughter of the Mohammedan 
 King of Mindanao. Spurred on by ambition he plotted 
 against his cousin the sultan, and attacked him in Sulu. 
 Though assisted by his father-in-law's soldiers and 
 sailors he was unsuccessful, and after many fights on 
 land and at sea he retired to his possessions in Basilan. 
 The sultan went to Manila and pledged his vassalage to 
 the Spanish, if in return they would help him subjugate 
 his rebellious cousin. This the Spanish gladly agreed to 
 do, and began to equip a squadron to carry out the agree- 
 ment. It was not ready in a few days as had been 
 promised, in fact, it was several months before the fleet 
 got under way at Manila and sailed southward. In the 
 meantime, Tindig, tired of waiting, attacked the rebels 
 and routed them completely. It was an unhappy victory 
 because the brave monarch himself fell, covered with 
 wounds, as the day was won. The Spaniards arrived in 
 due season at Sulu or Jolo, as they called it, and not 
 finding the sultan turned and went back to Manila. 
 
104 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 They were careful to preserve the treaty, and upon this 
 lies the first claim of sovereignty over the Sulu Sultanate. 
 
 In the meantime, Adas'aolan, who appears to have been 
 a man of remarkable ability, developed his own beautiful 
 territory; Basilan made alliances with the monarchs of 
 Mindanao and with the chief of northern Borneo, and 
 compelled all his subjects and tributaries to adopt the 
 Koran at the point of the sword. He built the first mosque 
 in the city of Jolo, and received from far off Turkey 
 honors and titles from the Sheikh Al Uslam, the head of 
 the Mohammedan church, and from the Sublime Porte in 
 recognition of his services to the faith. Thus his claim 
 to sovereignty, joined with his descent and his posses- 
 sion of the territory, undoubtedly gave him a better 
 claim to those lands than the treaty of Manila between 
 Tindig and the Spaniards. 
 
 In 1595 the Spaniards sent an expedition to take pos- 
 session of their property, and incidentally to spread 
 Christianity in heathen communities. The expedition 
 was a complete failure. Nearly all the officers were 
 killed, half the men incapacitated by disease and wounds, 
 and the warship so battered that it only could get as far 
 as Cebu on its return. One effect of this war was to dis- 
 abuse the Sulu mind of the idea that the Spaniards were 
 all powerful at sea. From this time on piracy prevailed 
 in the waters of the Archipelago, and was never sup- 
 pressed until English men-of-war propelled by steam, put 
 an end to the evil in the present century. Of the pirates 
 the Sulus were the most daring and skillful. They fre- 
 quently sailed past the walls of the ciiy of Manila, and 
 captured trading vessels outside the Peninsula of Cavite. 
 At one time the Sulu pirates had Bohol, Cebu, Negros, 
 Leyte, and even a part of Panay island under tribute. 
 Where communities refused to pay tribute they were at- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 105 
 
 tacked by well-armed pirate chiefs, their men slain, their 
 houses burned, their property looted, and their wives and 
 daughters taken as slaves away to the South. This piti- 
 able condition of affairs continued for more than two 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 The Madrid government did the best it could under 
 the circumstances. It set aside large amounts of money 
 for fighting craft, forts, weapons, and ammunition, and 
 directed the Philippine officials to exterminate the pirat- 
 ical communities. But the money was diverted into 
 other channels and went to enrich the officer holders and 
 politicians. Hundreds of thousands of inoffensive 
 natives, and scores of Spaniards were slaughtered almost 
 with impunity, while the governors wrote home accounts 
 of imaginary victories, and artful descriptions of peace- 
 ful lands and untroubled waters. At the end of their 
 term they came back rich for life. 
 
 There are persons alive to-day in Manila and Cebu, 
 Iloilo, and Antique who have seen the interior of the 
 pirate prisons in the Sulu islands. 
 
 A critic calls attention to the fact that during this long 
 periods when the Spanish government was denouncing 
 slavery in the East Indies and trying to suppress the 
 evil, it was the leading nation in the African slave trade 
 in the West Indies, and was doing its best to develop 
 and profit by the traffic. During this long period there 
 was constant war between* Spain and Sulu. The Span- 
 iards made a settlement at Zamboanga, on the extreme 
 southeast point of Mindanao. Here they built a walled 
 city, constructed strong forts, and made it a naval sta- 
 tion and arsenal second only to Cavite. It is opposite to 
 Basilan, and afforded a fine base of operations. But so 
 careless and neglectful of the simplest precautions were 
 the authorities, that the place soon came to be known as 
 
106 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 the Sepulcher of Spain. There were no sewers, and the 
 natural drainage was prevented by the heavy walls and 
 fortifications of the place. The heat and moisture made 
 decay swift and universal, and developed malarial diseases 
 whose deadliness astonished even the Spaniards. Of one 
 garrison of a thousand men eight hundred and fifty died 
 in a single year, while in the annual estimates made in 
 Manila a somber item was the provision for disease and 
 death at the southern naval station. This long war had 
 many interesting and even heroic features. To the Span- 
 iards it was a solemn religious conflict the continuation, 
 as it were, of the old wars against the Moors. Soldiers 
 went into it after mass, prayer, and hymns; priests and 
 friars armed themselves and fought side by side with the 
 soldiers; private citizens carried away by religious 
 enthusiasm gave up their business in Manila and other 
 cities, bade farewell to their friends and relatives and 
 consecrated themselves to God, that is to say, joined the 
 Spanish army. It is pitiful to look back and see that 
 frightful and unnecessary waste of human life. For one 
 Spaniard killed by the pirates twenty perished from camp 
 diseases, and of the twenty, nineteen were occassioned by 
 the neglect, dishonesty, and corruption of the officials. 
 
 All this time the various monarchs of Mindanao pre- 
 served a skillful neutrality, siding, whenever they did 
 take action, with Sulu and against Spain. On several 
 occasions the Spaniards endeavored to obtain control of 
 the Sulu lands by diplomacy instead of war. In 1750 
 they made friends with the sultan Mahamad, who had 
 been deposed by his brother. The monarch was first 
 obliged to embrace Christianity and then to swear alle- 
 giance to Spain before the Spaniards would agree to 
 assist him. Just as the governor-general was beginning 
 to congratulate himself upon bis diplomatic success be 
 
MANILA AND THE PltlUPPlttES. 
 
 intercepted a letter, written by the royal convert, -which 
 showed that he was equally diplomatic and intended to 
 utilize the Spanish power and to give nothing in return. 
 The sultan and all his retinue were arrested and cast into 
 prison. The governor-general then determined to exter- 
 minate all the Mohammedans in the archipelago, destroy 
 their crops, burn their houses, and desolate their tilled 
 land. As some of the members of the cabinet thought 
 the proposal too inhuman, the governor-general wrote a 
 proclamation jutifying his course. A large expedition 
 with nineteen hundred soldiers was sent from Manila 
 which attacked Jolo. Here the Spaniards claimed a 
 great victory, but as they left immediately afterward with- 
 out having accomplished it, their claim maj'be doubted. 
 They next attacked the island of Tawi Tawi, where every 
 man who landed from the fleet was slain. The head of 
 the expedition was so discouraged that he left the Sulu 
 islands and sailed back to Zamboanga. 
 
 The Sulus now returned the compliment, and sending 
 out a large fleet of war craft ravaged every coast which 
 was in Spanish possession. To increase the troubles the 
 sultan of Mindanao made an alliance with his Sulu col- 
 league, and sent out a vast flotilla manned with experi- 
 enced warriors and mariners. This war kept up for four 
 years, and the Spaniards were put to great straits. 
 
 In 1755 the Spaniards released the imprisoned sultan, 
 but would not allow him to go outside of Manila. In 
 1763 the British, who were then at war with the Span- 
 iards, took up the sultan's side, and conveyed him in a 
 man of war to Sulu, where they replaced him on the 
 throne. The moment he could gather a sufficient force 
 he attacked the Spaniards with great fury at many points 
 in Mindanao and Negros. In 1770 both sides grew 
 tired of perpetual conflict, and from that period until 
 
108 . MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 1851 there was an armed peace between Sulu and Spain. 
 Pirates occasionally ravaged Spanish cities, and Spanish 
 gunboats destroyed Sulu craft, but nothing amounting to 
 war occurred. In 1851 there were more piratical outrages 
 than usual, and the governor-general undertook to punish 
 the sultan. He made careful preparations, and with a 
 large and well armed expedition attacked and captured 
 the capital, Jolo. The sultan fled and established a new 
 capital at May bun, on the southern side of the island, in a 
 position well adapted for offense and defense. The gov- 
 ernor-general was satisfied with his first success and 
 sailed back to Manila, foolishly leaving a small garrison 
 to overawe the islanders. The latter were of stern stuff, 
 began guerrilla warfare upon the garrison the moment 
 the ships were in the offing, and in a short time killed 
 off every Spaniard. 
 
 By degrees the sultan grew bolder, and committed 
 ravages throughout the archipelago from Basilan and 
 Mindanao. In 1876, another expedition was sent, 
 headed by Yice-Admiral Malcampo. It destroyed several 
 forts, and kill many natives, but it lost more men than 
 it destroyed. Nevertheless it brought about a temporary 
 peace. The sultan admitted the sovereignty of Spain 
 over the Sulu domain. To make it more binding, 
 Madrid induced Great Britain and Germany to sign a 
 protocol recognizing the treaty, and more specifically the 
 claim of Spain to the Tawi Tawi, Tapul and Panguitarang 
 group of islands. In 1880 a British company colo- 
 nized a large tract of land in Borneo, recognizing the 
 suzerainty of the sultan of Sulu. Spain made a vigorous 
 protest, but the British government decided in favor of 
 the sultan. After some negotiations Spain gave up all 
 claim to lands in Borneo belonging to the Sulu Sultan- 
 ate. In 1887 insurrection broke out in the islands, 
 
MANILA ANt> THE PHILIPPINES. 109 
 
 and in Mindanao itself. The Spanish government sent 
 its fleet in post haste to the scene of disorder, and also 
 forwarded reinforcements for the various garrisons. 
 There was much fighting, and considerable slaughter of 
 the natives through the modern rifles and rifled cannon 
 of the Spanish forces. The Spaniards returned to 
 Manila, and in March of that year held a Grand Te 
 Deum. Another insurrection broke out, and this was in 
 turn put down. In 1888 there was comparative peace 
 throughout the Sulu Archipelago. Since that time the 
 Spaniards have been in legal possession of the country. 
 They have garrisons at Tawi Tawi, Siassi, Bangao, at 
 Jolo, at Maybun, Basilan, Zamboanga, and Cotta Bato, 
 Ta Toan, and Cagayan. 
 
 Outside of the posts they have no authority nor power 
 whatever. The sultan rules the same as ever, and the 
 native, and not the Spanish laws are observed. These 
 laws are very odd, seeming to be a survival of the ancient 
 Malay kingdoms. The language of these Sulus is a 
 complete mystery to scholars. Instead of being a Malay 
 speech, pure, or impure, it appears to be a degenerate 
 Sanscrit mixed with Arabic. When or how they came 
 under the control of the early Hindus is impossible to 
 discover. That it must have been a long time ago is 
 evident from the fact that they employ many idioms 
 which were going out of use in the time of Buddha. 
 There is no mention in Indian history of these far-off 
 lands, neither, so far as is known, did any considerable 
 Brahmin community ever adopt Islam. No matter how 
 viewed, the subject is one of the most interesting puzzles 
 which has yet been found in the far East. 
 
 The Sulus are a dark-colored, muscular race, loving 
 warfare, piracy, and dangerous sports. The.v make in- 
 trepid ^soldiers, and are more feared by t he Spaniards 
 
116 MANILA AND THfe PHILIPPINES. 
 
 than any other Eastern type. One of their peculiarities 
 makes them a constant dread to their conquerors. This 
 consists of a man joining a religious society, and bind- 
 ing himself by an oath to reach paradise immediately 
 by killing as many Christians as he can before he him- 
 self is killed. The society has a name, but it is un- 
 known to the Spaniards. They refer to the members as 
 the Juramentados, or those who are oath-bound. The 
 society, or societies, are directed by priests called Pan- 
 ditas, whose meaning can be recognized by its resem- 
 blance to pundita. These drill the members, and put 
 them through a regular course of training. They are 
 made to exercise, fight with blunted weapons run, jump, 
 clirnb, swim, and dive, and when tired they are told of 
 the beauties of Mohammed's paradise, of the hour is, the 
 fruits, and the joys. When a member has reached a 
 stage which borders upon frenzy he is then sent upon 
 his mission. He usually goes naked or with a breech 
 cloth in whose folds he carries one or two short creeses, 
 sharp as a needle, and keen as a razor. The flutings on 
 the blade are often poisoned by immersion in decaying 
 animal blood. He enters the camp, ship, town, or house, 
 to which he is directed, and the moment he approaches 
 the first Christian his deadly work begins. The knife is 
 drawn, the breech cloth cast away, and with a spring 
 like a tiger, he is upon his victim. In his delirium he 
 seems to have the strength of ten men. He is never 
 overpowered, and he never stops his murderous career 
 until he is killed, or incapacitated by a serious wound. 
 
 On Corpus Christi day, in 1886, at Cotto Bato, four 
 Juramentados sprang from a shed into a crowd of Chris- 
 ians who were watching the procession, and before 
 they were killed by the soldiers, assassinated or wounded 
 over thirty persons. At Jolo, in 1876, one of these 
 

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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 11 1 
 
 fanatics armed with a creese and a javelin, attacked a 
 company of soldiers as they marched from the beach to 
 the garrison, killing two, fatally wounding three, and 
 seriously wounding four of the force. 
 
 At the same place a few weeks afterward, a similar 
 sudden attack was made by three Juramentados, who 
 killed five and wounded sixteen before they could be 
 bayoneted by the troops. 
 
 It is a very nice question how to govern people of this 
 class. Across the strait at San Daken in Borneo, and 
 at Brunei, there are Mohammedans of the same race as 
 the Sulus, but thus far, they have never given any 
 trouble to the British. The authorities leave them alone 
 in their religious views, and the missionaries are advised 
 to use all possible tact in the evangelical dealings. 
 Whether the Islamites of Sulu would behave equally well 
 if treated with similar consideration is a debatable ques- 
 tion. One thing is certain, and that is that all forcible 
 attempts to infringe upon their religious rites will be 
 resisted unto death. The Spaniards have learned wis- 
 dom by experience, and of late years have adopted the 
 practice of extermination whenever called upon to fur- 
 nish either religious or political outbreaks. From a 
 purely political point of view, there are only two ways 
 of governing these people. One is the system adopted 
 by England, in the Bombay presidency, and by Hongs 
 in Java of leaving the natives in full liberty to practice 
 all customs and religious observances which do not con- 
 flict with life or human safety, and the other is the Span- 
 ish system of exterminating all who do not agree with 
 you. 
 
 The Sulu Archipelago in Spanish political geography 
 begins on the southwest side of Basilan island, and runs 
 eouthwestwardly to the northeastern coast of Borneo. It 
 
112 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 is divided into the following groups : Sulu, Tapul, Tawi 
 Tawi, and Panguiturang. The largest island is Sulu, 
 the next is Tawi Tawi, the third is Panguitarang, the 
 fourth is Siassi. Then come many small islands such as 
 Simonor, Bilatan, Mantabuan, Manubol, Lapac, Lugus, 
 Pata Simisa, Cap, Lapran, Basang, Simaluc, Sigboy, 
 Bubuan, and many still smaller. The last Spanish report 
 gives a hundred and fifty islands, of which ninety-five 
 are inhabited and several hundred islets or rocks. The 
 population is estimated at a hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand, but may be twice as much. As a matt r of Eng- 
 lish law the sultan exercises sovereignty of a qualified 
 sort over several Borneo sultans and according to Span- 
 ish law he exercises some feudal authority over the chiefs 
 of Palauan, Balabac, the Sultanate of Buhaten in Min- 
 danao, and over several small tribes on that island and on 
 the island of Basilan. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOME HISTORICAL NOTES. 
 
 OWING, doubtless, to the unimportant part they have 
 played in the progress of modern civilization the Philip- 
 pines have been neglected by historians and scientists 
 alike. The literature on the subject is comparatively 
 small. Even the leading works are manifestly incom- 
 plete. The Spanish accounts are carelessly written, and 
 the figures a mass of inaccuracy. De Rienzi's work is 
 one of the best, and after him may be mentioned Profes- 
 sor C. Semper 's book, "De la Gironiere," and Henry 
 Forman's. 
 
 Much valuable information upon special topics has 
 been collated by American and British consuls, and pub- 
 lished in the blue books of those countries. To them, 
 the reader has referred for statistics and detailed facts. 
 The conclusions drawn by investigators in regard to the 
 early history of the islands are about as follows. The 
 original inhabitants were dark men of a negroid type 
 already differentiated into two varieties, one fierce and 
 destructive like the Andaman Islanders, and another 
 darker still, which is found to-day in the Negritos of 
 Mindanao. Either this primitive race lived there a long 
 time, or it was preceded by another race belonging to 
 the Stone age. At different points of the islands stone 
 axes, spear-heads, and arrow-heads have been picked up 
 in considerable numbers. None of the existing tribes 
 
114 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 recognize them, or even have any name for them. One 
 tribe in Mindanao calls these ancient stone implements 
 "the teeth of the lightning." 
 
 As stone axes are called "thunder bolts" in Java, 
 Sumatra and Malacca, it is probable that the Mindanao 
 people received the name from those Malay lands, or else 
 came from those lands themselves. At any rate, the 
 Philippines were populated in the Stone age. The 
 original race was probably quite populous. Middens 
 and shell heaps of great age have been found in various 
 parts of the territory, indicating the large number of 
 human beings living in the immediate neighborhood. 
 These were conquered when the islands were invaded by 
 a higher race, also black, coming from Borneo. This 
 race belonged to the same class as the Papuans, and has 
 many living representatives at the present time in all of 
 the larger islands. 
 
 There was probably the same process of war and ex- 
 termination at the time as had marked all such invasions. 
 The weaker inhabitants were slaughtered and eaten, 
 because all of these races were cannibals, and the sur- 
 vivors driven into the mountains in the interior. The 
 larger number of Negrito villages are found not on the 
 lowlands, but in the hilly districts. The Papuans did 
 not hold their newly conquered domains for many years 
 before they, in turn, were attacked by another and still 
 higher race, the Malay. 
 
 These Malays seemed to have borne the same relation 
 to the far East that the Norsemen did to the hosts of 
 Europe. Just as the latter, were not a homogeneous 
 people, but were made up of Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, 
 Finns, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Flemings, so 
 the Malay Sea Kings came from what is now Singapore, 
 Johore, Penang, Pahang, Acheen, eastern Sumatra, Java, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 115 
 
 Borneo, and the lesser states and islands of Malaysia. 
 The Malays were and are daring navigators, brave war- 
 riors, and intelligent artificers, and even merchants. 
 
 Their boats were so well made as to undertake long 
 voyages successfully, and their weapons, more especially 
 the formidable creese, were about the best, and most 
 destructive, known in that part of the world. The 
 creese, by the way, is not a dagger, as is usually sup- 
 posed, but a cutting blade with a waved edge, and ribs 
 which strengthen without weighting the weapon. The 
 smallest creese is a minature dagger, and the largest is a 
 powerful sword. They also fastened the blades to poles 
 converting them into javelins and spears, and several 
 tribes attached them to short handles so as to convert 
 them into battle-axes. The Malays were victorious over 
 the Papuans, and drove them into the interior as the 
 latter had done with the Negritos. This must have 
 occurred many centuries ago. When the Mohammedan 
 wave reached this part of the world it found the 
 Philippines a well-settled Malay community. Further 
 back still the ancient records of Canton refer to them as 
 brown men like those in the strait. This would seem to 
 indicate that the Malay conquest of the Philippines 
 occurred in the early part of the Christian era. From 
 that time on the islands do not seem to have been invaded 
 until the arrival of the Spaniards in 1563. A commerce 
 sprang up between the Philippines and the Malay coun- 
 tries, then with China, and finally with Japan. 
 
 It is difficult to tell what this commerce was in detail, 
 but there are illusions in old works to smoked meats, 
 smoked fish, sugar cane, hemp, fine wood, beche de la 
 mer, and gold. The Chinese exported iron, brass, china, 
 silk, and medicines. Mohamedanism, during its aggres- 
 sive state, was carried into the Philippines from Java 
 
116 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Borneo and Malaca. It made rapid progress, and even 
 to-day the inhabitants of the Sulu Archipelago to the 
 south, a large part of the population of Mindanao, and 
 several hundred thousand souls in the rest of the islands, 
 retain that faith. Before the Spanish conquest, more 
 than two-thirds were Mohammedans, and the other third 
 were heathen and fetish worshipers. The islands were 
 discovered by that wonderful Portuguese navigator, 
 Magellan, who took possession of them in the name of 
 Spain. 
 
 Not until 1563, however, was any real attempt made to 
 reduce the lands to possession. In that year the famous 
 General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi started to subjugate 
 the archipelago. He was eminently qualified for the 
 office, and succeeded in both war and diplomacy in a 
 manner that will ever elicit admiration. He took posses- 
 sion of the Ladrones or Thieves islands, and next con- 
 quered Bohol and Cebu. In 15G9 Panay was conquered, 
 and in 1571, Luzon, the land of the pestle, as the name 
 means in Malaj r , went under the Spanish yoke. The 
 Spaniards had a hard time at first. They were scarcely 
 more than in possession of their new domain when they 
 found that they had invaded the rights of both the 
 Emperor of China and the monarch of Japan. The 
 Japanese gave but little trouble, but the Chinese made 
 war with a vigor strongly in contrast with their perform- 
 ance in 1894. Between 1573 and 1575, no less than ten 
 attacks were made upon Manila by fleets from Canton 
 and Amoy, and although the Spaniards were victorious, 
 yet the IOSR on both sides were enormous. The greatest 
 victory of all was in 1574, when the Chinese general, Li 
 Mah Ong, attacked the Spaniards with both navy and 
 army. The battle lasted several days, the Chinese fleet 
 was destroyed, one-half of the soldiers killed, and the rest 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 117 
 
 chased into the mountains to both the north and south 
 of Manila. With characteristic Chinese philosophy the 
 fugitives accepted the inevitable and settled in the fertile 
 valleys far away in the interior. They made friends with 
 the native tribes, took wives from among the savages, 
 and started communities which are still flourishing at 
 the present moment. 
 
 Their descendants are scarcely distinguishable from 
 other Malays, but they, nevertheless, take deep pride in 
 their descent, and look down upon their neighbors as 
 beings of an inferior mold. 
 
 Those attacks of the Chinese aroused the vindictive 
 spirit of the Spanish settlers, who, from that time on, 
 treated the Mongolian with a cruelty and inhumanity 
 that have left indelible stains upon the Castillian records. 
 In 1603, for example, when the Chinese had settled near 
 Manila and built up a handsome and prosperous suburb, 
 the Spaniards attacked them and massacred man, woman 
 and child, amounting to twenty-three thousand souls. 
 
 Twelve thousand escaped the slaughter and managed 
 to get back to China. In 1639 there was another mur- 
 derous wave in the Philippines, and the Spaniards 
 attacked the Chinese population and murdered about 
 thirty-five thousand in cold blood. In 1665 there was 
 another but smaller crusade against the luckless Mongol- 
 ian. In 1709 the cruel spirit was modified by some con- 
 sideration for humanity. Only a few hundred Chinamen 
 were killed, but the rest of the Chinese population was 
 deported, and it need hardly be added all their property 
 was confiscated and divided between the church and 
 state. Between 1628 and 1751 the Spaniards made nine 
 attempts to conquer the Sulu islands, but in every 
 instance were repulsed with heavy losses. In 1762 the 
 tables were turned, and this time the Spaniards were 
 
118 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 assailed. The invaders were the English commanded by 
 General Draper. The Spaniards, reinforced by the 
 natives, made a brave but unskillful resistance, and were 
 slaughtered like sheep in the shambles. Manila was 
 taken and pillaged. 
 
 England would probably have taken the Philippines, 
 but the Spanish government at home becoming fright- 
 ened, sued for peace, and in the treaty which followed 
 Manila was restituted to Madrid. In 1820 the Pilip- 
 pines had a crisis which almost destroyed all civilization 
 in that part of the world. For the first time in its 
 history the territory was invaded by Asiatic cholera. It 
 began at Sanpaloc near Manila, spread to that city, and 
 thence went into every part of Luzon. The mortality 
 was frightful, over one-half of the population dying, it 
 is said, from the disease. In the height of the epidemic, 
 the ignorant Spaniards and natives suddenly adopted the 
 belief that the disease was a part of a wholesale plot to 
 poison on the part of foreigners. 
 
 The mob rose in every community and massacred first 
 the Chinese then the French, then the English and 
 Americans, and finally the Spaniards. They burned very 
 house which was not defended by the soldiery, robbed 
 every citizen and looted every building. In 1823 was 
 the famous revolt led by Novales and Ruiz. It was 
 short but very fierce and bloodthirsty, and is said to have 
 cost the lives of five thousand people within a week. 
 Since that time the career of the Philippines has been 
 comparatively calm and quiet. There have been many 
 uprisings, riots and revolts, but each has been put down 
 with an iron hand. The policy of the government has 
 grown stronger and severer with the years, and now 
 adopts measures for the prevention of riot which are just 
 as merciless as those used in war. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 119 
 
 Wherever there has been the smallest uprising a gun- 
 boat or a company of soldiers has appeared promptly 
 upon the scene, and everyone involved or suspected has 
 been tried by court-martial and promptly shot. The 
 Sulu archipelago was finally conquered, but has never 
 yet been pacified. It is under Spanish control where 
 there are bayonets and rifles. Elsewhere it is still ruled 
 by the brave and warlike Mohammedan chiefs. 
 
120 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE GO VEBNMENT. 
 
 THIS chapter is intended for the people who like solid 
 facts, such as names, places, and statistics, and may, 
 therefore, be skipped by all readers who do not care to 
 burden their memories with uninteresting details. The 
 government of the Philippines is of a dual character, 
 being military and civil on the part of the state, and 
 ecclesiastical on the part of the church. Nominally the 
 state governs, actually the church is the master. No 
 better illustration of the tendency of ecclesiastical insti- 
 tution to self-aggrandizement can be found than this 
 eastern archipelago. The church dignitaries control 
 the politicians in Madrid, they control the officials in the 
 Philippines, they own vast tracts of valuable territory, 
 and they have had the laws so framed as to make them- 
 selves members de jure of nearly every branch and bureau 
 of the colonial government. The nominal head of the 
 government is the governor-general and commander-in- 
 chief. The actual head is the Archbishop of Manila. 
 
 Under the governor-general there is a vice-governor- 
 general, a colonial secretary, two assistant secretaries, 
 and six secretary clerks. There is a chief officer of public 
 order, with a first and second deputy. There is a chief 
 interpreter who is supposed to be familiar with at least 
 four of the native languages, a chief interpreter of French 
 and English, and a chief interpreter of the Sulu Ian- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 121 
 
 guage. The governor-general receives a salary of forty 
 thousand dollars a year and perquisites. There is an 
 executive council, of which the chairman is the governor- 
 general, and the members the archbishop, the naval com- 
 mander, the vice-governor, the president of the Supreme 
 Court, the superintendent of finance, the director of civil 
 administration, and the colonial treasurer. There is an 
 administrative council, which consists of the governor- 
 general as chairman, the commander of the stationvice- 
 chairman the archbishop, the bishops suffragan, the presi- 
 dent of the Manila court, the superintendent of finance, 
 the director of civil administration ; the registrar of the 
 Manila court, the magistrates of the Common Court, and 
 two members appointed by the government. 
 
 There is a finance committee of seven members, an 
 advisory committee of seven members, a legal department 
 of two members; a Supreme Court, consisting of a presi- 
 dent and four members, and a registrar. There is a Board 
 of Censors, consisting of the colonial treasurer as chair- 
 man, and four members, and a censor of the public press. 
 There are seventy-seven provinces which give employ- 
 ment to seventy-seven provincial governors, and a con- 
 vict settlement under an inspector-general. The gov- 
 ernor of a first class province receives four thousand five 
 hundred dollars a year and perquisites; of a second-class 
 province, four thousand a year and perquisites; and of a 
 third-class, three thousand five hundred and perquisites. 
 The island is also divided into military districts or pre- 
 cincts. The first division is into three parts, each com- 
 manded by a brigadier-general, to whom is allowed a 
 staff. These are subdivided into districts, of which the 
 head is a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a major and a cap- 
 tain, according to their importance. The brigadier-gen- 
 eral of Mindanao receives seventeen thousand eight 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 hundred and twenty -five dollars salary ; the colonel of 
 Jolo, seven thousand two hundred and forty dollars; the 
 lieutenant-colonel of the West Carolines, four thousand 
 nine hundred; the major of Zamboanga, three thou- 
 sand eight hundred and fifty-six dollars; the captain 
 of Concepcion, one thousand nine hundred and eighty 
 dollars. 
 
 There are four naval stations, of which the heads 
 receive from three thousand eight hundred dollars per 
 annum to six thousand nine hundred dollars. Under 
 these heads are all sorts of bureaus and offices. Some 
 are familiar to Americans, such as the custom house, tax 
 office, the treasury, the public works, and the army 
 building. Others are mysterious, such as the bureau of 
 woods and forests, of mountains, of rivers, of fishing, of 
 harbors, of tax farming, and of tax produce ; in fact, there 
 appears to be a bureau or an office for every conceivable 
 thing a government can do, and a great many for things 
 that government ought not to do, that a government can- 
 not do, but pretends to do. 
 
 This gives a great number of offices to the politicians, 
 and none is ever vacant. Many powerful politicians hold 
 three or four offices, of which the joint income and per- 
 quisites make a very large salary. Others hold offices 
 with a small salary, but enormous perquisites. No one 
 has ever been heard of that held a small office with a 
 small salary that was satisfied with his lot, or that did 
 not attempt to levy upon all people desirous of official 
 favors. 
 
 It is very difficult to make head or tail out of Spanish 
 finances. The Spaniards themselves cannot do it, and it 
 is therefore futile for outsiders to try the experiment. 
 A late budget gives the total of about five hundred thou- 
 sand dollars for salaries of heads of government per year, 
 

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 <3J CO 
 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 123 
 
 and then deducts a hundred and seventy -five thousand 
 as belonging to army and navy estimates. In another 
 column it gives three hundred thousand dollars for army 
 and navy expenses, and charges the remainder to the 
 general colonial account. The church organization is 
 headed by the archbishop, who has a staff consisting of 
 a secretary, three assistant secretaries, a vicar-general, 
 promoter fiscal, and a notary. The archepiscopal chap- 
 ter consists of the dean, sub-dean, precentor, schoolmas- 
 ter, treasurer, canon-doctoral, canon-magistral, canon- 
 penitentiary, nine prebendaries, a master of ceremonies, 
 a succentor, and a sacristan. There are bishops in 
 charge of the Episcopal districts of Cebu, Nueva Caceres, 
 Jaro, and Nueva Segovia. To each bishopric is assigned 
 a vicar-general, a secretary and clerks, a college with a 
 rector or director with ecclesiastical professors ranging 
 from four to ten in number, and in some of the districts 
 special institutions in charge of church officials. There 
 are eight religious orders: the Augustine, Dominican, 
 Recollet, Franciscan, Capuchin, the Jesuit St. Vincent de 
 Paul, and the Daughters of Charity. Each has its pro- 
 vincial or superior, and each conducts convents or mon- 
 asteries, of which there are nearly thirty in all the 
 islands. 
 
 The Supreme Court has a general president, a civil 
 president, four civil magistrates, a criminal president, 
 and four criminal magistrates; a fiscal agent, four advo- 
 cates, a chief secretary, a college of notaries, with doyen 
 and two censors, and a college of advocates, with a doyen 
 and two deputies. There is also the finance department, 
 with a superintendent, assistant superintendent, chief in- 
 spector and assistant inspector. There is a council of 
 finance consisting of ten members of whom one is the 
 administrator of lotteries, fhere is a tariff committee 
 
124 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 with nineteen members, a Board of Education consisting 
 of the governor-general, the archbishop, the reverend 
 president of St. John's College, and the provincial of the 
 Recollet Friars. There is a university conducted by 
 friars and a Municipal Atheneum under the same super- 
 vision. Under the public works department there are 
 bureaus of inspection, engineering, architecture, forests, 
 mines, lands, agriculture, farms, manufactures, commerce, 
 weather-observatory and harbor, and for the Province of 
 Manila a Prison Board of Health, Police Board, and a 
 department of pawnshops and savings banks, of which 
 our good friend, the archbishop, is the president. 
 
 It will be noticed that the church holds a large and 
 often a controlling part, in nearly every government func- 
 tion. It participates in the making of the law and the 
 execution of the law, in the finances of the state, and in 
 education. It has chaplains in the regiments and on 
 the warships, and it has almost complete control of its 
 own finances and of the finances which it secures through 
 the agency of the state. 
 
 The cost of running this machine is about ten millions 
 of dollars a year. The revenue of the government, which 
 is always to leave a surplus, invariably produces a defi- 
 ciency varying from one to more than two millions a 
 year. Thus the colony is always in debt, and is worse 
 off at the present time than it has ever been before. 
 
 The budget tells a pitiful story of the waj r in which the 
 finances are managed. Ever3 r one has to pay a poll tax, 
 and a special tax upon the poll tax. Every Chinaman 
 pays a special tax and a second tax upon the first. The 
 opium concession brings in a half-million dollars a year ; 
 storekeepers' and peddlers' licenses over a million a year; 
 lotteries a net profit of a half-million a year. This is 
 bad enough, but there are other entries showing absolute 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 125 
 
 imbecility. Thus, the Bureau of Inspection of Woods and 
 Forests is conducted by a chief inspector, with a salary 
 of six thousand five hundred dollars, and a staff of one 
 hundred and sixteen assistants and subordinates. The 
 total cost is one hundred and sixty-five thousand nine 
 hundred and sixty dollars, while the anticipated duties 
 on felled timber which pays this account is about eighty 
 thousand dollars. As a matter of fact the receipts of the 
 department are usually about sixty -five thousand dollars, 
 and the expenses about one hundred and eighty thousand 
 dollars, so that there is an annual deficiency of about one 
 hundred thousand dollars a year. The subordinates of 
 the department receive poor pay, many not getting more 
 than five hundred dollars a year. They make up for it 
 by corrupt deals with everyone in the business. Thus 
 for a reasonable consideration they will mark first quality 
 eighteen-inch timber damaged fifteen inch, a jam of five 
 hundred logs becomes three hundred and seventeen logs, 
 an entire consignment of new timber will be checked off 
 as being the preceding year's output already paid for. 
 Each and every item will be falsified, so that the official 
 returns are always far from the truth. Still more cruel 
 and corrupt is the system of taxing in produce and not 
 in money. 
 
 The official assesses the tax in money, adding to it in- 
 terest and fees for giving a receipt and also for sealing 
 the receipt. He then takes from the poor native at an 
 official valuation, enought rice, maize, or other produce, 
 to equal the amount called for in the bill. Sometimes 
 he uses false measures, fifty per cent, larger than what 
 they ought to be. He then ships the produce to the 
 market on a government steamer on his own individual 
 account, getting sometimes three, four and five times 
 the amount he pays over to the government. One official 
 
126 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES, 
 
 in Mindanao, who had a salary of forty-five dollars a 
 month, retired at the end of four years with a fortune of 
 sixty thousand dollars which he had made in this way. 
 Several of the provincial governors have realized during 
 their tenure of office a quarter of a million, and with the 
 exception of Governor-General Blanco, who enjoyed the 
 unique distinction of being called the only honest gover- 
 nor-general the Philippines ever knew, not one governor- 
 \ general has retired from office without being an enor- 
 \ mously rich man. The saddest feature of officialdom is 
 * the hopelessness of reform. In Manila society a favorite 
 subject of conversation is the amount of wealth accum- 
 ulated by this or that official. If he has made little he 
 is laughed at, if much he is lauded and admired; but 
 there is never a word of deprecation or indignation. 
 Another illustration is found in the evasion of the law 
 which prescribes that every male adult shall give the 
 state fifteen days' labor per annum or redeem it by a pay- 
 ment of money. As a matter of fact only the needy who 
 cannot spare the money do the work demanded by law, 
 nevertheless the returns show that scarcely one penny is 
 received for the forced labor, and that everybody has put 
 in his fifteen days. Labor is supposed to be expended 
 upon roads, sewers, canals, bridges, and clearing the 
 wilderness. With the exception of the few roads, how- 
 ever, which are kept in good condition by the farmers 
 and business men, there are no thoroughfares worth men- 
 tioning. The canals are in many instances so blocked as 
 to be unuseable, none of the public lands have been 
 cleared, and what few bridges have been put or kept in 
 repair can be counted upon the fingers of the two hands, 
 and in all of these cases it has been done by private en- 
 terprise and not by public authority. But an immense 
 amount of forced labor has been diverted to private pur- 
 
O 
 
 s 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 127 
 
 poses. Officials have had their establishments repaired 
 and embellished in this manner, some even have had their 
 plantations worked the year through by these paupers of 
 the state. The late experience of Admiral Dewey at 
 Manila shows that the same corruption had permeated 
 the most sacred duties of citizenship, and that the 
 arsenals, navies, and forts of the Philippines had been * 
 utilized by the governing classes as an efficient niechan- | 
 ism for amassing an inquitous fortune. 
 
128 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV." 
 
 THE PHILIPPINE NEWSPAPER WORLD. 
 
 To an American accustomed to the newspaper system 
 of his home, with its world-wide news service, its noble 
 literary and scientific features, its grasp of politics, local, 
 national, and international, the newspapers of the Philip- 
 pines present a curious spectacle. They are not very 
 numerous, there being seven in Manila, two in Iloilo, 
 and one in Cebu. At Manila two of the journals are 
 published in the morning : El Diario de Manila, and La 
 Oceania Espanola, and four in the evening, El Comercio 
 La Voz Espaflola (formerly called La Voz de Espana), El 
 Espaflol and El Noticero. There is a bi-weekly called 
 La Opinion, whose appearances are as mysterious as 
 those of a comet. There was another paper, La Corre- 
 spondencia de Manila, which was based upon the Lucus a 
 non__lucendo principle. It published a few notes, an in- 
 terminable novel, and finally died from paralysis of its 
 circulation. The best of the papers is El Diario. 
 
 At Iloilo are two journals, El Porvenir Bisayas 
 and El Echo de Panay. The little journal of Cebu is 
 entitled El Boletin de Cebu. These publications are all 
 of the same type, and the type is a curious one. Nomi- 
 nally they print and purvey news, actual news is the 
 very last thing to which they pay any attention. Nearly 
 if not quite all enjoy subventions from the government, 
 and it is needless to remark that they are vigorous sup- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 129 
 
 porters of the administration. The more prosperous 
 have subventions from the church. These subventions 
 alone support the papers and pay a neat profit. The 
 subscriptions and advertisements serve to increase the 
 revenue. The paper is made in Spain, and is a good 
 and durable tissue. It wears better than the cheap wood 
 pulp paper upon which most American journals are 
 printed, but it is poorly made and poorly finished. 
 The surface is rough and the thickness of each sheet not 
 uniform. The result is that the printing is wretched. 
 At some points the ink spreads and looks blurred, at 
 other points it just touches the paper, and makes but a 
 faint impression, while every now and then either a type 
 is broken, or the ink does not touch at all, so that the 
 reader is compelled to supply the necessary letter or 
 letters. Each journal conducts a serial story usually 
 printed across the lower half of the page, and one or 
 more short stories, all of which are carefully cissored 
 from Spanish or South American publications. When 
 they want to make a big hit they translate a new French 
 novel. The exertion of this operation is so great that it 
 is hard to say who are the more astonished, the editors 
 of the paper or its readers. There are several columns 
 of official and hierarchical news which are as dreary as 
 can be imagined, a lot of short notes and paragraphs, a 
 number of jokes chiefly time-honored, and a few bits of 
 what by courtesy may be called news. 
 
 Everj' now and then there are fierce editorials in which 
 some attack from a foreign paper is resented, and the 
 abuse attacked is held up as a marvel of human wisdom 
 and statesmanship. These articles were quite numerous. 
 
 At the beginning of the present war between Spain 
 and the United States, and also at the time of the prose- 
 cution of Dr. Rizal, during the Philippine insurrection 
 
130 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 of 1896-97. Those editorials translated into English 
 would make about as funny a book as Mark Twain's 
 "Innocents Abroad. " They display an ignorance ren- 
 dered all the more offensive by incomplete knowledge 
 and arrogance, and intolerance inexplicable to an Ameri- 
 can mind. Thus, for example, Dr. Rizal was a man of 
 blameless life, a sincere patriot whose only fault was a 
 desire to better the social and political conditions of the 
 Philippines. He was wise and politic, and never alluded 
 to the hideous scandals which constitute the chief staple 
 of conversation in that part of the world. The only 
 mention he ever made of these things was when in argu- 
 ing for various reforms he declared that thoughtful legis- 
 lation would put an end to many evils, which, under the 
 present regime seemed incurable. This modest state- 
 ment was seized upon as an evidence of high treason, 
 and was one of the specifications in tho charges brought 
 against him for which he was executed in December 1896. 
 The journals in commenting upon his appeal for better 
 government took the ground, not only that he was a 
 traitor, but that he was bribed by heretical churches, or 
 British statesmen ; that the government of the Philip- 
 pines was a model which was bound to be adopted in 
 due course of time by every nation possessing colonies; 
 that prosperity and thrift prevailed in the islands to an 
 unequaled extent, and that the natives were treated 
 with greater consideration than they deserved. About 
 that time, it may have been the same day, there was a 
 paragraph in several of the journals which was an elo- 
 quent commentary upon the editorials. It read about as 
 follows: A number of natives in the Province of Panay, 
 upon the pretext that a priest had punished several 
 female domestics with greater severity than was proper, 
 entered into a seditious conspiracy with the avowed 
 
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MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 131 
 
 object of killing the occupant of the holy office. News 
 was promptly dispatched to the commandant of the near- 
 est garrison, who sent a company of soldiers in response 
 to the request. The natives gathering with intent to 
 assault the soldiers, the latter thinking prevention better 
 than cure, fired upon them, killing and wounding nearly 
 all the members of the mob. The rest fled to the interior, 
 but will probably be captured and dealt with summarily." 
 
 But it is in comparing Spain with other countries that 
 the Philippine editor displays his highest genius. It 
 was Spain which discovered the New World, and, there- 
 fore, everything done in its countries is to be charged to 
 the credit of the discoverer. It was Charles V. who once 
 ruled over nearly all of Europe to illustrate what Spanish 
 soldiers can do when they so desire, and what at any 
 time Spain may do again when the humor takes her. It 
 was the Spanish navy which conquered the French, and 
 not their vainglorious British allies under Nelson. It 
 was the Spanish army that drove Napoleon across the 
 Pyrenees, although a British braggart named Welling- 
 ton tried to steal the credit for himself. Spain lost her 
 colonies, although her armies had crushed the insurgents 
 in each state and province, because she could not bring 
 herself to refuse the sacred voice of Borne, which implored 
 her to desist from further bloodshed. 
 
 There is something pitiful in such exhibitions of 
 humor, vanity, and moral weakness. The desire to pose 
 and strut with a feather in the bonnet, although the 
 clothing is in rags; to drag a huge broadsword, which 
 the aged owner can no longer wield, to bear a book 
 which weakened eyes can no longer road, and to sing 
 heroic war songs in a cracked and senile falsetto, is 
 about the saddest thing in life. 
 
 As for news proper the Philippine editor regards it not 
 
132 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 only as a bore, but as an impertinence. It may be ques- 
 tioned if any newspaper in the Philippines has as yet 
 chronicled any of the discoveries of Dewar, Rayleigh, 
 Ramsay, Lister, Edison, Tesla, Maxim, Roentgen, Koch, 
 Thomas Westinghouse, or other great inventors or dis- 
 coverers whose works have revolutionized modern life. 
 It may be questioned if they have published the political 
 changes from time to time, in France, Germany, Great 
 Britain, or the United States. It may be denied in ad- 
 vance, without the least knowledge on the subject, that 
 they they have read, or heard of any new writer in either 
 German, Russian, or English. As for such events as 
 Nansen's and Peary's magnificent voyages, Cecil Rhodes, 
 civilizing a continent, the invention of the electric rail- 
 way; the manufacture of aluminum, nickel steel, and 
 Harvey steel, probably not a" syllable has appeared in the 
 journals mentioned. 
 
 Their atmosphere is a servile imitation, and an inferior 
 one at that, of the atmosphere of their home country. 
 Its courtesy and fine breeding, make it all the more re- 
 pulsive to readers brought up in other lands. Yet these 
 very qualities produce very humorous situations. Prior 
 to the revolution in Spain which brought about the 
 Spanish republic, favorite topic for the Manila editor 
 was the monstrosity of British democracy and American 
 republicanism. When the Castelar movement succeeded, 
 the Philippine press is said to have suspended issue for 
 two days, and then it came out for the glorification of 
 the rights of man and an eulogy of government of the 
 people, by the people, and for the people. For at least 
 a month their republicanism would have done credit to 
 one of the old Romans. When the monarchy was re- 
 stored there was another intellectual fit, during which all 
 the files and back numbers were either concealed or de- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 133 
 
 stroyed and a new series of editorials, denouncing the 
 former opinions were evolved in the various sanctums. 
 It is impossible to get in Manila a copy of any paper 
 published during the fortnight after the news was re- 
 ceived of the establishment of a republic in Spain. 
 
 The circulation of the papers is small, the average 
 Spaniard cannot read and write, the ratio of illiteracy 
 being greater in the Philippines than in Spain. 
 
 In Spain the ratio is about seventy per cent., in the 
 Philippines it is about ninety-nine per cent. No more 
 significant commentary upon the colonial administration 
 could be adduced. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE NATIVES. 
 
 WHILE the Malays of the Philippines belong to the same 
 race as those of Java, Sumatra, and the Malay penin- 
 sula, they have in the course of three centuries been 
 changed partly by their surroundings and partly by 
 Spanish rule. The tendency of the climate is against 
 exertion. It is never cold, so that the weak as well as the 
 strong can sleep out of doors the year through. There 
 are no ferocious carnivora, so there is no necessity for 
 organized resistance to a common enemy. The soil is 
 unspeakably fertile, and under natural conditions would 
 supply a population twice as large with all the food it 
 required. These influences tend, no matter what the 
 form of government might be, toward creating a love for 
 ease and idleness. The Spanish rule on the other hand 
 has only one aim, and that the acquisition of the largest 
 possible revenue. The result is an artificial necessity to 
 work. The average native must work or starve. If he 
 resists he is treated as a malefactor if he runs away as 
 an outlaw. When laws become too severe men become 
 hypocrites and liars. These truths are evidenced by the 
 character of the Philippine native, and explain many 
 seeming paradoxes. A man makes a faithful and efficient 
 employee, but at any time he is liable to stop working 
 and to loaf for a year or two, especially if he can secure a 
 supply of food during that period. And a very good 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 135 
 
 employee does this little Philippine Malay make. He is 
 hired on nearly every steamship in the far East in the 
 role of quartermaster, and other minor positions, and 
 always gives satisfaction. On many occasions these 
 Manilamen (as they are termed) have displayed high 
 fortitude, self-control, and even heroism. There were 
 some on the ill-fated steamer Bokhara when she went 
 down off the Pescadores, and they, with the officers, 
 were the last to leave their posts. There were some on 
 the steamship Namoa when she was captured by the 
 pirates in 1890, and they behaved with the same courage 
 as the English officers. The Chinese, who are keen 
 judges of human character, say of the European that he 
 is a white devil, and of the Malay that he is a brown one, 
 which, under the circumstances, may be regarded as a 
 high compliment. The Spaniards, who judge all other 
 people by analogy, have never been able to understand 
 their brown subjects. One Spanish writer who lived 
 many years in Luzon, not far from Manila, said that the 
 native was incomprehensible, that the mechanism of his 
 thought, that the motives of his actions were an heir- 
 loom from chaos, or else the inspiration of the Evil One. 
 A philologist calls attention to the fact that in all of the 
 Malay languages of the Philippines there are no words 
 for saying "thank you," and that the word which means 
 honest in several dialects also means simple, youthful or 
 puerile in others. In regard to truth they do not hesi- 
 tate to lie, and even when found out show no shame or 
 mortification. In this respect they are very much like 
 their next door neighbors, the Chinese lower classes. 
 The author had a friend at Amoy, China, who had a very 
 faithful and efficient servant. One day the latter came 
 to his master weeping and asked permission to leave him 
 for two days, as his mother was dead. The permission 
 
136 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 was given without hesitation. The next year, to the 
 master's surprise, there was the same request, with simi- 
 lar weeping. He said nothing, but gave the servant the 
 desired leave of absence. This went on for four years, 
 until the master grew tired. On the last occasion he 
 looked at the servant and said sharply: "What do you 
 mean? Your mother died last year and the year before 
 that. She's died regularly for five years past." The 
 servant nodded his head in acquiescence, and replied : 
 "Yes, master, the same old dead." Their moral code 
 has many odd features. They rarely steal, and even 
 when they do steal it is to gratifj' some pressing want, 
 yet even here they do not seem to differentiate between 
 one kind of want and another. A man who takes a loaf 
 of bread because he is starving, a man who takes a jewel 
 and pawns it wherewith to buy opium when he is suffer- 
 ing for a smoke, and a man who steals money wherewith 
 to buy a good suit in which to attend a religious festival, 
 are all put in the same category. In each case, to the 
 native mind, the wrongdoer was the victim of necessity. 
 The Tagal is as mercurial and talkative as the proverb- 
 ial Frenchman, while a Yisaya is a stoic who would have 
 been approved by Zeno himself. Though nominally 
 Christians, they preserve their ancient superstitions 
 almost unmodified. They believe in devils, in magic, in 
 charms, and in luck. A terrible commentary upon 
 Spanish rule is found in the simple word "Castila. " Its 
 primary meaning upon the face is an inhabitant of 
 Castile. Its other meanings are Spaniard, European, 
 white man, enemy and devil. The word is a small 
 history condensed to seven letters. The native has one 
 well developed virtue he is fond of both wife and 
 children. In their defense he is as brave as a lion, and 
 as cunning as a serpent. The warm attachment we call 
 
*- 
 
 m *, 
 

 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES, 137 
 
 friendship is almost unknown to him. The friend of 
 to-day is forgotten to-morrow, and the friend of to-mor- 
 row is dropped in a single hour for a newcomer. He 
 possesses but little humor, but enjoys simple practical 
 jokes and the tricks and antics which pertain to child- 
 hood and monkeyhood. He thinks it wrong to pass 
 between you and the sun. The casting of one's shadow 
 upon another person is apt to produce mysterious and 
 terrible results. More unpardonable still is to step over 
 a person, sick or well, wounded or whole,asleep or awake. 
 It is worst of all when the person is asleep. The reason 
 of this odd belief is that when a person is lying down 
 the soul may escape from the body, and that when a per- 
 son is asleep or in a faint that the soul has left the body, 
 and is traveling in another world. To step over a wak- 
 ing person may frighten the soul out of a body, to step 
 over a sleeping person may prevent the soul returning to 
 its carnal home. The Malay's code of morals is both 
 strict and lax. The husband is profoundly jealous of his 
 wife and solicitous as to her honor, but he manifests no 
 interest whatever in her morals before marriage, or in 
 the morals of his daughters. This appears to be com- 
 mon to many races in the East. A similar state of affairs 
 exists in Japan, and in both Java and Sumatra. In 
 their social relation there appears to survive an ancient 
 family or patriarchal system. The oldest member of a 
 house is obeyed by sons and grandsons, even though 
 they be far stronger and more stalwart, and it is not 
 uncommon for elders to give a sound flogging to young 
 men of their clan as well as their family. A man is 
 bound to help a brother, cousin, and even distant cousin 
 upon the score of kinship. Thus every wealthy or well- 
 to-do native family has any number of hangers-on who 
 are treated, not as objects of charity, but as persons hav- 
 
138 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ing a right to food, clothing, lodging and amusement. 
 In native communities troubles and dissensions are sub- 
 mitted to the elders, who adjudicate upon them, and 
 usually display much common sense and equity in their 
 judgments. In other matters there is no uniformity of 
 characteristics. The natives are hospitable some from 
 generosity, some from custom, some from fear, and some 
 from avarice. 
 
 The Spanish residents declare the northern tribes, 
 especially the Tagals, to be much better in these matters 
 than the southern ones, such as the Visayas and Sulus. 
 In religions matters the northern tribes display little or 
 no deep feeling and none of the intense conviction which 
 marks ignorant Protestants and Catholics. The southern 
 tribes are different in this regard. The Sulus and the 
 people of Mindanao, who are Mohammedans, display 
 almost as much ferocity and fanaticism as their co-reli- 
 gionists, the Arabs of Asia and the Hovendovas of Africa. 
 
 The women are passionately fond of jewelry and dis- 
 play, and will go to any length to secure the means for 
 gratifying their wishes in this regard. Every attractive 
 piece of female ornament receives the greatest care and is 
 transmitted by mothers to their children generation after 
 generation. 
 
 While the natives are cruel it may be doubted if they 
 are one whit worse than their conquerors. In warfare 
 they do not sin on the side of mercy, neither does any 
 other savage or half savage race. Neither do all the civ- 
 ilized races. It was not two years since the Spaniards 
 themselves deliberately put over one hundred luckless 
 revolutionists in the black hole at Manila where they 
 were smothered by foul air before morning, and in May 
 of this year the Spanish officers in Manila declared that 
 they would put in the same hideous dungeon every 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 139 
 
 American whom they captured. The Malays are kind to 
 animals. It may not bo a true compassion, it may be 
 indifference, but no Malay ever invented bull fighting, 
 cock fighting, and the abominable sport of stallion fight- 
 ing all of which are cultivated by the Spaniards in the 
 Philippines upon a large scale. Neither does the Malay 
 care for sport. If he kills fish, flesh or fowl, it is because 
 he is hungry and intends to eat what he captures. The 
 civilized idea of sport, of killing animals for the sake of 
 enjoying fine marksmanship, could not be understood by 
 the Mala3>- intelligence. What cruelty previously existed 
 in the Malay character cannot have been very large, else 
 the training and experience he has had for three cen- 
 turies would have made him a fiend incarnate. 
 
 The native is remarkable brave. He will calmly scale 
 a cliff where a single misstep would cause his being 
 dashed to pieces, he will plunge into the sea from the 
 side of his craft, and with a keen-edged creese attack a 
 neighboring shark. He has been known by English 
 sportsmen to attack the dreaded cayman in the same 
 manner, and to go into a boa's den armed only with a 
 torch and knife. To the native mind audacity and reck- 
 lessness are the highest virtues. Spanish control of the 
 Philippines has been based for three centuries upon the 
 feeling in the native mind that the Spaniard was irresist- 
 ible and invincible. The defeat of Montejo and Augusti 
 in Manila Baj r has shattered Spanish dominion forever. 
 
 If every United States soldier were taken away from 
 the Philippines, and a Spanish army of one hundred 
 thousand landed upon its shores, it would never again 
 reduce the natives to subjection. 
 
140 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SOME NATIVE INDUSTRIES. 
 
 THE little brown men are industrious in spite of the 
 utter lack of encouragement from the government, and 
 the burdensome taxation which clogs every wheel of 
 social and industrial life. Many of their industries are 
 very ancient, especially those involving spinning and 
 weaving, and the utilization and manufacture of sea 
 shells into useful or ornamental articles. So strong is 
 Chinese influence throughout this land, that it is very 
 difficult to determine how far these industries are in- 
 digenous, and how far they have been taught by the 
 patient Monoglian to his less civilized brother and 
 neighbor. There is one good thing about John China- 
 man. Wherever he settles he carries his industry with 
 him. He believes in the gospel of labor, and is a mis- 
 sionarj" in its behalf. In all those countries in which he 
 has settled, and there are inferior races, he has tried to 
 teach them some calling by which both scholar and 
 teacher could reap a profit. In Formosa for an illustra- 
 tion, John Chinaman taught the Hakka and the Malay 
 Autochthones how to extract camphor, and camphor oil, 
 from the camphor wood, and how to make grass cloth. 
 
 At Singapore he has built up many industries in which 
 some of his best workmen are Malays from that part 
 of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. In the Philippines we 
 know that he taught the Malay to gather and prepare the 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES- 141 
 
 edible birds' nests, the shark's fin and tail, ihGbechede la 
 mer. So, therefore, when it is claimed on his behalf that 
 he introduced into Luzon and the other islands many 
 of the leading native industries, the probabilities strong- 
 ly favor the claim. The most important of these indus- 
 tries from a commercial point of view is the manufacture 
 of those beautiful tissues, pina or pineapple cloth made 
 from the fibre of that plant, jusi which is a variety of 
 silk weaving and grass cloth, which is similar but inferior 
 to that of Swatow. All three cloths are known and high- 
 ly appreciated by American women. Pineapple cloth 
 has the brilliancy and strength of silk, and also the 
 translucencj" and rigidity which make it extremely val- 
 uable for woman's apparel. The making of the cloth is 
 not a very complicated process. The leaves are selected 
 at certain periods determined by the trade, and are 
 rotted both under water and in the sun. This is done 
 partly to separate the long threads from the cellulose and 
 lignose fibre, and also to free the threads from gum, sap, 
 or foreign matter. These threads or hairs are very fine, 
 and in color vary from white to yellowish white, and 
 grayish white. They are sponged by the native women, 
 and then woven upon a simple hand loom which bears a 
 strong resemblance to the loom used by the Chinese in the 
 Swatow and Chow Chow Foo districts. As the industry 
 is taxed and each loom is taxed, the natives have neither 
 the disposition nor the capital to buy the more expensive 
 and more efficient weaving machinery of the civilized 
 nations. Neither have they learned the principles which 
 have made Jacquard famous nor those which have been 
 evolved by native weavers in India and China. Even 
 under their present disadvantages they do a large busi- 
 ness and supply great quatities of pina to both the 
 Philippine and foreign markets. There is still a demand 
 
142 MANILA AND trifc PHILIPPINES. 
 
 among the natives for the curious patterns of which the 
 Sarong pattern of Java is a good type. These curious 
 patterns apparently belong to the Malay race. They 
 may be described as geometrical styles in which older 
 conventionalisms have been still futher conventionalized 
 until they have lost their symbolic character, and have 
 become merely graceful, or odd shapes and outlines. In 
 confirmation of this view it may be noticed that some of 
 them employ a lattice work, and the symbolic crosses 
 know as Svastika which are found in Bengal; others em- 
 ploy a figure similar to the palm leaf, and the roughly 
 sketched lion of Persia. A third is an imitation of, or a 
 suggestion from, the bamboo and willow patterns of 
 Japan. Another reproduces the giant centipede of the 
 tropics, representing the body by a long rectangle with 
 beveled ends, and the legs by hundreds of short parallel 
 lines, on either side of the longer axis of the figure. 
 
 Being reduced in size the line of legs looks like a mere 
 fringe, and this in turn is applied to figures which have 
 no similarity to the centipede. Thus, a circular figure 
 said to be a cocoanut has a fringe or whiskers, as irrev- 
 erent critics term it, running completely around it. An- 
 other figure looks like a modified bishop's miter. This 
 is decorated with several rows of fringe. The patterns 
 are printed from blocks, and worked in by hand. The 
 Philippine designers cannot be mentioned in the same 
 breath with the Javanese. The latter go so far as to 
 weave historical stories into their cloths, while the former 
 content themselves with a limited number of geometrical 
 designs. 
 
 When it comes to the shell industries the traveler 
 enters a new and beautiful industrial world. Here the 
 patient little brown man of the far East can take pride in 
 his achievement. Nature has given him a marvelosu 
 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 143 
 
 storehouse from which to draw his materials. There 
 are oyster shells of many species, nearly all of which are 
 utilized. Some are perfectly flat, and can be wrought 
 into sheets or planes, others are deep and large, big 
 enough in many cases to make a giant punchbowl. The 
 sea conchs are numerous, and widely varied in outline 
 and color. There are scores of other species marked by 
 a rich and lustrous nacre. 
 
 And then comes an unending multitude of little shellg 
 some no larger than children's glass beads. In the shell 
 industries live shell is used to the exclusion of dead shell 
 excepting where a species is very scarce, in which case the 
 dead shell is used although it does not bring the price of 
 the live. To those who do not know the distinction 
 between the two, the explanation is that live shell means 
 the shell of the living animal, and dead shell the shell of 
 the dead animal. The live animals is caught and ac- 
 cording to the nature of the shell it is killed by being 
 thrown into boiling water or by the attacks of land 
 animals such as ants, fowl, rats or else it is cut out by a 
 workman with a knife or else it is buried and allowed to 
 decay. When the animal has been removed the shell is 
 cut at an oblique angle to its axis. Some of the artisani 
 employ a saw and others use a clumsy grindstone, cutting 
 it at one angle produces a shape whose general outline ia 
 that of a lop-sided dumb bell. This is trimmed down 
 until it becomes a spoon. According to the size of the 
 shell or the part cut, the finished product may b A tea- 
 spoon dessert spoon, soup spoon ladle, a salt measurer, or 
 an ice-cream server. The bowl is of a bright golden color 
 with a high luster, and the outside is pearl color, gray, 
 pink or gold or else a pretty combination or mottle of all 
 these tints. Despite the large amount of labor required 
 these spoons are very cheap. A set of soup spoons can 
 
144 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 be bought from a native maker for twelve cents a dozen, 
 and the teaspoons for one half that amount. While in- 
 ferior in strength to metal the shell is much stronger 
 than china or porcelain, and is more durable and attrac- 
 tive than wood. It does not absorb grease when used at 
 the table, and is not iDJured by soap in washing. 
 
 Sea conchs of the same genus, but of different species, 
 are treated in the same manner, and yield handsome 
 bowls, tureens, vegetable dishes, cups, saucers, plates, 
 pin boxes, jewel-cases, card receivers, ash cups, 
 tobacco jars, and other curved receptacles. According 
 to the shell employed, the interior is rooe, pink, gold, 
 amber, or pearl, in color. At times these beautiful orna- 
 ments are mounted with cheap silver frames, or in 
 pewter, which is sent over from Swatow. An ingenious 
 trade carried on upon quite an extensive basis is founded 
 on the utilization of the secreting power of the Philippine 
 fresh water mussel. This mussel excels even the oyster 
 in the quantity though not the quality of the liquor 
 which, by evaporation or separation, produces mother of 
 pearl. The Chinese are masters of the art, while the 
 Malays have proven docile pupils. The commonest thing 
 is the production of pearl which is secured by putting 
 grains of sand or circular fragments of shell, or of mother 
 of pearl into the mussel where it is covered with the 
 pearly coating in a week, and where at the end of several 
 months it has become a seeming pearl although of poor 
 quality. Another trick is the enlargement of the small 
 pearls, and the improvement of discolored and unshapely 
 ones. This takes a longer period, but is accomplished 
 without much exertion. Little figures in kaolin well 
 burned, but not glazed, or disks of kaolin on which has 
 been engraved a face or a character, are put into the shell 
 of the luckless mussel, and kept there until they are also 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 145 
 
 covered with a fine pearly coat. Most ingenious of all 
 is the artifice of fastening to the lower shell of the mussel 
 a little figure of a god, a Svastika, or other symbolic 
 character, and there letting it remain for many months. 
 The growth of the shell raises the surface, and finally, 
 when it has reached the level of the object fastened, this 
 is removed leaving in the shell a perfect cast of all its 
 lines and surfaces. The mussel is then destroyed, and 
 the shell sold to the superstitious, especially to Buddh- 
 ists, and to Mohammedans, the former reverencing the 
 excellent reproduction of the figure of the great Indian 
 prince, and the latter believing in the occult virtues of 
 the Svastika. 
 
 An industry which gives employment to many thousands 
 is based upon oyster shells, of which two kinds are the 
 most important. One is the flat Manila oyster, which, 
 as an American lady said, starts in life resembling a dime, 
 and winds up looking like a pieplate, and the giant 
 Philippine oyster, which is like the big bivalve of our own 
 Pacific coast. The shell of each kind contains more 
 nacre than any belonging to the American continent. It 
 has a high luster, and remarkable cohesive strength. It 
 laminates slightly and cleaves with facility. It contains 
 very little grit, so that it can be readily cut with a saw, 
 and ground with an ordinary grindstone. These shells 
 are first caught by professional gatherers, who sell the 
 meat to natives and Chinese, but not to Europeans; the 
 latter find the flavor unpleasant, and also have a belief 
 that the animals are more or less poisonous. The natives 
 however, prepare them in many ways and pronounce them 
 a good food. The Manila shells are then split, and 
 cut into small squares, and other regular shapes, and are 
 used as substitutes for glass in window frames. When 
 well cut and ground they shut out about one-half of the 
 
146 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES, 
 
 light, and give the other half a mild irridescence which 
 is extremely beautiful. Beside shutting out half the light 
 they have the quality of mica in shutting out all heat. 
 They are poor nonconductors, and thus a window, whose 
 panes are made of ground oyster shells, keeps a room in 
 a half gloom like twilight, and even alongside of the win- 
 dow itself in the hottest day in summer, the heat is no 
 greater there than in any other part of the place. When 
 the finest quality of shell is employed the irridescence is 
 more marked, and the display more admirable. Occa- 
 sionally a pane, or an entire window, is encountered 
 through which the sunlight comes as if through massive 
 opals. 
 
 Two whiter varieties of the Manila shells are cut into 
 what the Orientals regard as graceful or artistic shapes. 
 Among the forms are the palette, the water lily leaf, the 
 palm leaf, the egg, the horseshoe curve, the spear head, 
 the shield, both round and triangular, the lozenge, the 
 lotus leaf, and lotus petal, the outline of a dome and the 
 outline of a typical Chinese house. The surface on both 
 sides is treated with the greatest care so as to have each 
 a natural cleavage bed or layer of growth or else it is cut 
 so as to bring out the largest amount of irridescence. 
 Upon one side are then engraved in low or high relief the 
 figures of animals, fishes, birds or men, castles, mountains 
 scenery both landscape and waterscape, until the plate 
 becomes a very handsome sketch or picture in relief. 
 
 Looked at at right angles the picture is hardly visible, 
 but when examined by a reflected light, or when looked 
 at obliquely, the design comes out clearly and with a 
 play of delicate rainbow tints that is simplj' delightful. 
 Much secrecy io observed by dealers in these goods. 
 But according to rumor the finishing of the shell is done 
 by the Malays, who also make the rougher and cheaper 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 147 
 
 drawings or the beginnings of the good drawings. The 
 better drawings and the finishing stages of the poor 
 drawings are made by Chinese artificers in Manila, while 
 the handsomest and most elaborate are made by a guild 
 of sculptors or engravers in Canton, China. 
 
 None of the fragments which can be possibly utilized 
 are wasted. Many pieces are cut into images, dolls and 
 figurettes. Smaller fragments are cut into beads or into 
 the cheapest kind of jewelry for the working classes of 
 the far East. A neat necklace of these shell beads can 
 be purchased for a few cents. Very large oyster sheila 
 are made into objects of commerce by a rough treatment 
 which cleans the outside, leaving it rough in texture and 
 grayish in color, looking like a fine gray sandstone, and 
 of polishing the rough places in the interior until they 
 are almost as smooth and lustrous as the rest of the shell. 
 These are exported as South Sea curios to Europe and 
 Asia. Europeans in all the lands from Japan to India 
 use them as punch bowls, umbrella stands, and ornaments 
 for either side of the fireplace. Another pretty way of 
 employing them is to fill them with water and making 
 them into an aquarium by having a few marine plants 
 and some fishes. The demand from foreign lands for 
 these shells extend to all which are more than an inch in 
 length. Only the poorer qualities are sent away in bulk. 
 These are sold by the bushel and barrel, and are fre- 
 quently attainable in the open market at such ridiculous 
 prices as forty and fifty cents a barrel. A third great 
 class included the exquisite shells known as cowries. Of 
 these there are over eighty species in the waters about the 
 islands. The tortoise-shell cowrie, which is the favorite 
 ornament of the New England mantelpiece, is here found 
 in its finest development. Here also are the golden 
 cowries, the rose cowries, the pearl cowries, the gray 
 
148 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 cowries, and the other beautiful styles so loved by all 
 students of conchology. 
 
 The shells of several bivalves are employed to make cat's- 
 eyes for the blue and white kinds. These are sold at 
 retail to credulous globe trotters as genuine gems. They 
 look very much like the originals, and when freshly cut 
 and polished are more beautiful. The selling price of 
 these pretty frauds with the unwary is two dollars apiece, 
 put the native dealers quickly drop in their demands 
 until they reach twelve cents. Here they quarrel if a 
 further reduction is insisted upon, so that the value or 
 cost may be estimated at about four cents. These bogus 
 cat's-eyes are found as far to the northeast as Yokohama, 
 and as far south as Australia, and as far west as Alexan- 
 dria, Egypt. In this way the benevolent humbug of the 
 Philippines comes in touch with a very large part of the 
 civilized world. The oddest industry in regard to shells 
 is the making of shell figures. The basis is a rough 
 model of the finished article, made of clay, of baked clay, 
 plaster paris, or even wood. The entire exterior is made 
 of shells or fragments of shells of all colors and kinds 
 which are applied to the model with strong gluo or an 
 adhesive paste or cement. It is marvelous what results 
 can be obtained with these simple materials. Cloth is 
 represented by tiny snail shells cleaned and polished and 
 arranged in rows all touching one another. Division 
 lines are made with narrow columnar shells no thicker 
 than matches. A row of embroidery is made by lapping 
 fragments of very small clam shells, with well defined 
 lines upon their surface. The features of the human face 
 and of animal's faces, are reproduced by shells cut at 
 various angles to obtain some similarity. The patience 
 required in making these little figures is very great, and 
 the ingenuity is altogether remarkable, A favorite group 
 

 
 "*\ ^ 
 
 w 
 
 5 o 
 
 o 
 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 149 
 
 IB a man sitting upon a large fish with an open mouth, 
 while another one is a rather well executed figure of the 
 native buffalo. A number of shells are found, which, after 
 proper cleaning and polishing, are sent to other lands 
 where they are converted into a shell cameos. At one 
 time these works of art were very popular in both Europe 
 and America. The shells were very easy to cut, and the 
 effect was almost as handsome as that obtained from the 
 stone cameos, which are extremely difficult and laborious. 
 The shell cameo does not wear well, however, and after 
 a few years its sharp lines become smooth, and its angles 
 change to rounded surfaces. It lost its popularity, and 
 is esteemed to-day by collectors of antiques. There is a 
 whisper that the Philippine shells which go to Italy, 
 France and Austria, reappear within the following year 
 or two in the form of portraits of distinguished deceased 
 ancestors, with dates and memoranda indicating that 
 they were made far back in the eighteenth or even the 
 seventeenth centuries. But this is a cruel suggestion, 
 and even if it be true must not be charged to the little 
 brown men of Luzon. 
 
 The manufacture of hemp and of hemp and rope is 
 partly native and partly Spanish. The natives had 
 learned the virtues of hemp long before Magellan had 
 gone through the strait which bears his name. They 
 made an excellent rope, employing nearly all of the prin- 
 ciples which are used to-day in that manufacture. 
 Beside twisting the threads the cords and strands they 
 also braided them, and with the braids in turn made 
 strands by both twisting and a second braiding. The 
 braided ropes were often quite flat, and were practically 
 straps rather than ropes. They were and are utilized as 
 harness for their ponies and buffaloes and also for rigging 
 upon their primitive craft. In the household economy 
 
350 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 these hempen straps were used for suspending articles 
 from beams and rafters out of the reach of rats and mice, 
 for the toe bands of sandals, for making rude rugs and 
 carpet bags and sacking, and for nearly every purpose to 
 which the leather thong or strap is employed by savage 
 races. 
 
 Although the native ropes are inferior to those made 
 by Europeans or under European directions they- are 
 strong, durable, and extremely cheap, costing only a 
 third to a fifth of the latter. At one time these native 
 styles of cordage entered into the commerce of the coun- 
 try, but this has been changed by the crushing force of 
 internal taxation and of export duties. These two mill- 
 stones have injured every industry in the Philippines, 
 and have put an end to several. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 151 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ANIMAL WORLD. 
 
 To an American traveler, at least, the animal world of 
 the Philippines is full of surprises, some pleasant and 
 others, the majority, unpleasant. Your first acquaint- 
 anceship is made on shipboard when sailing along the 
 coast in the night time and any light is burning you are 
 bound to be visited by strong, flying cockroaches, which 
 will cross several miles of water in their desire to reach a 
 flame. They are omniverous pests, and play havoc with 
 boots, leather trunks, book-covers, and are said to take a 
 fiendish delight in nibbling the finger nails and toe nails 
 of a sleeper. It hardly pays to make a fight against 
 these extraordinary insects. You may kill a hundred 
 thousand in the house so that the place looks free of the 
 insects, but the next morning their places will be filled 
 by two hundred thousand new ones. After a few days 
 the traveler gets used to it, and after a few weeks does 
 not notice the little creatures. 
 
 On landing at Manila, probably the first animal that 
 one sees is the buffalo. Manila is rich zoologically in 
 members of this pachydermatous family. The largest. 
 and most imposing is a livid creature which may be 
 called white or pink at pleasure, and which suggests the 
 sacred white elephants that are occasionally shown in 
 menageries. They are enormous brutes with long horns, 
 that are often seven feet from tip to tip, and are used for 
 
152 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 the heavy hauling and carting of the country. They are 
 very docile, and are frequently tended by native chil- 
 dren. It is said, however, that they have a malignant 
 enmity toward all Caucasians, under the impression that 
 these are Spaniards in disguise. There is a smaller 
 buffalo similar to the Chinese species which has a black 
 skin almost entirely devoid of hair. It is a marsh animal 
 and finds its chief delight in burying itself up to the neck 
 in mud or in wallowing in a dirty pool. It is fiercer and 
 more dangerous than its larger white colleague. There 
 is a small buffalo which is rarer still called the Tamarao, 
 which is handsomer in ahape and more graceful in move- 
 ment than any other member of the family, and last of 
 this bovine family is the wild buffalo which is the best 
 game of the country. He is about as large as an alderney 
 bull, of a black color, and a blackish skin, scantily fur- 
 nished with bristles rather than hair. His horns are 
 large and extremely sharp. He is said to be untamable, 
 and is braver and more reckless than either lion or tiger. 
 If he scents a man he bellows and charges. It makes 
 no difference whether it be one man or a hundred, it is 
 all the same to his belligerent mind. 
 
 His habits are curious; living by day in swampy for- 
 ests or in open marshes, at night he comes forth from 
 his lair and invades the nearest field. As might be sup- 
 posed, the natives who are not allowed to use or even own 
 firearms, treat him with the greatest respect. If they 
 see one of the dreaded creatures approaching ever3 r one 
 of the party goes up a tree. Even then the vindictive 
 brute will sometimes remain at the foot of a tree, pawing, 
 snorting and bellowing for hours, and it is said for two 
 or three days waiting for the man to come down. When- 
 ever a native is treed he first prays to the buffalo, be- 
 seeching him to go away. If this does not succeed he 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 153 
 
 then scolds for an hour or more. This failing he screams 
 and yells, throws sticks and branches afc the quadruped, 
 and finally throws down his trousers, the only article of 
 raiment which he wears. The buffalo stamps on this and 
 tears it until his rage is satisfied and then goes away upon 
 his business. 
 
 The flesh of this wild ruminant is very good eating, 
 and is regarded as a great delicacy by sportsmen. The 
 skin makes the hardest and strongest leather known. It 
 13 made into whips, traces, harness, shoestrings, and 
 other articles where durability is required. The horns 
 are much stronger than ordinary horn, and can be soft- 
 ened and bent into various shapes. Some of the native 
 artificers convert it into cane, hair combs, hair orna- 
 ments, Chinese snuff boxes, and cigarette cases. 
 
 The Philippine buffalo bears a striking resemblance to 
 the Philippine islander. In his wild state he is fierce, 
 intractable and cruel. Once broken in and domesticated 
 he becomes docile, patient and long-suffering. When 
 tamed he is intelligent, affectionate and grateful, and yet 
 when imposed upon too far the old savage nature is apt to 
 break out and the terrible wild beast reassert itself. 
 
 Horses are very numerous. The native horse or pony 
 has already been referred to in another chapter, but in 
 addition to him are the descendants of those brought to 
 the Philippines from Asia and Europe. The European 
 horse does not thrive in the country in the first genera- 
 tion. In the second it holds its own ; in the third it is 
 acclimated, but it loses most of its good qualities. Look- 
 ing at the numerous equipages a careful observer can 
 detect the English cob, the Andalusian barb, the Chinese 
 pony, and the surdy little Timor pony. Everybody of 
 any social position owns a horse, and many of the wealthy 
 keep a very respectable stable. Keeping a horse does 
 
164 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 not involve a large expense. Wages and feed are ex- 
 tremely cheap in that part of the world. A good horse 
 boy can be hired for about four dollars a month in our 
 money, and the keep of the horse does not exceed that 
 amount. 
 
 The deer family are very well represented in the 
 islands. There is a large and handsome stag which is 
 hunted by all classes on account of the many demands 
 for different parts of his constitution. The sportsman 
 wants him for the sake of the chase, and the pot hunter 
 for the handsome returns of a successful shot. The meat 
 is tender and delicious, bringing three and four times as 
 much as beef in the open market. The skin makes a 
 handsome and popular leather, the liver is highly es- 
 teemed by the natives, and most valuable of all the young 
 horns are regarded by the Chinese inhabitants of the 
 islands as the panacea for nearly every ill. For a single 
 young horn a Chinaman will give from three to seven 
 dollars. Where there are well developed young horns 
 the lucky captor may get as high as twenty dollars for 
 the horns alone, which is equal to the wages for six 
 months' labor. There is another deer which is scarcely 
 as large as a goat, and below this a still smaller one, ex- 
 quisitely graceful and very prettily spotted. Most beau- 
 tiful of all is the chevrotain or mouse-deer, which is about 
 as large as a black and tan terrier and is the daintiest 
 most ethereal little thing in the world. It is a swift 
 runner, and when it dashes across an open it looks more 
 like smoke drifting by than a timid and excited little 
 animal. 
 
 There is a wild pig in the islands which can be recom- 
 mended to all lovers of good living. He lives in the 
 forest, where he subsists upon fruits, tender roots, and 
 large tropical snails. He is very cleon in his habits, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 155 
 
 and is muscular and well-built. His flesh is the best meat 
 in Luzon; Spanish naturalists believe that he is the 
 descendant of Chinese pigs imported many centuries 
 ago, which ran wild and by the force of necessity 
 changed his habits and habitat. If so it is a remark- 
 able metamorphosis, as he shows few if any of the lead- 
 ing characteristics of his reputed ancestors. 
 
 Our best four-footed friend, the dog, is very much in 
 evidence in the Philippines, but does not receive the care 
 and attention which he has in colder countries. This is 
 probably due to the climate which enables him to live 
 altogether in the open. Beside the breeds familiar to 
 Americans, there are at least three which are almost un- 
 known to the western world. One is the Chow dog which 
 has been brought to the Philippines from China. He is 
 a well built, powerful animal, with so long a coat of hair 
 around the neck and shoulders as to give some the ap- 
 pearance of a young lion, and others that of an animal 
 with a sore throat tied up in a hairy blanket. The sec- 
 ond is a very small dog, the Manila terrier, which looks 
 like an unhealthy cross between the black and tan and a 
 French Turnspit dog. It is a homely creature, but is 
 said to be very loyal and intelligent. In striking con- 
 trast is a huge dog -which has aroused much interest 
 among naturalists. It is larger than the biggest mastiff, 
 and fiercer than a bulldog. It has a handsome coat of 
 uniform tint, yellow, yellow-brown, or brown. That it 
 is not indigenous is almost certain. All known wild 
 dogs are of medium size about the same build and 
 weight as the wolf, their first cousin. The big dogs seem 
 to be the product of careful breeding by owners who de- 
 sired protection from wild beasts. The mastiff of Eng- 
 land, the Thibet dog, the Siberian bloodhound, were 
 originally fighting-machines for their possessors. But in 
 
156 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 the Philippines there are no carnivora to render such 
 canine types of service. The only explanation which can 
 be offered is that they are descendants of Chinese blood- 
 hounds, which were brought over by traders and mer- 
 chants in the early centuries as a safeguard against 
 native pilferers. 
 
 The Philippines have two kinds of civet-cats, which 
 are not cats in any respect. One called moussan by the 
 natives, has gray fur srtipped and dotted with black. It 
 has the head of a intton, the body of a big gray squirrel, 
 and a long tail with a curly end like a monkey. The 
 other is of the same color as a Havana cigar, and looks 
 like a small edition of the first. A Malay asked what 
 these creatures eat, replied : "Everything, sefior, except- 
 ing the trunks of trees, but we like them because they eat 
 snake's eggs and small snakes." Their teeth are both 
 carnviorous and insectivorous, showing that they must 
 fill an important place in nature. Insect and reptilian, 
 especially ophidian life, is overwhelming in the Philip- 
 pines, and these little creatures serve as a check upon 
 their becoming too destructive. 
 
 An animal whose fur at least is well known to Ameri- 
 cans, is the pretty guiga or cobego, a flyin -lemur. It 
 has a fine, soft and silky coat, whose color varies with 
 each individual. There are black, and black with white 
 spots, gray, and gray with white spots, dark-gray and 
 light gray, yellow, yellow and gray, yellow and black, 
 yellow with white spots. It may be doubted if any 
 other wild animal shows such a variety of furs. He is 
 often tamed, but does not thrive in captivity. 
 
 The Philippines are well supplied with rats. They 
 have both the European and Norwegian, and no less than 
 three kinds peculiar to themselves. One seems a con- 
 necting link bewteen the rat and beaver, having long 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 167 
 
 hair and broad chisel-teeth. It is about the size of a 
 prairie-dog. A second is smaller, but still much larger 
 than those "which trouble American housekeepers. It is 
 gray, long-haired and very daring. Its teeth are more 
 canine than rodent in character. It is carnivorous and 
 suggests the weasel and ferret. 
 
 There are enough bats in Luzon alone to supply the 
 world. They have about the same as we have, and many 
 others from which we have been providentially spared. 
 There is the paniquet, or little vampire, whose remarkable 
 diet consists of ripe fruit and fresh blood. There is the 
 pug-nosed fruit-bat, a worthy vegetarian. Other queer 
 varieties are the sheath-tail, the naked, the big-mouth, 
 the long-nosed, and the monkey bat. At nightfall they 
 are so numerous about a house as to resemble a great 
 flight of birds. Their multitude indicates a correspond- 
 ingly large amount of the fruits, insects and animals on 
 which they subsist. 
 
 It is strange how niggardly nature has been to the 
 Philippines in regard to the mammalia. The soil is 
 marvelously rich and the vegetation rich enough to sup- 
 port an innumerable host of carnivorous and granivorous 
 creatures. Yet there are none of the carnivora, not even 
 the wildcat. The bear, wolf, fox, jackal, goat, sheep 
 and cow had no representative there at the time of the 
 conquest. Even the marsupials which are so abundant 
 in lands to the south and southeast, do not seem to have 
 reached their shores. That the place is well adapted for 
 all such animals is shown by the vigor of the native types 
 and the rapid increase of the horse, cow, pig, sheep, dog, 
 cat and monkey brought from China or the Malay coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The natives are not very skillful hunters as are those of 
 the mainland, so that there cannot have been any such 
 
158 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 process of extermination as has marked the passing-away 
 of the buffalo, panther, puma and wolf east of the Mis- 
 sissippi in our own land. What little has been done by 
 geologists in the Philippines fails to show that condi- 
 tions were different at any point this side of the Glacial 
 epoch. It may be one of nature's vagaries, just as there 
 are no snakes in Ireland, and up to a late date no 
 mosquitos in England. The distribution of animal life 
 is so dependent upon historic, prehistoric and geologic 
 causes and influences that in spite of all our scientific 
 progress we can at the best but surmise in the premises. 
 All facts have a meaning beyond that which they indicate, 
 and the status of the animal world may contain within it 
 the story of cataclysm or epidemic more terrible than 
 can be imagined by the traveler. 
 
VEGETATION IN LUZON SHOWING BAMBOOS. 
 
 A very interesting piece of tropical scenery, as it is not often that pictures are 
 obtained of growing bamboos. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE FEATHERED POPULATION. 
 
 THE bird life of the Philippines is bewildering in 
 variety and beauty. Here and there familiar faces are 
 seen, all of which have doubtless been taken by travelers 
 or imported by Americans living in that part of the 
 world. Canaries are the favorites of the people and sev- 
 eral families in Manila have mocking birds, which, if they 
 were not born in Dixie, were certainly descended from 
 ancestral southerns. The most interesting bird is the 
 wild cock, who is the ancestor of our domestic fowl. 
 The first glimpse of this royal creature shows that domes- 
 tication may have improved the value of the species for 
 commercial purposes, but has not increased its beauty. 
 These wildfowl are wonderfully beautiful. The plumage 
 of the male is bronze and gleams like burnished metal, 
 varied here and there with dashes of gold, orange, red, 
 white, or gray. Of the female the color is black, some- 
 times slightly mottled and sometimes flashed or speckled 
 with gray, yellow or white. They have fine forms, fly 
 well, and the cock is a better fighter if it be possible than 
 the Spanish gamecock, who, according to the Philippine 
 islanders, is a direct descendant of the native bird. In 
 the woods there is a sand fowl which looks like a poorly- 
 bred, small-sized yellow and fluffy Plymouth rock. There 
 is a very beautiful pheasant whose plumage is halfway 
 between that of the pheasant and the peacock. There 
 
160 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 are other varieties each with its own native name, varying 
 in size and color. Altogether there must be a dozen 
 types of fowl which are novel to a traveler from the 
 United States. The pigeon family makes an equally 
 handsome display. The batu batu has a brilliant, long 
 ruff around the neck, and both ruff and all the feathers 
 look exactly like an emerald of the first water. When a 
 bird rests in a tree it is easily distinguished by the 
 greater intensity and brilliancy of its color, and no 
 matter how rich the green of the foliage. There is the 
 Pigeon of the Crucifixion, named by some devout priest 
 in bygone years, whose back and wings are an exquisite 
 slate-blue, and whose neck, breast and belly are of snow- 
 white. In the very middle of the breast is a great splash 
 of scarlet, so deep in color as to look exactly like a drop 
 of blood. The first time a stranger sees one he is bound 
 to sympathize with the poor dove in the belief that it has 
 been dangerously wounded. There are several large 
 birds of the eagle family, of which the finest and hand- 
 somest is the sea eagle or Lao Win. He appears to be a 
 bird of liberal tastes, and when fish are scarce does not 
 object to a diet of chicken, pheasant, small deer or a 
 snake. His strength is tremendous, he having been 
 known to carry off a fish three feet long, weighing eigh- 
 teen or twenty pounds. He is a favorite subject of song 
 and story with the Malays, who have built around him 
 many myths, some based seemingly upon fact and others 
 pure creations of the fancy. One story says that during 
 the mating season he selects his prey according to the 
 wishes of his wife and never eats anything which he 
 catches until he has taken it home to the eyrie and 
 allowed her to eat what she desires before he touches a 
 morsel. One thing is certain, he is a model of conjugal 
 virtue. He helps his mate build the nest and during 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 161 
 
 hatching and the feeding of the young ones, until they 
 can fly, he is indefatigable in relieving the mother in 
 every way possible. When she leaves the nest to wash 
 herself and drink a little, he will either take her place 
 and perform her functions or else he will perch on the 
 nest with his wings half open as if ready to attack any 
 invader of his home. Another story declares that when- 
 ever he sees a poisonous water snake in the neighbor- 
 hood of one of his fishing grounds, he attacks and 
 destroys it if it be a small serpent, but if it be large he 
 soars away and soon returns with a lot of comrades who 
 with him destroy the foe. 
 
 According to another legend he is vengeful and vin- 
 dictive. Once a powerful chief living near Jala Jala, 
 determined to put an eagle's nest in his royal hut. 
 Against the protests of the wise men of the tribe he suc- 
 ceeded in killing the mother and wounding the father, 
 who was a young bird, in the wing. He described his 
 exploit with great glee, expressing sorrow that he had 
 not killed or caught the male on account of its strange 
 plumage, which beside being black and white had upon 
 the wings and tail great splashes of flame color. 
 
 One of the old men of the village told him that he had 
 committed a great error, and that the bird would return 
 some time for vengeance. A year passed, during which 
 time no sea eagle was seen near the village. This was 
 very strange, because they had been plentiful before and 
 also because the small bird, which is the eagle's jackal or 
 familiar, was there the same as ever. About nesting time 
 a hunter informed the chief that several eagles had built 
 nests high up on an inaccessible crag many miles away 
 from the place. The site was very inhospitable, and had 
 never been used by the eagles before. Several weeks 
 passed, and one day there was a terrible scream from 
 
162 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 behind the chief's hut. The savages rushed to the spot 
 and found the chief's wife lying senseless with some 
 terrible gashes on her face and throat, but of her little 
 three months' old babe they found not a trace. When 
 the woman came to she said that something had cut 
 her from behind, and that she screamed and became 
 unconscious. 
 
 The following year when the poor woman had another 
 child the same thing occurred, and this time she was 
 killed and the babe taken away, but the murderer was 
 seen. It was a huge eagle, larger than any that had ever 
 been known in the country, with brilliant black and white 
 plumage, and on the wings and tail feathers splashes of 
 red. The chief, wild with rage and grief, organized a 
 great party of hunters, and taking the man who had seen 
 the nests the year before as a guide, went up into the 
 mountains where they were. They came to the cliff and 
 there upon the ground far beneath the nests, which were 
 perched high up above them, were the bones of two little 
 children, some white and blanched, and some but a few 
 days dead. The chief, frenzied at the sight, climbed up 
 the cliff where no other warrior in the party could follow. 
 Halfway up, two great birds, one of which had red 
 splashes on its wings and tail, suddenly appeared upon 
 the scene and attacked the reckless climber. The men 
 shouted from below, and the chief turned in time to see 
 his foe. He gave a wild warcry, threw himself madly at 
 the bird, and with it clasped fiercely struggling, fell 
 headlong to the rocks below. 
 
 Parrots are very nice birds when you have one or two 
 of them. When you have ten your neighbors usually 
 complain of you to the Board of Health. But in the 
 Philippines there are apparently several billions of that 
 interesting family of creatures. There are parrots and 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 163 
 
 paroquets, and, worst of all, huge white cockatoos with 
 topknots resembling lettuce. The parrots are green, 
 yellow, scarlet, black and blue, in fact, of apparently 
 every color of the rainbow. They are rapacious thieves, 
 and are the dread of every poor farmer and fruit grower. 
 As for their noise it is always bad and discordant. Dur- 
 ing the mating season and also at the change of the mon- 
 soons, they hold mass meetings and make an uproar 
 alongside of which pandemonium is a Quaker's gathering. 
 
 If any one wants to speculate in parrots let him go to 
 Luzon or Mindanao and get a shipload. If his ambitions 
 are larger he can get ten shiploads. In fact, the natives 
 would be so glad to dispose of the bird that they would 
 sell them for less than what they do now, which is about 
 five cents a parrot. 
 
 The lakes and marshes are a paradise for duck hunters. 
 They are of all colors, sizes, and habits. Some are what 
 may be called respectable birds, and eat a mixed diet of 
 worms, roots and mud like ducks at home, and conse- 
 quently taste about the same. Birds of this class can be 
 bought in the market for about eight or nine cents apiece. 
 Another variety lives upon water spinach and other 
 marine plants, and tastes very much like canvas back but 
 is much fatter. A third variety picks out small fishes, 
 ancient bivalves and decayed crustaceans, and has a taste 
 which consumptive people says is like a poor quality of 
 cod-liver oil; while a fourth variety lives upon some vil- 
 lainous roots or grasses which ought to poison the eater, 
 but which by some strange law of Providence enables the 
 duck to almost poison his eater. The tame ducks have 
 been brought over from China and are excellent. They 
 are raised on small duck farms very much the same as at 
 Canton, and make exceedingly good eating. Mention 
 must be made of one little bird which brings a never- 
 
164 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ending stream of wealth into the Philippines. That is 
 the world-famous sea swallow which builds the nest, sold 
 to Chinese the world over for making birds'-nest soup. 
 These little creatures are not true swallows, but really 
 sea birds. They are found hundreds of miles at sea, and 
 repair to the land only during the mating and nesting 
 season. The gum which they gather is as much a mys- 
 tery to-day as it ever was. Some authorities claim that 
 it is a special salivary secretion of the bird's mouth, while 
 others with more plausibility declare that it is a gum 
 gathered from the sea, analagous to the pulp of the jelly 
 fish and the flesh tissue of the sea anemone. A third class 
 hold a combination view, namely : that it is sea slime 
 which has been acted upon by the fluids in the bird's 
 mouth. At any rate the swallows apply this slime, glue 
 or gum which is white, yellow or brown in color, to walls 
 of vertical cliffs and caverns, and with it fasten sticks 
 and straws together until what with glue and fiber they 
 make a wall pocket in which they lay their eggs and 
 hatch them. This glue oxidizes slightly on the outside 
 and hardens so that it is scarcely affected by either rain 
 or storm spray. It is collected by experts both Malay 
 and Chinese, the labor being hard and dangerous. In 
 some cases the gatherer is let down from the top of high 
 cliffs from fifty to several hundred feet, and secures the 
 nests from the rocky walls or from the interior of 
 recesses. Sometimes the gatherer enters caverns at the 
 base of the rocks at low tide and obtains the nests from 
 the sides above high-water mark. In the former case the 
 rope often breaks or is cut through by the wearing of the 
 strands on the rock, and in the latter case the tide-sharks 
 and poisonous sea serpents put an end to his ventures. 
 The nests when first gathered are quite dirty and are 
 carefully cleaned by hand. It takes considerable skill to 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 165 
 
 do this work, and only skilled operators are allowed to 
 perform it. When the glue is finally freed from all for- 
 eign matters it looks a great deal like a small cup made 
 out of spruce gum. It is done up in nests and sold to 
 Mongolian epicures. The finest quality is almost white 
 and brings as high as eighty and ninety dollars gold for 
 a dozen, weighing scarcely more than a pound. The 
 dark-brown opaque and dirty -looking nests are the cheap- 
 est, but these bring even from ten dollars a pound 
 upward. The trade is very large and is said to bring in 
 over a million dollars a year from well-to-do Chinamen 
 all over the world. 
 
 The Chinese citizens of the Philippines, who are numer- 
 ous in the cities, are great bird fanciers, and cultivate 
 thrushes, mongolian larks, and most melodious of all, the 
 Mina bird. This is a small black bird, which suggests a 
 minature edition of the crow. There is a little dash of 
 red upon its forehead which gives him rather a jaunty 
 appearance. He is said to be carnivorous, and to the 
 author's own knowledge evinces rare delight over a dish- 
 ful of chopped raw meat. 
 
 Every scientist who goes to the Philippines discovers 
 some new species of birds. Gironiere compiled a list of 
 one hundred and seventy species, the Verreaux brothers 
 increased this list to four hundred and fifty, Dr. Semper 
 added some eight or ten, and each of the late naturalist 
 expeditions to the islands have added from ten to twenty 
 apiece. 
 
166 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FISHES AND EEPTILES. 
 
 A VISIT co the fish market of Manila discloses that both 
 fresh and salt water afford an inexhaustible supply of 
 food. Nearly all are more or less strange to the Ameri- 
 can eye but bear enough resemblance to our own types to 
 seem half familiar. There is a medium-sized chunky fish 
 with large head and mouth which resembles the rock cod, 
 but is better eating. There is an excellent sole and a very 
 good fish which resembles the mullet. A handsome fish 
 is one which is very long, narrow, and silver-like in its 
 color. There is also a large, dark-colored heavy fish with 
 excellent meat and few bones. The oddest fish is the 
 candole, which ranges as large as three feet in length. 
 It has no scales, a large head and mouth, and for its 
 armament three large stiletto-like horns. One is on the 
 back, at the end of the fin, and one on each side of the 
 chest. They grow from an inch to two inches in length, 
 have needle points and saw teeth on the edges. They 
 not alone stab and cut, but appear to be poisonous as well. 
 Any person stabbed by one of these spines is treated 
 about the same as if it were a dog bite. The wound is 
 cauterized, or washed with strong ammonia water. "When 
 the fish is feeding, or undisturbed, the spines lie flat to 
 the body, but at the slightest indication of danger they 
 spring up and out, and there remain until the danger is 
 past. They are moved by very powerful muscles or car- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 167 
 
 tilages, and appear to be controlled by involuntary as 
 well as voluntary nerves. When one of these fishes is 
 harpooned or shot suddenly, the seines remain standing 
 and will break sheer across before they can be depressed 
 by main force. They appear to be a very excellent pro- 
 tection as they are shunned by nearly all the large fishes. 
 
 There are several kinds of crustaceans, all palatable 
 and nutritious. One is a prawn or crayfish about twice 
 the size of a Florida prawn. Another is a crayfish about 
 four or five inches in length. A third is a little shrimp 
 about an inch long and a sixteenth of an inch in diameter 
 and a fourth is a prawn, called the camerron or cam- 
 erony. A peculiar thing about these organisms is that 
 they are gray and translucent when alive and some almost 
 transparent, but when thrown into boiling water, or when 
 baked, they assume the same rich red as the crab and the 
 lobster. 
 
 The shark has almost as hard a time on the east side of 
 the China Sea as on the west. The demand for the tail 
 and especially the fins by the Chinese and the Japanese, 
 has made that savage denison of the sea the favorite prey 
 of every fisherman, Mongolian and Malay. Those who 
 go to the Philippines after having read the yellow-covered 
 novels of America and England in which the China Sea 
 is depicted as being full of man-eating sharks, are griev- 
 ously disappointed at finding fewer large specimens in 
 that part of the world than upon the Atlantic coast of the 
 American or European continents. An observer can 
 easily understand the reason when in the market he sees 
 good edible fishes sold for a few cents a pound, and 
 shark's fins scarce at fifty, and sixty cents a pound. As 
 a matter of fact the fish is being exterminated, and would 
 have vanished from those waters if the supply had not 
 been replenished from the Pacific and Indian oceans. 
 
168 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Even "with that supply the average shark in the markets 
 is seldom more than three, or three and a half feet long. 
 
 The reptilian life is very extensive. The largest and 
 most dangerous is the cayman or eastern alligator. It 
 grows to very great size some specimens being twelve and 
 fourteen feet in length. The Spaniards themselves are 
 too lazy to hunt these fierce saurians, and as they do not 
 permit the natives to own firearms the latter are unable 
 to wage any successful war upon the monsters. They 
 inhabit the streams, lakes and marshes, and every year 
 kill many men, horses, buffaloes and smaller animals. 
 They have the low cunning which distinguishes all the 
 varieties of the reptile, and will be a terror to the Philip- 
 pines until the natives are permitted to use the rifle for 
 their own defense. In striking contrast with the cay- 
 mans are the iguanas or large land and marsh lizards. 
 The biggest is a giant often eight feet and a half in 
 length. It is of a greenish brown color dotted with 
 yellow spots. It is a true amphibian, living upon smaller 
 land and water organisms. Despite his size and strength 
 he is, if not cowardlj% at least inoffensive, and is killed 
 by the natives with impunity. The crested iguana is 
 another type of lizard, looking something like the carica- 
 ture of a knight in armor. It is of a yellowish gray 
 color, and is as harmless as its bigger cousin. There are 
 other and still smaller varieties, differing in color and 
 proportion. They are all ugly and harmless. But to 
 the credit of the iguana family be it said that they are 
 all good eating. Their flesh is white, tender, and well 
 flavored. Its taste is about halfway between chicken and 
 turtle steaks, and is good, no matter in what style it may 
 be cooked. Iguana eggs are almost exactly like turtle 
 eggs and are equally delicious and nourishing. 
 
 There is another lizard in the Philippines which, though 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 169 
 
 harmless is upon first acquaintance an unpleasant 
 neighbor. It is known as the chacon or tacon, and is 
 about a foot long. The coloring is like that of a crazy 
 quilt, being gray, brown, black, yellow, blue, and red. 
 "When the skin is well tanned it makes a beautiful 
 material for pocketbooks, belts and other articles of 
 personal wear. The chacon 's peculiarity is its extraor- 
 dinary power of holding on to anything by suction. The 
 feet are large, and the toes are the framework upon which 
 is stretched a stout elastic and muscular membrane. This 
 can be raised into hollow cups at will, and by so doing 
 produces a vacuum in each cup, rendering it like the 
 leather suckers used by boys at play. If they get on a 
 person it is very difficult to take them off, so fast do their 
 pneumatic valves attach themselves to the body. They 
 have a curious cry which is said to sound exactly like 
 their name. To an uninstructed ear it sounds very much 
 like a hoarse sneeze followed by a well-defined grunt. 
 
 In the woods there are flying lizards or dragons so- 
 called. The structure of these graceful creatures is like 
 that of the flying squirrel, or flying lemur; a long thin 
 membrane extending from the body and the sides of the 
 four legs and hind legs, so as to form an aeroplane when 
 the limbs are extended their full length. 
 
 The snake family has attained a full development in 
 these lands. The great boa has already been described. 
 It is one of the largest if not the largest snake known. 
 But very few attain great size. Those of enormous size, 
 running over thirty feet in length, are extremely rare. 
 There are younger and smaller ones from fifteen to twenty 
 feet which may constitute a tenth of the snake world, 
 and then there are ninety per cent, still younger, and 
 smaller ones which are under ten feet. The Philippine 
 boa is undoubtedly undergoing extermination through 
 commercial and industrial causes. 
 
170 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 The skin makes a capital leather, and is used for scab- 
 bards, creese handles, valises, and fancy leather work. 
 There is a good demand for it in China and other orien- 
 tal countries. This in itself would create a very large 
 slaughter every year, but, in addition, nearly every native 
 tribe likes the meat. Many Europeans, who have tried it 
 from curiosity or necessity, have also taken a liking for 
 it, and use it occasionally upon the table. The boa itself 
 has its own natural enemies, BO that it has been suffering 
 an ever increasing persecution with the years. In the 
 past twenty-five years the destructive causes have been 
 increased by the demand from zoological gardens, and 
 the exertions of traveling naturalists and scientific expe- 
 ditions. 
 
 There are several other snakes of the constrictor family, 
 of which the leading members resemble the small rock 
 python, the black snake, and the brown snake of Central 
 Europe. The poisonous snakes are unpleasantly numer- 
 ous. There is a small serpent of a dull color which lies 
 near the road and attacks almost without provocation. 
 Its bite is as fatal as that of a rattlesnake. It is known 
 as the rice-leaf, on account of a fancied resemblance be- 
 tween it and rice leaves, when they have attained their 
 growth and begun to wither. There is a large poisonous 
 snake known as the alinmorani, which is sometimes eleven 
 feet long, but which averages about six feet. It is ex- 
 tremely venomous, aggressive, and persistent. Like the 
 moccasin and copperhead, it is easily killed by a blow 
 with a pole or long stick. Large numbers of people die 
 from snake bites in the islands, but the fact seems to 
 excite little comment. 
 
 There are many water serpents, nearly all of them 
 poisonous. The Bay of Manila has two species which are 
 famous. One is a gray snake dotted in black and yellow, 
 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 171 
 
 from two to five feet long. It is not poisonous, 
 but is certainly the ugliest snake extant. The hooded 
 snake of India is exceedingly repulsive, and the African 
 puff adder is horrible to look at, but this creature in 
 Manila Bay is simply loathsome. The other one is a long 
 greenish, or yellow-greenish sea serpent, unspeakably 
 hideous, clumsy, but swift in its movements, and deadly 
 in its bite. It is a scourge to the fishermen, who endeavor 
 to kill it wherever possible. 
 
 At Manila there is a feudal custom still in vogue per- 
 taining to fishers and fishing, which is more than a sur- 
 prise to one born in the freedom of democracy. It is the 
 sale by the government of the pescary of the bay, or the 
 local fishing concession. The sale is held at stated inter- 
 vals, and the buyer, who is usually a shrewd speculator, 
 pays a large amount of money for the bargain. This gives 
 him the exclusive right to take fish from the waters of 
 the bay during the term of the concession, and legally 
 makes him the owner of every fish in the waters during 
 that period. He issues licenses to fishermen and sporting 
 men. From the former he usually exacts a fixed sum, 
 and a percentage as large as he can make it of the proceeds 
 of all the fish they catch. From the sportsman he takes 
 a lump sum per individual, per party, per boat, and per 
 day. To protect him the law makes it a crime for any 
 man to take a fish from the water without first having a 
 license, or written permission from the concessionaire. 
 The author was assured by a prominent citizen of Manila 
 that starving Malays, who had been caught taking fish 
 from the bay with which to keep their families alive had 
 been thrown into jail for the offense, and that on more 
 than one occasion the offender has been shot by a soldier 
 or policeman for trying to escape with a fish which he 
 had caught. This extraordinary and unjust law is, it 
 
172 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 must be confessed, not altogether peculiar to Spain. It 
 prevailed through a large part of Europe during the feu- 
 dal period, and it survives in a few places in Great Brit- 
 ain at the present time. In Great Britain it is confined 
 to streams, ponds, and lakes, which were private property, 
 when their owner sold to third parties the right to the 
 fish they contained. In the course of years the right 
 became a charge, or easement upon the land under the 
 stream or pond. Like most easements it was made into 
 a legal entity, and thence into specific property ; so that 
 finally the land might belong to one man, and the right 
 to fish in the water on the land to his worst enemy. 
 English jurisprudence and legislation have undermined 
 this right, and made it nearly obsolete. The British 
 government itself would never dream of enforcing or 
 creating such a right for its own benefit. But Spain, true 
 to its Bourbon traditions, keeps up her practice, which 
 may have been of benefit in the dark ages, but is certainly 
 a stigma upon its civilization to-day. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 173 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 GARDEN, FARM AND FOREST. 
 
 UNLIKE the China coast, where there are long miles of 
 sterile rocky shore, there does not seem to be a spot in 
 the Philippines excepting around active volcanoes where 
 there is not an exuberant vegetation. Nowhere can be 
 found a nobler variety of the color green. Its most deli- 
 cate tinge is found in newly sprouting paddyfiells, where 
 the young rice plant sends forth a shoot which is white, 
 with just enough green and gold to give it character. At 
 the other end of the extreme is a wild grass which grows 
 on the hillsides so dark that it seems black when looked 
 at in most lights. There are pale greens which are 
 almost like the exquisite uranium glass of Bohemia. 
 There are silver greens brighter and more metallic than 
 the silver maple of New England ; there are bronze greens 
 that seem as if they had been varnished with metallic 
 paint. There is a wilderness of flowers. Foreign mer- 
 chants have brought from everj' part of the world floral 
 souvenirs of home, and many have taken kindly to 
 their new environment. The geranium, so difficult of 
 nurture in the north becomes a perfect weed in the gar- 
 dens and fields of Manila. The heliotrope grows into a 
 great bush five and six feet high, a dozen feet in diame- 
 ter, weighed down with such a load of blossoms that the 
 perfume fills the air for a hundred yards in every direc- 
 tion. The wistaria thrives as does the superb Bougain- 
 
174 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 villa, with its cataract of orange gold. Eoses flourish, but 
 require constant supervision in order to obtain handsome 
 buds and flowers. Unfamiliar flowers meet the eye at 
 every step. At one point the visitor sees a clumsy red 
 tulip tree, at another an acacia in full bloom looks at a 
 distance like a great banner of scarlet surrounded by 
 rich green. The banaba tree covers itself every year 
 with beautiful flowers of the richest violet. The orange 
 and lemon are here at home, and produce their exquisite 
 blossoms by tens of thousands. There are lilies of all 
 varieties, from the great tigers down to diminutive spider 
 lilies, from the narcissus and proud gladiolas down to 
 grass lilies almost as humble as the daisy and violet. 
 
 Flowers are so common that they lose much of their 
 significance. When a bouquet two feet in diameter can 
 be had for five cents or a basket of a thousand flowers for 
 ten or twelve, one is apt to become a little bit tired, and 
 when to this is added a never-ending blaze of colors in 
 your yard, masses of blossoms and clouds of perfume upon 
 every road, bouquets in every room, and loose flowers upon 
 the tablecloth at every meal, and tubs and pots of bright 
 plants in every window, veranda and hallway, the beauty 
 palls upon you, no matter how deep your love for the 
 treasures of the vegetable kingdom. If the flowers are 
 numerous the fruits are not less so, but few of the north- 
 ern fruits are found in the Philippines. Of the native 
 fruits the mango is the monarch, if it be not the king of 
 all fruits. Those who have eaten the Cuban, Brazilian, 
 Venezuelan, Central American and Hawaian varieties,have 
 a treat in store for them if they do not know and cannot 
 imagine the indescribable superiority of the Manila mas- 
 terpiece. It is shaped something like a pear, and is of a 
 deep gold or red-gold color. It ranges from three to six 
 inches in length, from two to three inches in width, and 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 175 
 
 from one to two and half inches in thickness. The in- 
 terior is a pulp or cream of rich gold. 
 
 That prime favorite, the banana, is represented by 
 fifty distinct varieties. Each is excellent, but all of them 
 pale before the kind known as the Lacatan. This pos- 
 sesses a golden pulp and a flavor and perfume that are 
 almost those of the pineapple. All the banana family are 
 favorite foods, and are prepared in various ways. Among 
 these are banana fritters, banana ice cream, fried banana, 
 a macedoine of banana, orange and pineapple, banana 
 pudding and banana custard. 
 
 The papaw, which flourishes in the central and southern 
 States of America, reaches a larger size and finer flavor in 
 the Philippines. The pulp contains a vegetable principle 
 or ferment resembling pepsin, which gives the fruit great 
 medicinal value. It is recommended by the medical 
 faculty for dyspepsia, weak digestion, anemia and wast- 
 ing diseases. 
 
 There are pomelos, or Oriental shaddocks, as large as a 
 football; five different kinds of oranges; two kinds of 
 lemons, two of limes, one of citron; four of guavas; two 
 of pineapples ; cocoanuts, figs, grapes and tamarinds. 
 
 Unfamiliar dainties are the durien, which has a deli- 
 cious flavor but an odor like that of Limburg cheese ; the 
 chica, which looks like a small round potato, but has a 
 cool, crisp and intensely sweet taste; the lorn boy and 
 loquot, which resemble large damsons, but have a tart and 
 delightful spicy flavor; the mangosteen, which suggests a 
 burned baked potato, but contains a snowy pulp within, 
 unspeakably pleasant and refreshing ; the lanzon, whose 
 taste is sweet and subacid like that of a mountain straw- 
 berry ; custard-apples, which are fluted apples filled with 
 whipped cream ; the santol, or Philippine strawberry, a 
 poor copy of the northern fruit ; bread-fruit, which looks 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 for all the world like green egg-plants, and when thor- 
 oughly cooked may be mistaken for toast; jack-fruit, 
 which is an inferior kind of bread-fruit; the mabolo, a 
 large fruit of rare beauty, about halfway in appearance 
 between an apple and a peach; the lai-chee, a delicious 
 thick-skinned red globe filled with a translucent cream; 
 the macapa, a crimson fruit tasting vaguely like attar of 
 rose, and the avocado or alligator pear. 
 
 In addition to this long list of fruits are those brought 
 over by steamers from Formosa, Foochow, Amoy, Hong 
 Kong and Singapore. Each of these places has a number 
 of fruits of fine flavor and savor, which are known and 
 liked in every part of the far East. Examples are found 
 in the black peach of Foochow, the pomelos and lung- 
 ngans of Amoy; the red mandarin-orange, Chinese goose- 
 berry and mulberries of Canton. Taken together these 
 make a collection whose equal would be difficult to find 
 in any other city of the world. They constitute a de- 
 lightful feature of life in Manila which no traveler ever 
 forgets. Further than this, they give a variety and excel- 
 lence to the daily fare, which are always favorable to 
 well-being. 
 
 The forests of the Philippines are of enormous extent 
 and contain an inexhaustible supply of woods of all 
 sorts, ranging from the quick-growing palm to the hard 
 woods which require a century for their full development. 
 Many are of remarkable beauty in color and grain, taking 
 a high polish and undergoing the heaviest strains or 
 severest wear without perceptible damage. The leading 
 trees include the molave, whose wood is scarcely distin- 
 guishable from boxwood, and which possesses all the 
 good qualities of the latter. It is proof against insects 
 and is very seldom attacked by the white ants. It is 
 used for weatherboards and for ship construction. The 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 177 
 
 banaba is noted for the beauty of its fiber, which is hard, 
 tough, and of a beautiful rose-pink color. It is used in 
 the house-building trades and also in cabinet work. The 
 palomaria is a gum wood which suggests spruce to a New 
 Englander. The gum is popular among the natives, who 
 use it for bruises and sores externally, and for stomach 
 disorders internally. The wood is light, flexible and 
 strong, resembling hickory. It is used for masts and 
 yards by the natives upon their primitive craft, and also 
 for carrying poles by the porters in the larger cities. 
 The mangachafoi is a stately tree which rises up a 
 slowly tapering shaft eighty, one hundred, and even one 
 hundred and fifty feet. The wood is of uniform quality 
 from root to top and is highly esteemed by the Chinese for 
 masts and flagpoles. The anobin is a cousin of the bread- 
 fruit tree, only four or five times as large. Its wood is 
 light, strong, and gummy enough to be water-repellent if 
 not waterproof. It was the favorite material in early 
 years for the long war canoes of the Malays, and in later 
 times for their trading craft and pirate ships. 
 
 The change from wooden to iron and steel construction 
 has destroyed most of the demand, so that the trees are 
 increasing in number and size throughout the archipelago. 
 Another gigantic tree is the narra, or Philippine mahog- 
 any. It grows to eight, ten, and fifteen feet in diameter. 
 Tables have been made from cross sections which would 
 comfortably seat thirty-five guests, and from the planks 
 of a single tree an entire brigantine has been constructed. 
 
 An aromatic and picturesque cedar known as the 
 calantas is used by both builders and cabinet makers. 
 The balete has a wood which is soft and spongy like that 
 of the American palmetto. The inner bark can be util- 
 ized for cloth-making and also for the manufacture of 
 bowstrings, fishing twine, and fish nets. 
 
178 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 The lemon trees attain enormous dimensions, being fre- 
 quently six and eight feet in diameter. There are many 
 ebony trees which provide a standard quality of wood. 
 The camayon is famous for its odd wood, which is of a 
 pale tint, veined with black and white, looking some- 
 thing like precious marble. It has a rival in the mala- 
 tapai, whose timber is veined with black, yellow, brown 
 and red. The lanotan is often called ivory wood on 
 account of the remarkable resemblance it bears to ivory. 
 The dongon is a huge tree larger than an oak, which is 
 employed for making immense beams and girders. The 
 guio is very tall, as also large, and supplies a good work- 
 ing timber, a little bit harder and stronger than pine. 
 The mango tree attains the size of the live-oaks of Flor- 
 ida. The santal tree grows to about the general size and 
 shape of a chestnut. The tamarind is one of the most 
 beautiful of all the members of the forest. Its foliage 
 may be mistaken for that of the acacia, while its trunk 
 and boughs look very much like those of the chestnut. 
 
 The sapan tree is a small, ugly bush, like the scrub 
 pine upon the Atlantic coast. The wood is white when 
 first cut, but the juice oxidizes and becomes a deep red. 
 It is valuable to the arts as a source of excellent dyeing 
 material, and is exported in very large quantities, averag- 
 ing about five thousand tons a year to China and other 
 countries. The aranga is a mammoth whose trunks yield 
 logs as large as three feet thick and seventy -five feet long. 
 It is used for piling and dock building. There are many 
 others, including the betis, the anobing, the bancal, the 
 bansalague, the batitinan, the antipolo, the anagap, the 
 guijo, the lauan, the macassin, the supa, the yacal, and 
 the mancono or Eastern lignum vitse. 
 
 Despite the immense natural wealth in timber, it does 
 not bring one-tenth of the income to the colony which it 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 179 
 
 would under better conditions of trade. Before a person 
 can secure any timber he must enter into negotiations 
 with the authorities, obtain licenses from the inspector 
 of mountains, concessions from the governor-general, 
 licenses from the inspector of forests, permissions from 
 the provincial governor, licenses from the church, and 
 permits from the custom house. He must charter his 
 own boat, hire his woodchoppers in advance, engage a 
 storey ard generally from the government, and pay an 
 export tax and a special harbor tax before he can ship the 
 first log to a foreign market. Yet notwithstanding this 
 red tape and costly governmental interference, the profit 
 is so large that a steady trade is done by Manila and 
 Iloilo with other parts of the world. Even where they 
 enter into competition with Borneo, Sumatra, and the 
 Malay States, they hold their own on account of the high 
 excellence of their lumber. Nearly every steamer which 
 leaves Manila carries cargoes of wood of some sort, and 
 where there is no space for a consignment of timber they 
 use sapan wood and other small woods as dunnage and so 
 make a double profit. The great English house of Brown 
 & Company, Limited, is the chief mercantile concern in 
 this field of business. In their reports they have fre- 
 quently declared that the Philippine Islands are some 
 day to supply the entire Eastern world with its finest 
 lumber and timber. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MINES AND METALS. 
 
 IT was Buckle, the English historian, -who said that 
 Spain \vas the last survival of medievalism in Europe. 
 No truer criterion of the statement can be desired than 
 the attitude of its government toward the mineral re- 
 sources of its noble Eastern colonies. What shall be said 
 of an administration which refuses to either examine or 
 develop its own resources, and forbids any one else to 
 do that which it declines to do itself. Yet that has been 
 the attitude of the authorities of the Philippines from 
 time immemorial. What gold is extracted, and it must 
 amount to a very large quantitj", is done secretly, and 
 not alone without but against the will of the government. 
 The Chinese blue books refer to the Philippines as a land 
 of gold and many precious ores, and the natives them- 
 selves say that the yellow metal has been extracted from 
 the rocks and the soil from time immemorial. 
 
 Of the mineral resources of the country more is known 
 in Hong Kong than in Manila. The freedom of speech, 
 of press, and of action, enjoyed under the British flag 
 makes even the Spaniard and the natives free their minds, 
 where at Manila they preserve a discreet silence. Gold, 
 the most valuable of all the metals, has been found on all 
 of the larger islands. As early as 1572 there were mines 
 in North Camarines, which lies in the southeast of Luzon. 
 
 In the same century the natives were found extracting 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 181 
 
 gold from quartz in a primitive way in Benguet, Nueva 
 Vizcaya, and in Isabella, in northern Luzon. In 1620 an 
 army officer found out that some half-caste Chinese were 
 extracting large quantities of gold from mines in the 
 provinces of Pangasinan and Ilocos in northern Luzon. 
 The Chinese were attacked and killed, but the victorious 
 soldiers never found the mines. On the Surigoa, or eastern 
 coast of Mindanao, there were gold deposits found in 
 both places, and quartz veins. A prominent captain of a 
 steamer trading in that neighborhood said that the output 
 of the washings were at least ten pounds a day of his own 
 knowledge, and that nearly all of it went to Chinese 
 traders. Even in Manila province the natives wash the 
 sand in the river near Montalban, and obtain enough gold 
 dust to pay them for their trouble. The Sulu warriors 
 bring both gold dust and nuggets to Borneo, and claim 
 that there is an inexhaustible supply on Jolo island and 
 Basilan. 
 
 The Spanish historians speak of gold beds not far from 
 Zamboanga, and Spanish official reports give accounts of 
 its occurrence on Panay, Negros, and Cebu. Silver is 
 found, though not to so wide an extent as gold. There 
 are very large deposits of silver-lead at Acsubing, Panoy- 
 poy, and Eiburan, on Cebu island. There is galena- 
 bearing both gold and silver in Dapitan and Iligan in 
 Mindanao. In the latter island there is also quicksilver, 
 platinum and tin. There is iron ore well distributed in 
 nearly every district. In the last century iron mines 
 were worked with great success in Morong, but were 
 finally closed by the government on the ground that the 
 workmen, who were Chinese, were not Christians. The 
 luckless owner was obliged to send all these workmen to 
 China at his own expense, and the government refused to 
 pay him for the iron he had delivered on the ground of 
 his having insulted "the Lord/' 
 
182 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 The iron mines of Angat, in Bulacan, are richer and 
 purer than the best Spanish ore so much in demand by 
 English forges. 
 
 In Luzon and Mindanao are large outcrops of copper 
 ores, which are utilized by the savages, but not by their 
 Christian superiors. Unlimited amounts of sulphur and 
 arsenic are found in different parts of the archipelago. 
 Coal is found in Cebu, Luzon, Negros, and Mindanao. 
 A small amount is extracted at Cebu, and that of the poor- 
 est quality. Explorers report discoveries of marble, 
 dolomite, slate, gypsum, borax, plumbago, granite, sand- 
 stone, limestone, coral rock, petroleum, and lignite; in 
 fact, the Philippines seem to be as rich in mineral re- 
 sources as the island of Formosa or the Malay Peninsula. 
 
 All three districts are of comparatively similar forma- 
 tion, and strangely enough each was originally peopled 
 by Malays, and each in the course of time was conquered 
 by an alien race. Although it has a supply of coal and 
 uses large quantities which it imports from Great Britain, 
 Australia, and Japani the Manila administration prefers 
 to pay ten or twelve dollars a ton for twenty-five thou- 
 sand tons every year rather than build a small railway 
 from Compostella on the island of Cebu to the coast 
 which will deliver an excellent quality in unlimited 
 amounts for less than one dollar and a half a ton, cost 
 price. The difference between the prices represents 
 enough invested capital to build a railway from one end 
 of Cebu to the other, with enough left over to connect 
 Manila and Cavite by rail. 
 
 Queerest of all, the opposition to mining enterprise 
 comes from the friars rather than from the church, and 
 not from the civil authorities. The motive underlying 
 the opposition has never been fathomed. On one occa- 
 sion the Bishop of Jaro said that gold mining made men 
 

MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 183 
 
 mercenary and worshipers of mammon, and that gold 
 miners were notoriously drunken and dissolute. This, 
 however, must be viewed with some suspicion when that 
 same dignitary favors lotteries and the opium vice, and is 
 one of the officers of the council which passes upon both 
 ruinous evils. A Franciscan friar at Cebu said that his 
 order was opposed to mines and mining because it would 
 upset the quiet and prosperous rule of the holy church, 
 and by degrees create a revolutionary and heretical 
 spirit. That all the rich mining countries had passed 
 into the hands of heretics and infidels, and away from 
 their original Catholic owners. Citing California, which 
 originally belonged to Spain ; India, which belonged to 
 France; and Australia, which belonged to either Spain or 
 Portugal. 
 
 Another friar explained his opposition on the ground 
 that mining operations through the use of explosives in 
 blasting shattered the earth, and so induced volcanic 
 and earthquake action, from which the country already 
 Buffered more than its share. 
 
 Unless, therefore, there be a change in the colonial 
 government, it is but fair to presume that the vast min- 
 eral resources of the Philippines will remain neglected, 
 or at the best a source of illicit revenue to half-caste 
 speculators and Chinese traders. 
 
184 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TYPHOONS. 
 
 No grander spectacle is ever seen by mortal eye than a 
 great typhoon. Unlike the squalls of the northern zone it 
 gives its warning far in advance. Twenty -four or even 
 thirty-six hours ahead the voice of the herald is heard in 
 the uneasy movements of the barometer. The mercury 
 falls and rises, falls still lower and rises again, just as if 
 great blocks of atmosphere were being carried away by 
 viewless hands and replaced by smaller and lighter ones. 
 It gets below the twenty-nine inch mark and then ani- 
 mate nature begins to add its warning to that of the 
 mercury. Sea-birds fly anxiously as if looking for a place 
 of refuge. Fishes leap from the water quivering with 
 nervous excitement to fall back into the waves. Buffaloes 
 come bellowing to their home. Cats shrink into corners, 
 and even the pariah dogs whine and growl in vague ap- 
 prehension. And the air changes in its tinting, the 
 brightness dies out by a haze slowly forming, and the 
 blue above changes slowly into a livid yellow. The breeze 
 dies down, and the city and country seemingly become 
 silent. Your voice appears to have grown weak, when 
 3'ou talk you are compelled to employ considerable exer- 
 tion. The reason lies in the roar of the far-off storm 
 which is already swallowing up the finer sounds and the 
 keener notes of everyday life. Upon the horizon is a 
 black wall tipped or combed with vast masses of fleecy 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 185 
 
 snow. It is a giant nimbus, capped by a cumulus larger 
 than the Himalayas. It moves slowly and majestically, 
 the whirling storm within may be circling at a hundred 
 or two hundred miles an hour, but the storm itself moves 
 leisurely, scarcely faster than an idle man walking along 
 a sleepy country road. 
 
 The sky grows from yellow to brown, and the air 
 begins to taste as if filled with dust. The birds have all 
 gone to cover and every animal has crept into hiding. 
 What little is left of the sun glares out a dull and sodden 
 red. The black wall now reaches up high into the 
 heavens, covering one-half of the horizon and over it, 
 looking like an avalanche about to fall, are the white 
 masses dashed here and there with red from the refrac- 
 tion of the sun's rays and brightened into jeweled 
 caverns by the play of the lightning. The heavy thunder 
 is indistinguishable in the roar of the wind. It is a vast, 
 continuous sound, like the boom of a hundred Niagaras. 
 
 It devours all other sounds. In a typhoon off Manila 
 on one occasion a fort fired guns to warn a ship a mile 
 away, but the guns were unheard on board the ship and 
 even at the other end of the fort itself. As the cloud- 
 wall approaches there come flurries of great raindrops. 
 Fine raindrops take their place, and then a great wave 
 of wind comes rushing past carrying with it boxes and 
 barrels, roof tiles and signboards, shutters and awnings, 
 and the thousand and one movable objects of the city. 
 The rain becomes mist and everything fades into vague 
 outlines and half-visible colors. There is no standing 
 against the atmospheric pressure. The strongest man is 
 thrown down or hurled against walls along with th 
 straws and feathers of the street. Then balconies and 
 roofs are swept away, walls crash, houses collapse, trees 
 vanish, torn literally from the earth, and the grounci 
 
186 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 seems to become alive with water, moving things, squirm- 
 ing creations, dying animals and the debris of the catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 In the center of the typhoon there is a period of 
 unearthly calm, which is described by those who have 
 experienced it as being like the day of judgment. It is a 
 short pause, and then the storm again resumes its course 
 as if to finish the destruction which it had begun. It 
 grows weaker and slower, and then the cloud wall passes 
 on and the sunlight once more falls upon a hideous 
 wilderness. 
 
 The great typhoon of July, 1862, started from Luzon, 
 devastating a long tract of territory upon that island, 
 swept across the China Sea, missing Hong Kong, but mak- 
 ing a belt of ruin from the China coast up far into the 
 interior, including the entire river frontage of the vast 
 city of Canton. Over fifty thousand people were killed and 
 twenty thousand houses destroyed. Professor Doberck, 
 who is the leading authority upon these storms, says that 
 they average sixteen a year and occur almost invariably 
 in June, July, August and September. 
 
 The name is a curious one. It bears a striking resem- 
 blance to the Greek tuphon, a whirlwind, and yet it is 
 only the Chinese tai-feng, or tai-fung, meaning a large 
 wind. It seems to have been taken by the navigators of 
 the sixteenth century from the Chinese mariners and 
 applied to these special storms. The force of the wind is 
 something inconceivable. Captain Street, of the P. & O. 
 steamer Brindisi, passed safely through one in the 
 China Sea which carried a heavy boat away from the 
 davits up in the air and held it flat against the mast and 
 mainyard for fifteen minutes. The O. & O. steamer 
 Oceanic, sailed through the edge of one in 1892 which 
 cleaned the upper deck of that steamer of everything 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 18? 
 
 as if it had been done with a knife, and yet did not 
 injure the most fragile thing on the forward part of the 
 vessel. 
 
 At Balucan, in Luzon, a typhoon struck and carried 
 away one-half of a house, not leaving a piece behind a 
 foot in length, but nevertheless not injuring the other 
 half to any noticeable extent. 
 
 Their nature is well known to-day, and their move- 
 ments are figured out with great accuracy. When one 
 starts, which is always near Luzon, the fact with an esti- 
 mate of the size, the direction and the velocity of the 
 storm, is telegraphed to every point in the China Sea, the 
 China mainland, and the Island of Formosa, so that in 
 this way people have twenty-four, forty-eight, and even 
 seventy-two hours' notice in advance. Stranger still, 
 veteran shipmasters will sail their craft parallel with the 
 axis of the typhoon without any serious consequences. 
 On one occasion the steamship Zaphiro, now attached to 
 Admiral Dewey's squadron, and on two occasions the 
 steamer Esmeralda sailed from Manila to the China coast 
 between two typhoon axes, the storm on the south being 
 about thirty miles distant, and the one on the north 
 about twenty or twenty-five. 
 
188 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 THE OTHER ISLANDS THE LADRONES THE PELEWS THE 
 
 CAROLINES. 
 
 EAST of the Philippines lies that part of the Pacific 
 Ocean known as Micronesia. It contains many islands 
 arranged more or less in groups. Three of these groups 
 belong to Spain, and in political geography are attached 
 to the Philippines. The most important of the three is 
 the group known as the Caroline Islands, second, the 
 Marianne or Ladrone Islands, and third the Pelew or 
 Pelao Islands. The islands are all small, containing a 
 total area of about eleven hundred square miles, 
 and fifty thousand inhabitants. They have lost much of 
 their original importance. The Ladrones, for example, 
 when first discovered had a population of over one hun- 
 dred thousand. What with slavery, religious fanaticism, 
 and inhuman treatment by officials, they now number but 
 one-tenth of the sum mentioned. A similar decimation 
 has marked the Carolines and the Pelews. The unfortu- 
 nate natives of all three groups are dwindling away, fol- 
 lowing the footsteps of the best representative of their 
 race, the Mawaian. While the people resemble Malays, 
 they are of a different race or subrace known as the 
 Polynesian. They are taller, broader, and more robust 
 and muscular. Some of them have features which are 
 almost Greek in symmetry and proportion. The men 
 are good-looking, and many of them are more than six 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 189 
 
 feet in stature. Many of the women are graceful, 
 shapely, and pretty, and a few exceedingly beautiful. 
 Some scientists believe that the Polynesians came orig- 
 inally from Borneo, and had their origin in a branch 
 of the Malay race, which at an early age took to seafaring 
 or wandering in small colonies from island to island. 
 The people are remarkably gentle, affectionate and simple- 
 minded. In war they are brave and fierce even to 
 frenzy. 
 
 The Ladrone Islands were discovered by Magellan in 
 1521, who called them the Islas de las Velas, or the 
 Islands of the Sails. It is a pity this name was not kept, 
 as it is both beautiful and appropriate, many of the 
 islands looking like distant ships when seen by the navi- 
 gator upon the horizon. Legazpi called them the La- 
 drones or Thieves' Islands, because one of his ships was 
 robbed there. In the seventeenth century they were called 
 the Lazarus Islands, because a nervous captain saw a leper 
 at a fishing village, and the St. Lazarus Islands by a 
 Catholic missionary who wished to give them a religious 
 title. 
 
 They were next called the Marianne Islands, from 
 Queen Maria Anne of Austria. The present usage is to 
 accept the title given by Legazpi the Ladrone Islands. 
 The Jesuit Fathers established a mission in the islands 
 in 1668. The mission house was fortified, garrisoned 
 with thirty-one soldiers, and armed with two pieces of 
 artillery. Within two years after the landing of this 
 expedition an attempt was made to curtail the liberty of 
 the natives, and to create a system of taxation. The 
 natives revolted, and had their first revolution. There 
 were many revolts from that time on, and through the 
 last century. Many priests were killed as well as 
 soldiers, and these deaths were avenged wholesale. In 
 
190 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 addition to the cruelties of war, each outbreak entailed 
 larger burdens upon the population. They were com- 
 pelled to devote so many days every year to govern- 
 mental work, and also to pay over to the fiscal officers of 
 both church and state so many measures of grain, 
 pounds of yam and copra, and so many pigs and fowls. 
 That the condition is as bad to-day as at any time in the 
 past is evidenced by the fact that the Spanish blue books 
 speak almost every year of seditions or seditious natives, 
 and that less than twenty years ago the governor, Sen or 
 Pazos, was assassinated in a popular uprising. The 
 Spanish government suppresses nearly all information, 
 but the treasury reports tell an intelligible story in fig- 
 ures which show that the garrison is as small as safety 
 permits; that the expense of government has been re- 
 duced to a minimum ; that the taxes are universal, and 
 that the entire revenue is one-half of the expense of the 
 administration. There are nine towns in the islands and 
 the capital is Agana on Apra Creek. In all of the is- 
 lands, there are twenty schools, and twenty-nix teachers, 
 on paper. The number of enrolled scholars 13 about five 
 hundred, while the attendance is said to be only about 
 fifty. A government steamer from Manila calls at Agana 
 three or four times a year. 
 
 The Pelew Islands were known of for many years be- 
 fore they were discovered. So many attempts were made 
 to find them that at one period there was a popular belief 
 that the islands were movable, and floated here and there. 
 Not until long afterward was the reason ascertained to be 
 strong ocean currents which drove ships out of their 
 courses without arousing the suspicions of the sailing 
 masters. 
 
 The first time they were seen by European navigators 
 was in 1G8G, but not until 1710 were they located, and 
 
H c 
 
 C/3 o3 
 
 <J +j 
 
 O c 
 
 -8 
 
 a * 
 
 M c 
 H rt 
 
 2 ! 
 
 1 
 S a 
 
MANILA AND THK PHILIPPINES, 191 
 
 Occupied by an expedition. Even on this occasion noth- 
 ing permanent was done. A warship from Manila found 
 two of the islands, and oast anchor near the shore. 
 The natives, a fine-looking set of savages, came on board 
 the vessel, and presented them with cocoanuts, herbs, 
 and fish. Two zealous missionaries on board went ashore 
 to erect a cross, and were escorted by an officer of the 
 soldiers, and a quartermaster of the vessel. While they 
 were ashore the wind began to increase, and the ship 
 was compelled to raise anchor to escape the coming 
 storm. When it was over the captain endeavored to find 
 the islands, but never found them, although he searched 
 for a month. According to the natives, the four Euro- 
 peans were treated very kindly for several years, when 
 they became unruly and cruel, and were slain. Not until 
 twenty-five years afterward (1735) were the islands found 
 again, and a settlement made by a Spanish expedition. 
 The people of the Pelews seem to have been of a lower 
 type than those of the Ladrones. They were polyg- 
 amists and cannibals. They apparently had no religion 
 whatever, worshiping only their chief, who was usually 
 the strongest and wisest man of the community. They 
 had no quadrupeds, domestic fowl of any sort, nor agri- 
 culture, living on fish, fruits, and roots. They were 
 strong and vigorous, and led savage but happy lives. 
 They knew how to make a fire, and how to weave strong 
 cloth out of banana fiber. They made hatchets and 
 lances with stone heads, and spears whose points were 
 formed by rubbing human bones, chiefly those of the 
 arm or the leg, down to a point, or an edge like a chisel. 
 The men wore loin cloths and the women a skirt, which 
 extended from the waist to the knee. The wives and 
 daughters of the king, and the great warriors had combs 
 and ornaments made out of turtle shell. The Spaniards 
 
192 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 governed the Pelews in very much the same style as the 
 Ladrones. They put a garrison in the leading village, 
 which is Babeldruap, and made it the seat of government. 
 
 The3 r also established settlements on three other is- 
 lands. The Pelews are a subdivision of the Caroline 
 administration, which is in turn directly responsible to 
 Manila. Ecclesiastically the Pelews belong to the 
 diocese of Cebu, their priests being subject to the bishop 
 of that province. Legally the Pelews belong to the 
 judicial jurisdiction of Manila. This noble achievement 
 of red tape will be properly appreciated when it is re- 
 membered that almost all difficulties or dissensions arise 
 in regard to commercial matters, over which the civil 
 authorities have a jurisdiction, in which the church has 
 a vested interest, and must be made a party to any legal 
 proceeding and for which redress must come from the 
 supreme court at Manila. Any luckless foreigner, there 
 fore, unless he belongs to a country possessing a strong 
 and virile government, is compelled in case of a com- 
 mercial difficulty to apply to all three organizations a 
 proceeding which is very expensive, very technical, and, 
 as might be supposed, very slow. 
 
 The Pelews are very poor, poorer even than the La- 
 drones. The government takes a large share of the prod- 
 uce from the natives, and gives nothing in return. The 
 population is gradually diminishing, and is said to be 
 about one-fifth of what it was when the islands were 
 seized by Spain. Few ships touch at the ports. There 
 is no commerce to attract them ; the government has never 
 erected any lighthouses, and the naval authorities have 
 never taken the trouble to survey and chart the islands 
 and surrounding waters. What hj'drographic work has 
 been done in this respect has been achieved by other 
 nations, notably the British. The Americans, Germans, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 193 
 
 French, Dutch, and even the Portuguese have added their 
 share to the general total. Much, however, remains 
 to be done before navigation in that district will be put 
 upon a civilized basis. 
 
 The Pelews are sometimes known as the West Caro- 
 lines, and sometimes are included with the most westerly 
 group of the Carolines under the general title of the 
 West Carolines. The Spanish administration, which is 
 the most authoritative body in this respect, divides the 
 great archipelago in an extraordinary way by making 
 them two districts, one with the title of the "East Caro- 
 line and Pelew Islands," and the other "the West Caro- 
 line and Pelew Islands." This certainly must be some 
 clerical error, as the Pelews lie to the west of the Caro- 
 lines, and are as much a part of the Philippines as they 
 are of the Carolines. The Spanish government undoubt- 
 edly meant the easterly half of the Caroline group to be 
 known as the East Carolines, and the westerly half, to- 
 gether with the Pelews, to be known as the West Caro- 
 lines and Pelews. 
 
 The famous Carolines are a group or archipelago reach- 
 ing from about one hundred and forty to one hundred 
 and seventy east longitude, and from four to ten north 
 latitude. They are, therefore, about eighteen hundred 
 miles long and three hundred and fifty miles wide. They 
 are noted for the equableness of their climate, the ther- 
 mometer rarely going below seventy-five degrees, or over 
 eighty-five. The temperature is nearly the same day 
 and night, so that the climate comes nearer everlasting 
 early summer than either Southern California, or Hono- 
 lulu. Unlike the Marshall Archipelago, immediately ad- 
 joining on the eastward, which seems to be of exclusive 
 coral formation, the Carolines are partly of coral, and 
 partly of basaltic or volcanic formation. At some places, 
 
i94 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 especially Ruk, Yap, Fefan, and Kusaie, the basalt forms 
 massive mountains of which at least four are three thou- 
 sand feet high, and many are two thousand feet high. 
 At some points the rock would seem to indicate a long 
 line of upheaval similar to that of the Palisades on the 
 Hudson River, or the columnar coastline of the north- 
 west of Scotland. The combination of the two forma- 
 tions produces a wonderful variety of soil, which, added 
 to the genial climate and the regular rainfall, makes the 
 islands remarkably fertile. Almost every vegetable and 
 fruit, temperature, subtropical, and tropical, will grow, 
 and while many of the northern vegetable types run to 
 woody fire rather than to edible tissue, all thrive to an 
 extreme degree. The coral districts support the cocoa- 
 nut and other palms, the bread-fruit, taroroot, yams* 
 potatoes, onions, and other underground vegetables, 
 while the soil of the basalt rock supports nearly every 
 other form of plant life. Under savage and Spanish 
 rule the islands were famous for their beauty and salu- 
 brity. While during the thirty years when the simple- 
 minded islanders were under the control of American 
 missionaries they enjoyed phenomenal prosperity. The 
 islands reached a stage of cultivation which caused sev- 
 eral of them to be known as the "gems of the Pacific." 
 It is popularly supposed that the islands were discovered 
 by Magellan, but critical study has disproved this belief, 
 and shown that his first landing, and the first land he 
 discovered in this part of the world, was one of the 
 Ladrones. The existence of the Carolines became known 
 to the Spaniards in 1721, when two proas blown out of 
 their course by heavy winds took refuge on a beach near 
 Agana, where at the time Luiz Sanchez was governor. 
 
 They were made prisoners, and when the governor 
 heard that they came from rich and fertile islands to the 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 195 
 
 east, he fitted up a small vessel, putting on board a crew, 
 soldiers and a priest, and adding the prisoners as pilots. 
 The savages gladly steered the chip to their home, and 
 the priest and soldiers, seeing that the natives were very 
 numerous, declined to go ashore, but sailed back to 
 Manila for reinforcements. That their caution was 
 justified was soon demonstrated. The new expedition 
 from Manila had several priests and a large company of 
 soldiers. It reached the Carolines, disembarked, 
 attacked the natives, and was promptly resisted and 
 routed. Nearly all the soldiers were slain as were also 
 some of the sailors in the landing boats. This discour- 
 aging reception postponed for a long time further at- 
 tempts to subdue the natives. Later on an exploring 
 expedition returned to Manila with much interesting in- 
 formation concerning the archipelago. The}' described 
 with some accuracy the rock formation, the fertility of 
 the soil, the wealth of vegetation and the character of the 
 inhabitants. This they depicted in very forbidding 
 colors. They were said to be vicious naked warriors and 
 pirates whose chief joy was war and carnage and whose 
 amusements as well as training exercises were mock 
 battles. They were cannibals who filed their teeth, killed 
 and roasted all prisoners, and regarded young girls and 
 little children as great delicacies. The queerest story of 
 all was that the islands were full of Spanish half-breeds 
 who were the descendants of Spanish sailors that had 
 been wrecked upon the shores, and had been married on 
 account of their strength, endurance, and intelligence to 
 the native women. In the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the Spaniards took possession of the islands by slow 
 degrees, and established a quasi-government. They 
 were greatly disappointed after they came to know the 
 archipelago. There were no precious metals, nor so far 
 
196 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 as they knew, metals of any sort. The land was chiefly 
 forest and underbrush, and the natives grew scarcely 
 enough food for their own wants, relying upon the fish of 
 the sea and the natural products of the field and the 
 forest for their sustenance. 
 
 They were brave, obstinate, and more indifferent to 
 death than the Malays of the Philippines. This com- 
 bination made them very hard subjects for Spanish 
 officials. There was almost nothing for the ingenious tax 
 gatherer or the official to put his hands upon. If he 
 tried to arrest the natives and put them to work they 
 killed the soldiers, and when conquered, laid down in 
 the grass and died, or allowed themselves to be tortured 
 and slaughtered by the officers of the law. After many 
 attempts the politicians who were sent out from Manila 
 to govern the various communities lost all hope of pecu- 
 niary gain. The more ambitious had themselves trans- 
 ferred to other stations, and by degrees only unsuccessful 
 office-seekers or men who had lost their hold upon the 
 administration would accept a position in this out-of-the- 
 way archipelago. This is well shown in the Spanish 
 blue books. For all the East Carolines there is only 
 provision for a lieutenant-colonel and staff with a total 
 allowance of four thousand nine hundred dollars a year, 
 while for the more scattered West Carolines and Pelews 
 together there is allotted a lieutenant-colonel and staff, 
 and an expenditure of five thousand nine hundred and 
 seventy dollars. This may be compared with the unim- 
 portant district of Mindanao, where the allowance is 
 nearly twenty thousand dollars a year. In the Carolines 
 the two most important, if not the largest islands, are Yap 
 and Ponape. Yap is the center of government for the 
 East Carolines and Ponape is the seat of the vice- 
 governor of both the East and West Carolines. 
 
 1 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES^ 197 
 
 While the Spaniards allowed the islands practically to 
 run themselves, there grew np a curious barter trade 
 between the natives and venturous traders, especially 
 British, American, and German. They loaded small sail- 
 ing vessels with stocks of calicoes, looking glasses, 
 knives, tinseled jewlery, and cheap firearms, and ex- 
 changed them with the natives for food, and copra or the 
 dried ripe cocoanut meat. The traders were frowned 
 upon by the Spanish government, which at first tried to 
 suppress the traffic by imposing heavy duties. The 
 traders thereupon refused to enter any ports where there 
 were officials, and did business at sea more than a 
 marine league from the shore, the natives coming ofi: in 
 boats. The Spaniards tried to suppress this with gun- 
 boats, but the very first collision occurred beyond the 
 league limit, and brought down such a storm of protests 
 from the diplomatic world that the practice was discon- 
 tinued. The gunboats were withdrawn to Manila, and 
 in the last report from Madrid there are two warships in 
 the Philippines, both of them hulks which can never 
 be moved from their anchorage, and two very small gun- 
 boats employed for the transmission of mails and the 
 official use of members of the administration. At the 
 present time the copra traffic is a feature of life in the 
 islands, and is a distinct benefit and civilizing agency to 
 the islanders. American missionaries first visited the 
 islands in the forties, and found them a very promising 
 field. Although nominally there were Catholic churches 
 in every island and the official list gave the names, places, 
 and salaries paid, yet the lists themselves appear to have 
 been drawn by either prophets or humorists, for they 
 had no foundation in fact. 
 
 In 1852 the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions and the Hawaiian Board of Missions 
 
198 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 sent an expedition to the Carolines and landed a number 
 of evangelical workers on the two islands of Ponape and 
 Kusaie, which are in the extreme eastern part of the 
 archipelago. Their prompt success aroused great enthu- 
 siasm in both New York and Honolulu, and many men 
 and women followed the pioneers to these lands. In 
 four years there were over thirty workers in the field, and 
 the children of the United States built their first mis- 
 sionary ship the Morning Star. It was the first craft to 
 reach the Philippines which did not contain a soldier, 
 loaded cannon, rifle, or barrel of rum. The Morning Star 
 grew old in the service and was succeeded by a larger 
 and better ship. This, in turn, by a third, and the 
 third by the present one, which has an auxiliary steam 
 engine, which enables it to proceed in calm weather 
 and to enter narrow harbors and rivers where a sailing 
 x ship is often unable to go ahead. The missions flour- 
 ished, island after island being invaded by the preachers, 
 American, Hawaiian and native, until there was a church 
 and congregation upon nearly every island. The only 
 Spanish settlement which did in reality exist was at Yap, 
 and even here no particular opposition was manifested to 
 the calling of the Morning Star and to the work of native 
 gospel readers. The work, though pleasant, was slow. 
 The natives at the outset were like lazy children who 
 do not want to bo bothered with lessons, and who run 
 away the moment expostulation is begun. In 1885, 
 thirty-three years after their arrival, thirty islands had 
 been Christianized, and on many of them the heathen 
 practices of the forties had become vague memories. 
 
 Nearly every community had learned how to build 
 houses, to till the fields, to wear clothing, to prepare and 
 preserve foods, to build roads and to conduct their own 
 schools. At Pingelap, which lies to the northwest of 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 199 
 
 Kusaie and to the east of Ponape, the natives built them- 
 selves a church to accommodate eight hundred people, 
 nearly all the population of the island. The missionary 
 report of 1888 gives the number of churches as forty- 
 seven, and the members as forty-five hundred. All this 
 came to an end in a sudden and cruel manner. As many 
 careless writers have charged the closing of the Microne- 
 sian mission to fanatical intolerance, Jesuitical plots, and 
 all sorts of causes excepting the true one, a simple state- 
 ment of the facts may be of advantage. The Spanish 
 administration knew of the presence of the American and 
 the Hawaiian missionaries in the Carolines, and made 
 such inquiries as they thought were necessary. When 
 they ascertained that no adverse claims were made re- 
 specting ownership or nationality, and that no attempts 
 were made to buy up or control the real estate, and no 
 acta done irreconcilable with Spanish authority, they 
 took no action whatever against the evangelical organiza- 
 tion or movement. In the late seventies a bishop of 
 Manila, in speaking on the subject, said it was better 
 that the Indians should be civilized by Protestants rather 
 than remain heathen cannibals. This condition of affairs 
 would probably have remained unchanged if it had not 
 been for the new policy of the German Empire. In the 
 eighties it began to display a desire to enter the coloniz- 
 ing business like England and France. It looked around 
 the world and found at that time that the only lands 
 which might be claimed were in Africa and the Pacific 
 and Indian oceans. As all readers know, they soon es- 
 tablished their sovereignty at various points in all these 
 districts. There were several conflicts and disagree- 
 ments between Berlin and Madrid, in most of which 
 Berlin retained the upper hand. In 1885 there was a 
 rumor that a German man-of-war on the China coast had 
 
200 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 received orders to prepare for a long voyage, and to take 
 possession of some islands in the neighborhood of the 
 Ladrones. The news was cabled to Manila and Madrid, 
 and in a commendably short time the Manila administra- 
 tion had dispatched a man-of-war to Yap, having on board 
 Lieutenant Capriles, who had been appointed governor 
 of the Carolines. He arrived in due season at Yap, but 
 bej r ond engaging in dinner parties and social functions, 
 in which he consumed three days, he did nothing. On 
 the third day the German warship Iltis entered the har- 
 bor, landed a file of marines and hoisted the red, white 
 and black flag of Germany. Capriles returned to Manila, 
 where a panic immediately occurred. The walls of the 
 citadel were repaired, earthworks and fortifications were 
 thrown up on the seashore and at Cavite, and many resi- 
 dents fled to the suburbs. The German residents were 
 attacked by rioters, and for a time confusion reigned 
 supreme. The news was cabled to Madrid, where, of 
 course, a larger riot immediately broke out. The Ger- 
 man embassy was stoned by the mob and its coat of arms 
 torn down and burned. There was a warm diplomatic 
 quarrel between the two countries, and the matter was 
 finally referred for arbitration to the pope. During the 
 submission of the case no movement was made by either 
 the Spaniards or the Germans; in fact, there was no 
 government whatever. The matter was under advise- 
 ment for a long time, and was then decided in favor of 
 Spain. This so delighted the administration in Manila 
 that it gave a grand demonstration and fireworks, and 
 did nothing for over a year. In 1887 it determined to 
 establish its authority in order to prevent any further 
 troubles of the same sort, and thereupon organized the 
 existing system. 
 
 Colonel Posadillo was ruade governor of the East Caro- 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 201 
 
 lines, and was sent to the capital, Ponape. "With him 
 were clerks, a company of soldiers under a lieutenant, a 
 gang of convicts, and a small regiment of Spanish Capu- 
 chin Friars. Posadillo was what we would call a crank. 
 He went to his pos 1 ; full of gall and bitterness. The 
 decision of the pope had irritated him greatly, as it had 
 most of the Spanish politicians. The decision was not hi 
 favor of Spain, although it was so far as the Carolines 
 were concerned. Spain's claim had been for Microne- 
 sia, of which all the islands had been credited to her by 
 geographers and cartographers from time immemorial. 
 Great Britain, with customary shrewdness, had already 
 taken possession of the Gilbert group, while Germany 
 had taken the Marshall group, including the Radak and 
 the Ralik islands. If the pope had given the Carolines 
 to Spain, he confirmed the title of the Gilberts in Great 
 Britain, and of the Marshalls in Germany. 
 
 This to Posadillo was highway robbery. Under form 
 of law, national, international, and ecclesiastical, and 
 under the form of religion, he and the Fatherland had 
 been robbed of two-thirds of their possessions. It was a 
 trick, a plot, a conspiracy. It made him doubly mad 
 that his countrymen at Manila had rejoiced over the 
 decision. He did not believe that half a loaf was better 
 than none, and the action of his compatriots increased 
 his ire. His sentiments were so ferocious and his con- 
 duct so unpleasant that it was difficult to get any good 
 officer to accept a detail under him or any self-respecting 
 priest to take charge of Mr. Posadillo 's religious squad. 
 
 The lieutenant who went was an incompetent sub- 
 lieutenant, who hoped by the sacrifice to secure promo- 
 tion, and the Capuchin Friars are so disreputable a 
 lot of characters that even in Spain they are the butt of 
 the populace. Under such auspices there was a very 
 
202 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 lively time. Posadillo began operations by arresting 
 natives and levying fines and taxes in every direction. 
 The soldiers introduced liquor, which was unknown 
 under missionary rule, and the gang of twenty-five con- 
 victs whom Posadillo had brought with him to erect a 
 fort immediately started a series of thefts and even 
 graver crimes. The missionaries protested, and were 
 immediately insulted and browbeaten by the governor. 
 The Rev. E. T. Doane resented the governor's abomina- 
 ble behavior, and gave notice that he would protest to 
 the State Department at Washington. This was the 
 spark that lit the magazine. He was promptly arrested 
 and sent a prisoner to Manila, on June 16, 1887, just 
 three months and two days after the new governor 
 arrived. Dr. Doane was tried by the governor-general, 
 who acquitted him and gave him not only an honorable 
 discharge, but a very complimentary testimonial. Dr. 
 Doane returned to Ponape, and found everything in 
 chaos. Natives had been robbed; the missionaries had 
 been maltreated; seven of the mission schools had been 
 closed; some of the workers had gone back to the United 
 States ; the leading islanders had been enrolled among the 
 domestic servants of the governor, and were blacking 
 boots, scrubbing floors, carrying water and lighting the 
 pipes of the governor and his staff. The less influential 
 citizens had been organized into gangs, set to work like 
 convicts upon roads, fields, and government buildings. 
 The Capuchin Friars had begun to seize land, confiscate 
 houses and appropriate the school buildings for religious 
 uses. In July the natives who had discussed the mat- 
 ter in the evening after the day's toil was over refused to 
 return to their gangs. The lieutenant reported it to the 
 governor who declared the conduct treason, and sent the 
 officer with the soldiers to arrest and bring in all of the 
 
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 II 
 
 W 2 
 
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 Q ^ 
 
 II 
 
 I * 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 203 
 
 ringleaders. They marched to the place where the 
 natives were gathered with drawn swords and fixed bayo- 
 nets and wounded several of the people. This aroused 
 the old heathen spirit, and the next moment there was a 
 tremendous fight between the unarmed islanders and 
 the veteran soldiers. This time discipline lost. The 
 officer was killed, and every man in the troop was killed 
 or mortally wounded. The governor and the convicts 
 fortified the government house and were besieged by an 
 angry mob. The Capuchins, a cowardly set, fled to the 
 hulk, Donna Maria, which was anchored in the harbor 
 at the first outbreak of hostilities. The governor though 
 an incompetent was no coward. He held the building 
 for three days, and on the night of July 4th, with his sur- 
 viving companions, cut his way through the enemy to 
 the beach, where the Capuchins were to meet >irim in 
 small boats. But the Capuchins were afraid to under- 
 take the risk. The boats started from the hulk, and 
 went back, and the governor and his faithful criminals 
 were killed one by one. The news reached Manila at 
 the end of September. In November, the Spanish 
 authorities sent three men of war to Tonape with over 
 six hundred soldiers to retake possession and to punish 
 the rebels. Luckily for the brave missionaries who still 
 held on to their posts, an American man-of-war, the 
 Essex, came over from the China coast in time to protect 
 them from a riotous soldiery. The Essex served as a 
 monitor for the Spanish officers. A few individuals 
 were arrested, and sent on to Manila, where they were 
 tried by court martial. To the credit of the Spanish 
 government, they received, it is said, a very light sen- 
 tence, while the court in its written judgment practically 
 declared that Posadillo received no more than he 
 deserved. 
 
204 MANILA AND ?HE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 This was a great victory for the cause of right. 
 Things ran along quietly for about two years and a half. 
 In the meantime, General Weyler, corrupt and cruel, 
 became governor-general of the Philippines. Through 
 him, or through his administration, the Capuchins re- 
 ceived many concessions at the expense of the islanders. 
 One was a grant of the land at Oua, a mission station 
 upon which was the mission church which the islanders 
 had built themselves, and other little buildings which 
 they had put up in the course of their practical educa- 
 tion by American missionaries. 
 
 The real object of the concession was to destroy the 
 mission house. It was concealed under the garb of 
 patriotism and piety. One-half of this land was to be 
 used for building barracks for the troops, and the other 
 half for building a church to be directed by the Capu- 
 chins. One of the friars surveyed the land, and against 
 the protests of the people he located the new building 
 within a few feet of the wall of the mission church. 
 This meant that the moment the ground was excavated 
 for the foundation of the church the weak little edifice 
 alongside would fall in. They said as much to the Capu- 
 chins, who laughed and sneeringly replied, "If it does 
 fall in all the better for everybody. " General We3 r ler 
 had neglected to supply the necessary materials for 
 either barracks or church. The Capuchins induced Lieu- 
 tenant Porras to impress the islanders into the service of 
 the state, and compel them to cut the necessary timber. 
 Some were caught by the soldiers, who were fifty-four in 
 number, and taken with them to the neighboring forest. 
 The other islanders escaped, and though supposed to be 
 far away, were lurking in the immediate neighborhood. 
 One of the soldiers struck a native, and immediately 
 those who were impressed, and their hidden friends, 
 
MANILA AND THE PHtu^PitfUS, $05 
 
 attacked the troops, killing the officer and twenty-seven 
 men, and wounding nearly all the rest. The news 
 reached Manila, and was cabled to Madrid. The cabinet 
 held a session, and at the suggestion of Canovas, the 
 prime minister, it cabled the governor-general to punish 
 the rebels at his own discretion. He prepared a large 
 expedition, and in September, 1890, sent six hundred 
 soldiers on a transport, accompanied by a gunboat. 
 Hearing that the natives had gathered in force, the gun- 
 boat shelled the woods, using the old mission house and 
 the houses of the neighboring settlement as their target. 
 They annihilated the poor little town, but did not injure 
 an islander, all of these retiring at the outset beyond the 
 range of the cannon. The troops landed and held a 
 celebration in honor of their victory. The festivities 
 were marred by the discovery that they had been very 
 poorly provided for by the commissary department. 
 They marched after the savages, as the Spaniards termed 
 them, confident that they would exterminate the entire 
 population, but instead of that the quiet natives fought 
 like demons, defeated the soldiers, and chased them 
 down to the shore under the protection of the cannon of 
 the gunboat. 
 
 There was neither medicine nor surgical appliances on 
 either gunboat or transport. There was hardly enough 
 food left for the return passage, and many of the 
 wounded died from privation on ihf voyage. The com- 
 mander of the expedition, a brave and honest soldier, 
 was so heartbroken by t>i'jg made the victim of official 
 dishonesty and corru^t'If'*? that he blew his brains out. 
 The missionaries, seo/.g that there was no hope for them, 
 left Ponape on the I/fiited States man-of-war, Alliance. 
 The law of the PLiiippines was immediately afterward 
 applied to the CWolines, permitting no Protestant 
 
206 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES'. 
 
 sionary to ply his calling in the territory. The Morn- 
 ing Star was forbidden to touch at any port, or to hold 
 any intercourse with any natives upon the sea except 
 under the guns of the port of the harbor. All Bibles, 
 testaments, and schoolbooks were prohibited, and all 
 natives were forbidden to hold any intercourse, directly 
 or indirectly, by speech or writing, with any of their 
 American or Hawaiian friends. Since that time little 
 has occurred to change the simple life of the Caroline 
 Islands. There have been several small riots in which 
 Spanish soldiers have been wounded or killed, and many 
 natives shot in return, but nothing has been attempted 
 to better the condition of the population, or to extend 
 the light of civilization to the few islands where no mis- 
 sionaries have ever been. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 207 
 
 CHAPTEK XXV. 
 
 THE STORY ff KIZAL. 
 
 THE last insurrection in the Philippines, which, though 
 suppressed by Governor-General Riviera broke out again 
 in time to coincide with and become part of the Ameri- 
 can war against Spain, was occasioned largely by the 
 somber tragedy of Dr. Jose Kizal. Rizal belonged to 
 the Province of Cavite, and is said to have been a half- 
 breed, three-quarters Spanish and one-quarter Tagal. 
 He was of small stature, pleasant manners, and great in- 
 tellectual ability. His family was well-to-do, and he 
 received as good an education as the Philippines pro- 
 vide, closing his study year with a course in St. Thomas' 
 University, of which Brother Gomez was the head. He 
 afterward became connected with the institution, and 
 lectured to the students. He was a frequent visitor to 
 Hong Kong, where he was well known and greatly ad- 
 mired by the leaders of British society. 
 
 While unobtrusive and even retiring in his manners, 
 he had always the courage of his convictions, and when 
 it was necessary expressed his opinions logically and 
 with power. 
 
 During his school and college life, he saw much of the 
 corruption of both the state and church, and the first 
 trouble he had in life was when he once wrote a private 
 letter in which he spoke of the necessity of a better en- 
 forcement of the laws, and especially of the removal or 
 
208 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 expulsion of dishonest officials and immoral priests. This 
 letter got into the hands of the authorities, and Rizal was 
 arrested, and warned that the communication was tainted 
 with treason and blasphemy. He studied medicine, 
 obtained his degree, and became a skillful physician. 
 At the same time he began to take a deep interest in his 
 fellow citizens, the natives. His medical skill, kindly 
 nature, and humane conduct soon made him very popu- 
 lar, and ere he was twenty-eight he was a recognized 
 leader of the common people. During this period he 
 made a special study of the abuses, administrative and 
 ecclesiastic, that came under his notice, and those which 
 were reported in the official publications. In a short 
 time this list made a volume of which every paragraph 
 was an indictment. Rizal was too good a politician to 
 use this material, much less to publish it. He knew 
 that if he did his life would not be worth a second's pur- 
 chase. He was as determined as ever in the cause of re- 
 form, and fondly hoped that by uniting all the better 
 elements of the Philippines a more righteous state of 
 affairs could be brought about, and in the event of fail- 
 ing at Manila that an appeal to Madrid would, in the 
 course of time, result in the desired amelioration. His 
 colleagues in the movement were much more distrustful 
 of the politicians and the friars. They kept on their 
 work of organizing the moral sense of the community, 
 but at the same time they were careful to do nothing 
 which could be construed into a violation of law. What 
 was of equal importance, they kept their eyes always on 
 the leaders of those whom they regarded as the enemies 
 of the state. In 1890 Dr. Rizal published a pamphlet 
 in which he set forth his views, and eloquently pleaded 
 for juster laws, and the thorough enforcement of the 
 laws already existing. He depicted in a graphic, but 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 209 
 
 not a passionate way, the chief abuses which prevailed, 
 and the terrible sufferings of the natives in many dis- 
 tricts. The pamphlet was manly, intellectual, and 
 patriotic. It was frank and sincere, and represented the 
 best thought of a Spanish gentleman, a loyal citizen, and 
 an upright Roman Catholic. "Within a week the work 
 was suppressed on the ground that it was seditious and 
 heretical. liizal was denounced by the ultramontane 
 and Jesuitical press of Manila, and his prosecution was 
 demanded by at least one of the suffragan bishops. The 
 governor-general at that time was General Weyler, \vho, 
 after debating the matter, determined to arrest Rizal. 
 
 The latter, however, had been warned in time and 
 escaped from the port on a British steamer to Hong 
 Kong. It is said that he was sent on board in a per- 
 forated box, and lay there until the ship was under way. 
 He reached Hong Kong where he was received with open 
 arms by his friends, who had been notified by cable of 
 his coming. The newspapers of the city, the Hong 
 Kong Telegraph, Mail, and Daily Press took up his cause 
 with great earnestness, but he with rare modesty refused 
 to express any opinion. Nevertheless the action of the 
 papers was made into another offense by the church 
 dignitaries of Manila, and brought up against him after- 
 ward on his trial. For about a year he attended to his 
 private business, and took no part in public matters. 
 This silence made his enemies all the more apprehensive. 
 In their endeavor to get him within their power they 
 planned as cruel and wicked a conspiracy as ever ema- 
 nated from a Spanish brain. The governor-general of the 
 Philippines wrote him a special dispatch stating that he 
 was too good a citizen for the state to lose his services; 
 that his past offenses were forgiven, and that he could 
 come back at any time in perfect safety. He promised 
 
210 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 perfect immunity from all prosecution, civil and criminal, 
 and added that the only condition he must insist upon 
 was that in the future Kizal would abstain from similar 
 action. Rizal was homesick, and was delighted to re- 
 ceive the communication. His compatriots advised him 
 against returning, declaring that there was a trick in the 
 matter, but his British friends took the other side, and 
 said that the governor-general could not afford to violate 
 his written promise; and the governor-general did not. 
 
 Rizal went back to Manila with full confidence in the 
 governor-general. He knew that there were other foes, 
 and took every precaution against them. Thus when the 
 ship arrived he compelled the customs officers to search 
 thoroughly all his baggage and that of his servant, and 
 to examine the clothing of both. He had them mark 
 everything with pencil, and had it done in the presence 
 of the officers of the steamship. He landed, took rooms, 
 received a hearty welcome from his patients and rela- 
 tives. 
 
 Two days after his arrival, while he was absent attend- 
 ing a sick friend, a squad of soldiers, led by an infamous 
 church spy, broke into his rooms and forced all his 
 trunks. The spy found in them several copies of Rizal's 
 pamphlet, and several manuscripts, giving the details of 
 outrages by friars in the savage districts. Rizal was 
 thereupon arrested, indicted and tried. On the trial he 
 denied that he had ever imported the books, or that he 
 had ever seen them. He stated that they were not where 
 they were found when he left his rooms two hours before, 
 and that if they had been found there they had been put 
 there by somebodj' either in his absence when the room 
 was unoccupied, or in the presence of the searching party. 
 He asked the court to call the customs officers who had 
 searched his trunks on the steamer, or the steamship 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 211 
 
 officers who bad seen the search. The request was 
 denied. He asked the court to call the owner of the 
 room, and the soldiers who took part in the search. 
 This was denied. He asked that he be allowed to pro- 
 duce witnesses as to his truthfulness and honesty. This 
 was denied. He then asked permission to produce wit- 
 nesses to prove that the church spy, the only witness 
 against him was a convict, a thief, a liar, and a profes- 
 sional perjurer, and this request was denied. The arch- 
 bishop was at the trial, and took part in the delibera- 
 tions. The court returned in a few minutes, and found 
 the accused guilty of sedition and blasphemy, and sen- 
 tenced him to a year's imprisonment and transportation 
 to the jail at Jolo in the Sulu Archipelago. They denied 
 leave to appeal, and shipped him the next morning upon 
 a gunboat. So outrageous was the wrong that the Brit- 
 ish consul at Manila filed a protest with the governor- 
 general, and riots broke out in Cavite and South Luzon. 
 The latter part of the outrage on Rizal was committed 
 not by Weyler, but by his successor Despujol. "When 
 Eizal regained his liberty he left the Philippines and 
 went again to Hong Kong. After staying here some 
 time he joined a committee of Philippine patriots, styled 
 revolutionists by the Spaniards, who went to Madrid to 
 lay their grievances directly before the throne. The ex- 
 pedition, it is needless to remark, was time and trouble 
 thrown way. The officials and friars had worked up so 
 strong a sentiment against the patriots that when they 
 landed in Spain they were mobbed. This not proving 
 sufficient to deter them, they were arrested and sent 
 back on the old [charges of sedition and impiety. They 
 were tried in Manila, and found guilty upon a concealed 
 clause in the indictment, which charged them with being 
 members of a revolutionary society. On December 6, 
 
212 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 1896, Rizal was led from his cell out into the yard of the 
 Manila prison, and there shot by a file of soldiers. 
 "When the revolution against Spain broke out, one of the 
 very first to join the insurgents was Rizal's widow. 
 "When the United States declared war upon Spain the 
 first prominent Spaniard to leave was the archbishop of 
 Manila, who is now a refugee under the British flag at 
 Shanghai, China. 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 THE future of the Philippines depends chiefly upon the 
 great powers of to-day. The land is marvelously rich in 
 minerals, in lumber, in agriculture and in water power. 
 It has numerous bays and harbors which are safe, com- 
 modious and convenient. Its climate is naturally salu- 
 brious, and under a wise and beneficent government the 
 territory could support a hundred million human beings 
 in comfort, and a smaller number in luxury. Properly 
 directed, it could be made the scene of extensive manu- 
 factures, and an invaluable market for the New World in 
 the East and for Asia in the West. From its ports fleets 
 of steamers would carry its own products and bring back 
 those of other lands. All that it requires are justice and 
 wisdom. Its people are good types of poor humanity, no 
 better and no worse than other communities around the 
 globe. Under favoring influences the race to which the 
 islanders belong has proven itself capable of civilization 
 and of progress. The Tamil cities of southern India are 
 among the quietest and most industrious communities, 
 and the great island of Java has for more than a century 
 poured a Niagara of wealth into its parent country, the 
 Netherlands. The Malays of Singapore make law-abid- 
 ing and orderly British citizens, and even under the 
 cruel rule of the Spaniards many Tagal and Yisaya sub- 
 jects have demonstrated their high ability and worth. 
 
214 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 With law and order established, with roads connecting 
 all the districts, with schools and a kindly government, 
 the islanders could be raised to a high level of civiliza- 
 tion in a single generation. Nature has been lavish in 
 generosity, and only a little is demanded from those of 
 her children who have for those who have not. What 
 would become of the islanders if their destinies were 
 committed to themselves is difficult to predict. They 
 could not go very far wrong, because the gunboats of 
 civilization do not permit the impulsive savage to inter- 
 fere with the welfare or enjoyment of his next-door 
 neighbors. The submissiveness and discipline which 
 three centuries have stamped upon the Philippine char- 
 acter would not be outgrown in fifty years, and would 
 undoubtedly preserve the peaceful, social and political 
 conditions without which there can be no progress. 
 Among their own people are many who would take the 
 reins of power the moment their countrymen enjoyed the 
 liberty and independence which self-government involves. 
 The worst possible fate for the islands is to restore them 
 to their inhuman and wicked owners. No matter from 
 what point of view it be regarded, such a transaction 
 would be at variance with every law of right. So far as 
 progress, science, ethics, and civilization are concerned, 
 Spain is deaf, dumb and blind. The years have taught 
 her no wisdom, but have only torn out her teeth, ex- 
 tracted her claws and paralyzed her muscles. The tiger 
 of Alva is the snarling but impotent senile beast of 1898. 
 It knows but one principle of government, the extermina- 
 tion of all who object to its rulings. Its treatment of 
 the Philippines has never changed. It has been the same 
 as that of the Carib, of the Inca, of its own children in 
 foreign lands. The population of the Ladrones sank in 
 two hundred years from more than a hundred thousand 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 215 
 
 to one tenth of that number; the population of the 
 Philippines has been killed off from twenty or twenty- 
 five millions to six or eight millions. Iniquitous laws 
 and practices have stolen all the lands from the inhabit- 
 ants and given them to the church and the state. A 
 once happy people are now miserably poor, while the 
 tangible results of their labor have been taken away in 
 the huge fortunes of politicians and officials or the enorm- 
 ous funds and swollen treasuries of the religious orders. 
 
 If the war with the United States had never 
 occurred the crushing process would have continued un- 
 til Japan, Germany or Great Britain interfered and did 
 for the Philippines what America is doing for Cuba. 
 What the Philippines need is not annexation by any 
 country, but only a protectorate which will enable them 
 to develop morally, socially, industrially, as well as polit- 
 ically. No matter what that protectorate may be, even 
 were it Chinese, it would be far kinder and more benefi- 
 cent than Spanish rule. The best protectorate is that 
 which would be furnished by either the United States or 
 Great Britain the two countries which more than all 
 others recognize the sacredness of human liberty, the 
 organic rights of the individual, and the duty of the 
 state toward the education and amelioration of the 
 citizens. 
 
 Under such a protectorate the Philippines would soon 
 come to look upon their Spanish thraldom as an awful 
 ghost of the night which had passed away forever. Nor 
 should we forget that under decent government the 
 Philippines would soon be the best market for the Western 
 and Pacific States. 
 
 The climate is too warm to grow wheat and the north- 
 ern cereals, yet the people have learned the palatability 
 and nourishing qualities of bread, and purchase it when- 
 
216 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 ever they can. Cotton does not thrive well, although 
 cotton cloths are always in heavy demand. While the 
 natives are skilled weavers and utilize the natural 
 resources to the utmost, producing matchless pineapple 
 cloth, banana cloth and silk goods, yet these are costly 
 tissues, and are intended for the wealthy few and not for 
 the masses. The bulk of the people for their daily attire 
 prefer cotton goods, colored and gaudy. In wheat and 
 flour the nearest rival of San Francisco is Bombay. In 
 cotton goods the nearest rivals are Japan and China. 
 But in this rivalry there is but little danger for the 
 American manufacturer. He exports these goods to 
 Japan and China at the present time, and competes with 
 the native manufacturers in their own market. Doing 
 this he needs scarcely fear them in markets as strange to 
 them as to himself. 
 
 There will be a vast field in the Philippines for narrow 
 gauge railways and for cheap and strong steamboats. In 
 the movement of the products of the field and the forest, 
 transportation is a more serious question than produc- 
 tion. There are millions of magnificent trunks in the 
 interior of Luzon and Mindanao which have either an 
 insignificant value or no value at all at the present time 
 which would possess high value if they could be carried 
 at a reasonable cost to the nearest seaport, and thence be 
 sent to Japan, China, or Hong Kong. With cheap trans- 
 portation to the nearest harbor, and without the paralyz- 
 ing burden of Spanish taxation, a lucrative commerce in 
 hard woods and cabinet woods would spring up between 
 the Philippines and all the great cities of America on the 
 Pacific coast. A larger market still will consist of ready- 
 made iron or steel frames and roofs for earthquake and 
 typhoon houses. Under the existing Spanish law there 
 is even to-day a profitable trade in iron beams, iron 
 
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 2J7 
 
 roofing and iron clapboard ing. Taxes and red tape make 
 the iron shell of the Philippine house cost more than an 
 entire steel structure would under free trade conditions. 
 The land improperly cultivated produces an excellent 
 coffee, one which like the Java variety has been singu- 
 larly free from the disease microbes that destroyed the 
 plantations of Ceylon. 
 
 Under scientific cultivation the Philippine coffee plan- 
 tations would in ten years equal those of Java, or even 
 the more famous ones of southern Arabia. With decent 
 government foreign capital would be only too glad to ex- 
 ploit and develop the mineral resources of the archi- 
 pelago. The little stream of gold which flows illegiti- 
 mately into Chinese pockets would become a great stream, 
 enriching all classes alike. The sugar plantations of the 
 islands are the richest on the globe, and would, under 
 wise management, afford an inexhaustible supply to the 
 United States as well as to Japan and China. Under 
 existing conditions, thousands of tons are exported from 
 the three treaty ports every year, a quantity which would 
 be soon quadrupled after the sugar tax, the harbor tax, 
 the export tax, the land tax, and the church tax of the 
 Spanish dominion were repealed by the new government 
 of the Philippines. 
 
 What Cuba once was to the Atlantic States, the Philip- 
 pines would soon be to the Pacific States. They would 
 take by the shipload our flour, textiles, iron rails, beams 
 and machinerj", our leather, paper, preserved meats, 
 canned foods, boots and shoes, agricultural implements 
 and cutlery, and they would send in return sugar, hemp, 
 hard woods, dye woods, coffee, indigo, spices, hides and 
 skins, gold and silver, cigars and cigarettes. If Ameri- 
 can policy had no higher motive than the commercial 
 prosperity of the American people, it would establish a 
 
218 MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 protectorate over the Philippines the moment that the 
 dogs of war were called back to their kennels. If its 
 policy is based upon the regeneration and upbuilding of 
 a long-suffering race, it will either establish that protec- 
 torate cr one jointly with its mother-nation across the 
 sea. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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