The Story of the Philippines Part 29

whose birthday was September the 2nd, found as he was on the west side of the meridian with the mystery that the folks at home in the states had celebrated it for him two days ago--one day he had lost, and the other they had gained. Jagor, the historian of the Philippines, before the days when Admiral Dewey grasped the reins of a thousand islands, and a thousand to spare, says in his "Philippine Islands,"

that "when the clock strikes 12 in Madrid, it is 8 hours 18 minutes and 41 seconds past 8 in the evening at Manila. The latter city lies 124 degrees 40 min. 15 sec. east of the former, 7 h. 54 min. 35 sec. from Paris. But it depends upon whether you measure time by moving with the sun or the other way. If westward the course of empire takes its way, Manila is a third of a day catching up with Madrid time. If we face the morning and go to meet it Manila is ahead. The absence of the right day for Sunday has long been gravely considered by the missionaries who have gone to heathen lands beyond the mysterious meridian that spoils all the holidays. One might establish a bank on that line and play between days, but there is only one little speck of land on the 180 degree meridian from pole to pole.

It may be very well worth considering whether the United States should not reestablish the 31st of December in Manila, and a.s.sert that we hold t.i.tle to the Philippines not only by the victories of the fleet and armies of the United States, but by the favor of Alexander VI, whose bull the Spaniards disregarded after it had grown venerable with three centuries of usage. We quote a Spanish historian who colors his chapters to make a favorable show for his country on this subject, as follows: "From the Spaniards having traveled westwards to the Philippines, there was an error of a day in their dates and almanacs. This was corrected in 1844, when, by order of the Captain-General and the Archbishop, the 31st of December, 1844, was suppressed, and the dates of Manila made to agree with those of the rest of the world. A similar correction was made at the same time at Macao, where the Portuguese who had traveled eastward had an error of a day in an opposite direction." It will be noticed that the authority of the Archbishop was carefully obtained and quoted, but it was beyond his prerogative.

The early history of the Philippines bears few traces of the traditions and romances of the natives, but they were in possession of an alphabet when "discovered," and were then, as now, fond of music, singing their own melodies. The Hawaiians were enabled to get their old stories into print because they suddenly fell into the hands of masterful men who had a written language. The Icelanders were too literary for their own good, for they spoiled their history by writing it in poetry and mixing it with fiction, losing in that way the credit that belongs to them of being the true discoverers of America. The Filipinos were spared this shape of misfortune, not that they lacked imagination within a narrow range of vision, but they were wanting in expression, save in unwritten music. Their lyrical poetry was not materialized. The study of the natives must be studied as geology is. Geology and native history have been neglected in the Tagala country. The rocks of the Philippines have not been opened to be read like books. More is known of the botany of the islands than of the formation of the mountains and their foundations. The original inhabitants were Negritos--a dwarfish race, very dark and tameless, still in existence, but driven to the parts of the country most inaccessible. They are of the cla.s.s of dark savages, who smoke cigars holding the fiery ends between their teeth! The islands were invaded and extensively hara.s.sed by Malay tribes--the most numerous and active being the Tagala. Of this tribe is General Aguinaldo, and it is as a man with a tribe not a nation that he has become conspicuous. The other tribes of Malays will not sustain him if he should be wild enough to want to make war upon the United States. The Tagalas are c.o.c.k fighters and live on the lowlands. They eat rice chiefly, but are fond of ducks and chickens, and they have an incredibly acute sense of smell, not a bad taste in food, and do not hanker to get drunk.

The Visayas are also a tribe. The Igolatas are next to the Tagala in numbers and energy. They show traces of Chinese and j.a.panese blood. There are no Africans in the Philippines, no sign of their blood. This may be attributed to Phillip's prohibition of negro slavery. General Greene, of New York, took with him to Manila a full-blooded black manservant, and he was a great curiosity to the Filipinos. When the English conquered Manila in 1762 they had Sepoy regiments, and held the city eighteen months. A good deal of Sepoy blood is still in evidence. The Chinese have been growing in importance in the Philippines. Their men marry the women of the islands and have large families, the boys of this cla.s.s being wonderfully thrifty. The children of Englishmen by the native women are often handsome, and of strong organization. The females are especially comely.

The early history of the islands consists of accounts of contests with frontier rebels, attacks by pirates, and reprisals by the Spaniards, great storms and destructive earthquakes. It is remarkable that Magellan was, like Captain Cook, a victim of savages, whose existence he made known to civilized people, falling in a sea-side contest. Magellan had converted a captive chief to Christianity and baptised him as King Charles. More than two thousand of his subjects were converted in a day, and the great navigator set forth to conquer islands for the dominion of the Christian King, who lived on the isle of Zebu. The Christian monarch was entertained and received many presents, making return in bags of gold dust, fruit, oil and wine. His Queen was presented with a looking gla.s.s, and then she insisted upon baptism, and so great was the revival that Magellan set out to capture more people for the newly made Christian couple--invaded the island of Matau, and with forty-two men landed where the water was shallow, his allies remaining afloat by invitation of Magellan, to see how the Spaniards disposed of enemies. The Spanish landed at night, and on the morning found a great mult.i.tude of savages opposed to them, and fought for life, but were overwhelmed by thousands of warriors. The Admiral was in white armor, and fighting desperately, was at last wounded in his sword arm, and then in the face, and leg. He was deserted by his men, who sought to save themselves in the water, and killed many of his enemies, but his helmet and skull were crushed at one blow by a frantic savage with a huge club. There were thirty-two Spaniards killed, and one of the squadron of three s.h.i.+ps was burned as there were not men enough to sail all the vessels. There is in Manila, in the walled city, where it is seen every day by thousands of American soldiers, a stately monument to the navigator who found the Philippines, and whose adventurous discoveries insured him immortality. His first landing on the Philippines was March 12th, 1521, less than thirty years after Columbus appeared in the West Indies, believing that he was in the midst of the ancient East Indies, and judging from the lat.i.tude in the neighborhood of the island empire of the Great Kahn. [9]

"After the death of Magellan, Duarte Barbosa took the command and he and twenty of his men were treacherously killed by the Christian King, with whom they had allied themselves, one Juan Serrano was left alive amongst the natives. Magellan's 'Victory' was the first s.h.i.+p that circ.u.mnavigated the globe.

"Magellanes pa.s.sed over to the service of the King of Castile, from causes which moved him thereto; and he set forth to the Emperor Charles V., our sovereign, that the Islands of Maluco fell within the demarcation of his crown of Castile, and that the conquest of them pertained to him conformably to the concession of Pope Alexander; he also offered to make an expedition and a voyage to them in the emperor's name, laying his course through that part of the delimitation which belonged to Castile, and availing himself of a famous astrologer and cosmographer named Ruyfarelo, whom he kept in his service.

"The Emperor (from the importance of the business) confided this voyage and discovery of Magellanes, with the s.h.i.+ps and provisions which were requisite for it, with which he set sail and discovered the straits to which he gave his name. Through these he pa.s.sed to the South Sea, and navigated to the islands of Tendaya and Sebu, where he was killed by the natives of Matan, which is one of them. His s.h.i.+ps went on to Maluco, where their crews had disputes and differences with the Portuguese who were in the island of Terrenate; and at last, not being able to maintain themselves there, they left Maluco in a s.h.i.+p named the Victory, which had remained to the Castilians out of their fleet, and they took as Chief and Captain Juan Sebastian del Cano, who performed the voyage to Castile, by the way of India, where he arrived with very few of his men, and he gave an account to His Majesty of the discovery of the islands of the great archipelago, and of his voyage."

The work of De Morga has value as a novelty, as it is more than a defense--a laudation of the Spanish rule in the Philippines in the sixteenth century. The t.i.tle page is a fair promise of a remarkable performance, and it is here presented:

The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, j.a.pan and China,

at the close of the Sixteenth Century

By _Antonio de Morga_.

Translated from the Spanish, with Notes and a Preface, and a Letter from Luis Vaez De Torres, Describing His Voyage Through the Torres Straits, by the

_Hon. Henry E. J. Stanley_.

The original work of De Morga was printed in Mexico in 1609, and has become extremely rare; there is no copy of it in the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris. This translation is from a transcription made for the Hakluyt Society from the copy in the Grenville Library of the British Museum; the catalogue of which states that "this book, printed at Mexico, is for that reason probably unknown to Bibliographers, though a book of great rarity."

The translator gives a new view to Americans of the part that Spaniards have played in the Philippines. He plunges deep into his subject, saying:

"The great point in which Manila has been a success, is the fact that the original inhabitants have not disappeared before the Europeans, and that they have been civilized, and brought into a closer union with the dominant race than is to be found elsewhere in similar circ.u.mstances. The inhabitants of the Philippines previous to the Spanish settlement were not like the inhabitants of the great Indian peninsula, people with a civilization as old as that of their conquerors. Excepting that they possessed the art of writing, and an alphabet of their own, they do not appear to have differed in any way from the Dayaks of Borneo as described by Mr. Boyle in his recent book of adventures amongst that people. Indeed, there is almost a coincidence of verbal expressions in the descriptions he and De Morga give of the social customs, habits, and superst.i.tions of the two peoples they are describing; though many of these coincidences are such as are incidental to life in similar circ.u.mstances, they are enough to lead one to suppose a community of origin of the inhabitants of Borneo and Luzon." Mr. Consul Farren, Manila, March 13th, 1845, wrote and is quoted in support of this view as follows:

"The most efficient agents of public order throughout the islands are the local clergy, many of whom are also of the country. There are considerable parts of these possessions in which the original races, as at Ceylon, retain their independence, and are neither taxed nor interfered with; and throughout the islands the power of the government is founded much more on moral than on physical influence. The laws are mild, and peculiarly favorable to the natives. The people are indolent, temperate and superst.i.tious. The government is conciliatory and respectable in its character and appearance, and prudent, but decisive in the exercise of its powers over the people; and united with the clergy, who are shrewd, and tolerant, and sincere, and respectable in general conduct, studiously observant of their ecclesiastical duties, and managing with great tact the native character."

March 29, 1851, Mr. Consul Farren wrote: "Without any governing power whatever, the greatest moral influence in these possessions is that which the priests possess, and divide among the monastic orders of Augustines, Recoletos, Dominicans, and Franciscans (who are all Spaniards), and the a.s.sistant native clergy. A population exceeding 3,800,000 souls is ranged into 677 pueblos or parishes, without reckoning the unsubdued tribes. In 577 of those pueblos there are churches, with convents or clerical residences attached, and about 500 of them are in the personal inc.u.mbency of those Spanish monks. The whole ecclesiastical subdivisions being embraced in the archbishopric of Manila and three bishoprics."

"The Philippines were converted to Christianity and maintained in it by the monastic orders, energetically protected by them (and at no very past period) against the oppressions of the provincial authorities, and are still a check on them in the interests of the people. The clergy are receivers in their districts of the capitation tax paid by the natives, and impose it; they are the most economical agency of the government."

The Archbishop of Manila is substantially of this judgment. De Morga opens his address to the reader:

"The monarchy of Kings of Spain has been aggrandized by the zeal and care with which they have defended within their own hereditary kingdoms, the Holy Catholic Faith, which the Roman Church teaches, against whatsoever adversaries oppose it, or seek to obscure the truth by various errors, which faith they have disseminated throughout the world. Thus by the mercy of G.o.d they preserve their realms and subjects in the purity of the Christian religion, deserving thereby the glorious t.i.tle and renown which they possess of Defenders of the Faith. Moreover, by the valor of their indomitable hearts, and at the expense of their revenues and property, with Spanish fleets and men, they have furrowed the seas, and discovered and conquered vast kingdoms in the most remote and unknown parts of the world, leading their inhabitants to a knowledge of the true G.o.d, and to the fold of the Christian Church, in which they now live, governed in civil and political matters with peace and justice, under the shelter and protection of the royal arm and power which was wanting to them. This boast is true of Manila, and of Manila alone amongst all the colonies of Spain or the other European states. If the natives of Manila have been more fortunate than those of Cuba, Peru, Jamaica, and Mexico, it has been owing to the absence of gold, which in other places attracted adventurers so lawless that neither the Church nor Courts of justice could restrain them."

It is against the orders named as worthy exalted praise that the insurgents are most inflamed, and whose expulsion from the islands is certain in case of Philippine jurisdiction. The truth appears to be that the Spanish Colonial system was slower in the East Indies than in the West Indies and South America in producing the revolutionary rebellion that was its logical consequence, and the friars more and more became responsible for official oppression and gradually became odious.

It was New Spain--Mexico--that ruled the Philippines, until Mexican independence restricted her sovereignty. When a Commander-in-Chief died in the Philippines, it was sufficient to find amongst his papers a sealed dispatch, as Morga records, "From the high court of Mexico, which carried on the government when the fleet left New Spain, naming (in case the Commander-in-Chief died) a successor to the governors.h.i.+p." It was in virtue of such an appointment that Guido de Labazarris, a royal officer, entered upon those duties, and was obeyed. He, with much prudence, valor, and tact, continued the conversion and pacification of the islands, and governed them, and Morga states that in his time there came the corsair Limahon from China, with seventy large s.h.i.+ps and many men-at-arms, against Manila. He entered the city, and having killed the master of the camp Martin de Goiti, in his house, along with other Spaniards who were in it, he went against the fortress in which the Spaniards, who were few in number, had taken refuge, with the object of taking the country and making himself master of it. The Spaniards, with the succor which Captain Joan de Salzado brought them from Vigan, of the men whom he had with him (for he had seen this corsair pa.s.s by the coast, and had followed him to Manila), defended themselves so valiantly, that after killing many of the people they forced him to re-embark, and to leave the bay in flight, and take shelter in the river of Pangasinam, whither the Spaniards followed him. There they burned his fleet, and for many days surrounded this corsair on land, who in secret made some small boats with which he fled and put to sea, and abandoned the islands.

The change of the name of the islands from Lazarus, which Magellan called them, to the Philippines and the capture of the native town of Manila and its conversion into a Spanish city is related by Morga in these words:

"One of the s.h.i.+ps which sailed from the port of Navidad in company with the fleet, under the command of Don Alonso de Arellano, carried as pilot one Lope Martin, a mulatto and a good sailor, although a restless man; when this s.h.i.+p came near the islands it left the fleet and went forward amongst the islands, and, having procured some provisions, without waiting for the chief of the expedition, turned back to New Spain by a northerly course; either from the little inclination which he had for making the voyage to the isles, or to gain the reward for having discovered the course for returning. He arrived speedily, and gave news of having seen the islands, and discovered the return voyage, and said a few things with respect to his coming, without any message from the chief, nor any advices as to what happened to him. Don Alonzo de Arellano was well received by the High Court of Justice, which governed at that time, and was taking into consideration the granting of a reward to him and to his pilot; and this would have been done, had not the flags.h.i.+p of the Commander-in-Chief arrived during this time, after performing the same voyage, and bringing a true narrative of events, and of the actual condition of affairs, and of the settlement of Sebu; also giving an account of how Don Alonzo de Arellano with his s.h.i.+p, without receiving orders and without any necessity for it, had gone on before the fleet on entering among the isles, and had never appeared since. It was also stated that, besides these islands, which had peacefully submitted to His Majesty, there were many others, large and rich, well provided with inhabitants, victuals and gold, which they hoped to reduce to subjection and peace with the a.s.sistance which was requested; and that the Commander-in-Chief had given to all these isles the name of Philippines, in memory of His Majesty. The succor was sent to him immediately, and has been continually sent every year conformably to the necessities which have presented themselves; so that the land was won and maintained.

"The Commander-in-Chief having heard of other islands around Sebu with abundance of provisions, he sent thither a few Spaniards to bring some of the natives over in a friendly manner, and rice for the camp, with which he maintained himself as well as he could, until, having pa.s.sed over to the island of Panay, he sent thence Martin de Goiti, his master of the camp, and other captains, with the men that seemed to him sufficient, to the side of Luzon, to endeavor to pacify it and bring it under submission to His Majesty; a native of that island, of importance, named Maomat was to guide them.

"Having arrived at the Bay of Manila, they found its town on the sea beach close to a large river, in the possession of, and fortified by a chief whom they called Rajamora; and in front across the river, there was another large town named Tondo; this was also held by another chief, named Rajamatanda. These places were fortified with palms, and thick arigues filled in with earth, and a great quant.i.ty of bronze cannon, and other large pieces with chambers. Martin de Goiti having began to treat with the chiefs and their people of the peace and submission which he claimed for them, it became necessary for him to break with them; and the Spaniards entered the town by force of arms, and took it, with the forts and artillery, on the day of Sta. Potenciana, the 19th of May, the year 1571; upon which the natives and their chiefs gave in, and made submission, and many others of the same island of Luzon did the same.

"When the Commander-in-chief, Legazpi, received news in Panay of the taking of Manila, and the establishment of the Spaniards there he left the affairs of Sebu, and of the other islands which had been subdued, set in order; and he entrusted the natives to the most trustworthy soldiers, and gave such orders as seemed fitting for the government of those provinces, which are commonly called the Visayas de los Pintados, because the natives there have their whole bodies marked with fire. He then came to Manila with the remainder of his people, and was very well received there; and established afresh with the natives and their chiefs the peace, friends.h.i.+p and submission to His Majesty which they had already offered. The Commander-in-Chief founded and established a town on the very site of Manila (of which Rajamora made a donation to the Spaniards for that purpose), on account of its being strong and in a well provisioned district, and in the midst of all the isles (leaving it its name of Manila, which it held from the natives). He took what land was sufficient for the city, in which the governor established his seat and residence; he fortified it with care, holding this object more especially in view, in order to make it the seat of government of this new settlement, rather than considering the temperature or width of the site, which is hot and narrow, from having the river on one side of the city, and the bay on the other, and at the back large swamps and marshes, which make it very strong.

"From this post he pursued the work of pacification of the other provinces of this great island of Luzon and of the surrounding districts; some submitting themselves willingly, others being conquered by force of arms, or by the industry of the monks who sowed the Holy Gospel, in which each and all labored valiantly, both in the time and governors.h.i.+p of the adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and in that of other governors who succeeded him. The land was entrusted to those who had pacified it and settled in it, and heads named, on behalf of the crown, of the provinces, ports, towns, and cities, which were founded, together with other special commissions for necessities which might arise, and for the expenses of the royal exchequer. The affairs of the government, and conversion of the natives, were treated as was fit and necessary. s.h.i.+ps were provided each year to make the voyage to New Sapin, and to return with the usual supplies; so that the condition of the Philippine Islands, in spiritual and temporal matters, flourishes at the present day, as all know.

"The Commander-in-Chief, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, as has been said, discovered the islands, and made a settlement in them, and gave a good beginning to their subjection and pacification. He founded the city of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the provinces of the Pintados, and after that the city of Manila in the island of Luzon. He conquered there the province of Ylocos; and in its town and port, called Vigan, he founded a Spanish town, to which he gave the name of Villa Fernandina. So also he pacified the province of Pangasinan and the island of Mindoro. He fixed the rate of tribute which the natives had to pay in all the islands, and ordered many other matters relating to their government and conversion, until he died, in the year of 1574, at Manila, where his body lies buried in the monastery of St. Augustine.

"During the government of this Guido de Labazarris, trade and commerce were established between great China and Manila, s.h.i.+ps coming each year with merchandise, and the governor giving them a good reception; so that every year the trade has gone on increasing."

The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the Island Samai was called Filipina by Vellalohos, who sailed from Mexico in February, 1543. The capital was fixed at Manila in 1571, a distinction enjoyed three hundred and twenty-seven years. It was in a letter of Lagozpis in 1567 that the name Ilas Filipinos appeared for the first time.

The Dutch became very enterprising and venturesome in the Asiatic archipelagoes and gave the Philippines much attention, having many fights with the Spaniards. The Ladrones became well known as a resting place between the islands of Philip and New Spain--Mexico. The Chinese Pirates were troublesome, and the Spaniards, between the natives, the pirates and the Dutchmen, kept busy, and had a great deal of naval and military instruction. There were other varieties of life of an exciting character, in terrible storms and earthquakes. The storm season is the same in the Philippines as in the West Indies, and the tempests have like features. October is the cyclone and monsoon month. The most destructive storm in the island of Luzon of record was October 31st, 1876. Floods rolled from the mountains, and there was a general destruction of roads and bridges, and it is reported six thousand persons were killed.

So extensive and exposed is the Bay of Manila, it is one hundred and twenty knots in circ.u.mference--that it is not properly a harbor, but a stormy sheet of water. Admiral Dewey's fleet has had low steam in the boilers all the while to quickly apply the power of the engines for safety in case of a visitation from the dreaded typhoon, which comes on suddenly as a squall and rages with tornado intensity.

There are many volcanoes in the islands, and they exist from the North of Luzon to the Sulus in the extreme South, a distance as great as from Scotland to Sicily. There is one on Luzon that bears a close resemblance both in appearance and phenomena to Vesuvius. The likeness in eruptions is startling. The city of Manila has repeatedly suffered from destroying shocks, and slight agitations are frequent. Within historic times a mountain in Luzon collapsed, and a river was filled up while the earth played fountains of sand. The great volcano Taal, 45 miles south of Manila, is only 850 feet high, and on a small island in a lake believed to be a volcanic abyss, having an area of 100 square miles. Monte Cagua, 2,910 feet high, discharges smoke continually. In 1814 12,000 persons lost their lives on Luzon, the earth being disordered and rent in an appalling way. There were awful eruptions July 20 and October 24, 1867, forests of great trees buried in discharges of volcanoes. June 3, 1863, at 31 minutes after 7 in the evening, after a day of excessive heat, there was a shock at Manila lasting 30 seconds, in which 400 people were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 26 public and 570 private houses seriously damaged. The greater structures made heaps of fragments. That these calamities have taught the people lessons in building is apparent in every house, but one wonders that they have not taken even greater precautions. The forgetfulness of earthquake experiences in countries where they are familiar, always amazes those unaccustomed to the awful agitations and troubled with the antic.i.p.ations of imagination. However, there never has been in the Philippines structural changes of the earth as great as in the center of the United States in the huge fissures opened and remaining lakes in the New Madrid convulsions.

In a surprising extent the Spanish government in the Philippines has been in the hands of the priests, especially the orders of the church. In the early centuries there was less cruel oppression than in Mexico and Peru. And yet there is in the old records a free-handed way of referring to killing people that shows a somewhat sanguinary state of society even including good citizens.

Blas Ruys de Herman Gonzales wrote to Dr. Morga from one of his expeditions, addressing his friend:

"To Dr. Antonio de Morga, Lieutenant of the Governor of the Filipine isles of Luzon, in the city of Manila, whom may our Lord preserve. From Camboia." This was in Cochin China, one of the Kings being in trouble, called upon Gonzales, who sympathized with him and wrote of the ceremony in which he a.s.sisted: "I came at his bidding, and he related to me how those people wished to kill him and deprive him of the kingdom, that I might give him a remedy. The Mambaray was the person who governed the kingdom, and as the king was a youth and yielded to wine, he made little account of him and thought to be king himself. At last I and the Spaniards killed him, and after that they caught his sons and killed them. After that the capture of the Malay Cancona was undertaken, and he was killed, and there was security from this danger by means of the Spaniards. We then returned to the war, and I learned that another grandee, who was head of a province, wished to rise up, and go over to the side of Chupinanon; I seized him and killed him; putting him on his trial. With all this the King and kingdom loved us very much, and that province was pacified, and returned to the King. At this time a vessel arrived from Siam, which was going with an emba.s.sy to Manila, and put in here. There came in it Padre Fray Pedro Custodio. The King was much delighted at the arrival of the priest, and wished to set up a church for him."

Unquestionably there was degeneracy that began to have mastery in high places, and this can be distinctly made out early in this century, becoming more obvious in depravity, when Spain fell into disorder during the later years of the Napoleonic disturbances, and the authority and influence of Mexico were eliminated from Spain. I may offer the suggestion and allow it to vindicate its own importance, that if we have any Philippine Islands to spare, we should turn them over to the Republic of Mexico, taking in exchange Lower California and Sonora, and presenting those provinces to California to be incorporated in that State as counties. It was under Mexican rule that the Philippines were most peaceable and flouris.h.i.+ng.

The late Government of the islands as revealed to the American officers who came into possession of Manila, was fearfully corrupt. It was proven by doc.u.ments and personal testimony not impeachable, that a Captain-General's launch had been used to smuggle Mexican dollars, that the annual military expedition to the southern islands was a stated speculation of the Captain-General amounting to $200,000, in one case raised to $400,000, that the same high official made an excursion to all the custom houses on the islands ordered the money and books aboard his s.h.i.+p and never returned either, that one way of bribery was for presents to be made to the wives of officials of great power and distinction; one lady is named to whom business men when presenting a splendid bracelet, waited on her with two that she might choose the one most pleasing, and as she had two white arms, she kept both.

The frequent changes in Spanish rulers of the islands are accounted for by the demand for lucrative places, from the many favorites to whom it was agreeable and exemplary to offer opportunities to make fortunes. It goes hard with the deposed Spaniards that they had no chance to harvest perquisites, and must go home poor. This is as a fountain of little tears.

The city of Manila is not lofty in buildings, because it has been twice damaged to the verge of ruin by earthquakes and many times searched and shaken by tremendous gales, and is situated on the lands so low that it is not uplifted to the gaze of mankind--is not a city upon a hill, and yet it is "no mean city." Antonio de Morga says:

"The entrance of the Spaniards into the Philippines since the year 1564, and the subjection and conversion which has been effected in them, and their mode of government, and that which during these years His Majesty has provided and ordered for their good, has been the cause of innovation in many things, such as are usual to kingdoms and provinces which charge their faith and sovereign. The first has been that, besides the name of Philippines, which they took and received from the beginning of their conquest, all the islands are now a new kingdom and sovereignty, to which His Majesty Philip the Second, our sovereign, gave the name of New Kingdom of Castile, of which by his royal privilege, he made the city of Manila the capital, giving to it, as a special favor among others, a coat of arms with a crown, chosen and appointed by his royal person, which is a scutcheon divided across, and in the upper part a castle on the red field, and in the lower part a lion of gold, crowned and rampant, with a naked sword in the dexter hand, and half the body in the shape of a dolphin upon the waters of the sea, signifying that the Spaniards pa.s.sed over them with arms to conquer this kingdom for the crown of Castile.

"The Commander-in-Chief, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, first governor of the Philippines, founded the city of Manila, in the isle of Luzon, in the same site in which Rajamora had his town and fort (as has been said more at length), at the mouth of the river which pours out into the bay, on a point which is formed between the river and the sea. He occupied the whole of it with this town and divided it among the Spaniards in equal building plots, with streets and blocks of houses regularly laid out, straight and level leaving a great place, tolerably square, where he erected the cathedral church and munic.i.p.al buildings; and another place of arms, in which stood the fort and there also the royal buildings; he gave sites to the monasteries and hospital and chapels, which would be built, as this was a city which would grow and increase every day, as has already happened; because in the course of time which pa.s.sed by, it has become as ill.u.s.trious as the best cities of all those parts.

"The whole city is surrounded by a wall of hewn stone of more than two and a half yards in width, and in parts more than three, with small towers and traverses at intervals; it has a fortress of hewn stone at the point, which guards the bar and the river, with a ravelin close to the water, which contains a few heavy pieces of artillery which command the sea and the river, and other guns on the higher part of the fort for the defense of the bar, besides other middling-sized field guns and swivel guns, with vaults for supplies and munitions, and a powder magazine, with its inner s.p.a.ce well protected, and an abundant well of fresh water; also quarters for soldiers and artillerymen and a house for the Commandant. It is newly fortified on the land side, in the place of arms, where the entrance is through a good wall, and two salient towers furnished with artillery which command the wall and gate. This fortress named Santiago, has a detachment of thirty soldiers, with their officers, and eight artillerymen, who guard the gate and entrance in watches, under the command of an alcalde who lives within, and has the guard and custody of it.

"There is another fortress, also of stone, in the same wall, at the ditance of the range of a culverin, at the end of the wall which runs along the sh.o.r.e of the bay; this is named Nuestra Senora de Guia; it is a very large round block, with its courtyard, water and quarters, and magazines and other workshops within; it has an outwork jutting out towards the beach, in which there are a dozen of large and middle-sized guns, which command the bay, and sweep the walls which run from it to the port and fort of Santiago. On the further side it has a large salient tower with four heavy pieces, which command the beach further on, towards the chapel of Nuestra Senora de Guia. The gate and entrance of this is within the city, it is guarded by a detachment of twenty soldiers, with their officers, and six artillerymen, a commandant, and his lieutenant, who dwell within.

"On the land side, where the wall extends, there is a bastion called Sant Andres, with six pieces of artillery, which can fire in all directions, and a few swivel guns; and further on another outwork called San Gabriel, opposite the parian of the Sangleys, with the same number of cannon, and both these works have some soldiers and an ordinary guard.

"The wall is sufficiently high, with battlements and turrets for its defense in the modern fas.h.i.+ons; they have a circuit of a league, which may be traversed on the top of the walls, with many stairs on the inside at intervals, of the same stonework, and three princ.i.p.al city gates, and many other posterns to the river and beach for the service of the city in convenient places. All of these gates are shut before nightfall by the ordinary patrol, and the keys are carried to the guard-room of the royal buildings; and in the morning, when it is day, the patrol returns with them and opens the city.

"The royal magazines are in the parade; in them are deposited and kept all the munitions and supplies, cordage, iron, copper, lead, artillery, arquebuses, and other things belonging to the royal treasury, with their special officials and workmen, who are under the command of the royal officers.