Manila

“ I went for a little drive yesterday evening, through the old Spanish Intramuros, the Walled City, within the high old walls, which stand in a neglected moat, and are all covered with moss and grass and trailing weeds. The narrow streets are cobbled, and the quaint houses, with deep, barred basement windows, have a delightful air of repose, after the half-finished, skin-deep, hustling modernity of Americanised Manila. The whole quarter seems a far more appropriate setting than the rest of the town for the “mild-eyed lotus eaters,” which the Filipinos really are by choice, nature, and instinct. ”

“ Within cannon-shot of the walls of Manila, and even no farther away than the breadth of the river, one hundred thousand souls—Indians, mestizos, and Chinese—have been allowed to establish themselves; a people of foreign origin, in great part, without passports, classification, settled occupation, or any other requisite of a well-ordered social condition, and whose formidable number is threatening Manila with an inevitable blow. ”

“ Pasig, and shakes hands with itself in the several bridges that bind one side to the other. On the right bank of the river, coming in from the bay and passing up by the breakwater, lies the old walled town of Manila proper, whose weedy moats, ponderous drawbridges, and heavy gates suggest a troubled past. Old Manila may be figured as a triangle, a mile on a side, and the dingy walls seem, as it were, to herd in a drove of church-steeples, schools, houses, and streets. ”

“ Manila is situated on an extensive plain, gradually swelling into distant hills, beyond which, again, mountains rise in the background, to the height of several thousand feet. The latter are apparently clothed with vegetation to their summits. The city is in strong contrast to this luxuriant scenery, bearing evident marks of decay, particularly in the churches, whose steeples and tile roofs have a dilapidated look. ”

“ The Decline of Manila during the Next Century.—Such was Manila thirty-five and forty years after its foundation. It was at the zenith of its importance, the capital of the eastern colonies, the mart of Asia, more splendid than Goa, more powerful than Malacca or Macao, more [186] populous and far more securely held than Ternate and Tidor. “Truly,” exclaimed Chirino, “it is another Tyre, so magnified by Ezekiel.” It owed its great place to the genius and daring of the men who founded it, to the freedom of action which it had up to this point enjoyed, and to its superlative situation. ”

“ Life in Manila is pleasant, but expensive. It is pleasant from the fact that it is not only the capital but also metropolis of the archipelago. Thus the combination of wealth and high official position has given to Manila a society of the highest and most refined type. The process of beautifying and improving the city which is constantly going on bids fair to give us at no distant day a city of which we may well be proud. ”

“ There are some very estimable men among us who think that even if we concede to the islanders their independence, we should at least keep the city of Manila. I think differently, not from a mere impulse of generosity, but from an entirely practical point of view. Manila is the traditional, if not the natural capital of the archipelago. To recognize the independence of the Philippine Islanders, and at the same time to keep from them Manila, would mean as much as to recognize the independence of Cuba and to keep Havana. ”

“ As to population, Manila, in the larger sense, may hold 350,000 souls, besides a few dogs. Of the lot, call 50,000 Chinese, 5,000 Spaniards, 150 Germans, 90 English, and 4 Americans. The rest are natives or half-castes of the Malay type, whose blood runs in all mixtures of Chinese, Spanish, and what-not proportions, and whose Chinese eyes, flat noses, and high cheek-bones are queer accompaniments to their Spanish accents. Thus the majority of the souls in Manila,—like the dogs—are mongrels, or mestizos, as the word is, and the saying goes that happy is the man who knows his own father. ”

“ We walk in the ways of the fathers when we go conquering and to conquer along the Eastward shores of Asia.
One of the expanding and teeming questions before the world now, and the authority and ability to determine it, is in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States, is whether Manila shall become an American city, with all the broad and sweeping significance attaching thereto. Manila was not dressed for company when I saw her, for she had just emerged from a siege in which the people had suffered much inconvenience and privation. ”

“ Chapter III. How the city of Manila at present bears the burden of all this structure. I have already explained how the city of Manila is like the center of a circle, whose circumference includes all the kingdoms mentioned. It remains to explain how it maintains this structure and bears the whole burden of it.
In the first place, it maintains the war of Maluco and feeds it with troops, supplies, and munitions continually, a thing which Portuguese India could not do. ”

“ The men who can do what ours did at Manila can do anything that may rationally be dared. And in this story of Manila is the testimony that after the volunteers have been seasoned, they do keep step with the dread music of war with the regulars of any race or people, and there can be no national retreat from the duty destiny defines in the Philippines, any more than from the States of the valley that is the heart of the country—the valley watered by the Ohio, the noblest river in the world, that flows westward in the course of empire. ”

“ It is the capital of all the possessions of the Spanish scepter in these islands. Lapping the walls of Manila is a large river which empties at that place into the sea. By it one ascends to the Lake of Bay, and on the opposite shore of that lake one finds the village of Sinilòan. Thence to the port of Lampòn, which is located on the Contracosta of Manila, and comes to be as it were, inside of the arm, one need only pass the mountains of Daraètan, and Cabòan, which is a crossing of five or six leguas. ”

“ 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 circumstances. 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. ”

“ Upon all sides were the visible evidences that some day Manila will be the finest city of the Orient if the time ever comes when capital may feel assured that our occupation has some prospect of permanence. ”

“ Manila as capital of a vast empire.The Governor of Manila ruled over a part of Mindanao, Sulu, the Moluccas, Formosa, and the original Portuguese possessions in Malacca and India. “All that lies between Cape Singapore and Japan is subject to Luzon; their ships cross the ocean to China and New Spain, and drive so magnificent a trade that, if it were only free, it would be the most extraordinary that the world could show. It is incredible what glory these islands confer upon Spain. The Governor of the Philippines treats with the Kings of Cambodia, Japan, China. ”

“ Manila, built upon the shore of the bay of that name, which is more than twenty-five leagues in circumference, is at the mouth of a river navigable as far as the lake in which it rises. It is probably the most fortunately situated town in the whole world. Provisions are found there in the greatest profusion, and very cheap; but clothing, European cutlery, and furniture fetch an enormous price. ”

“ There are mountains a few miles away east and south—big lumps of blue. The stream that furnishes pure water to Manila is from the mountains, and tapped near the mouth, where it empties into the Pasig, seven miles from the city. Manila is widespread, and of structures whose height has been moderated by experience of earthquakes. There is a great deal of marshy land, and rice fields, and the jungles, so thick and thorny, and the grasses so tall, fibrous, and rasping, that the marching of columns of soldiers is excessively fatiguing. ”

“ The biggest city is Manila, on the east shore of Manila Bay, a big harbor shaped like a camel's head, with the opening at the neck of the animal, and Manila sittin' like a wart on the critter's nose. Years an' years ago the city was only a Spanish military post, but it grew an' grew, until I reckon there are several hundred thousand folks—Chinese and Japanese and all—in and around Manila. A good many of the people are what they call Tagals, a branch of the Malay race—a good enough set if the Spanish would only treat 'em half decently. ”

“ In his Bibliography three different titles (we may observe) bear the imprint of Manila, with the name of this city spelled according to the ancient aboriginal form, albeit but slightly varied from the present—“Maynila”—otherwise, as I have read it, “Mainilla,” a variant in orthography one encounters in old chronicles—a Tagal word (it seems) signifying a species of shrub or bush, in the Spanish rendered arbusto, that in 1571 was found to cover the site of the new city projected by the conquistadores, under the leadership of Miguel López de Legazpi. ”

“ In visiting the fine scenery of the rivers, roads, and villages in the neighbourhood of Manila, we seldom met with a carriage, or a traveller seeking to enjoy these beauties. And in a harbour so magnificent as that of Manila one would expect to see skiffs and pleasure-boats without number, and yachts and other craft ministering to the enjoyment and adding to the [14] variety of life; but there are none. Nobody seems to like sporting with the elements. There are no yacht regattas on the sea, as there are no horseraces on the shore. I have heard the life of Manila called intolerably monotonous ”

“ His Majesty—In the city of Manila are many Indians who are liable to duty, both in service and in other employments, who are continually shifting—so that, out of the three thousand tributarios that there should be, not more than five hundred tributes are collected for his Majesty. To administer the sacraments and give Christian instruction there is one parish priest for the Indians, and they attend mass at the hospital for Spaniards. They are under the jurisdiction of Manila, in affairs of justice. ”

“ The inhabitants of Manila, who owned many of the houses, lost considerable in that fire. But in the space of four months, most of that alcaicería has been rebuilt in squares and straight streets and uniform houses. It presents a very beautiful appearance, and is as large as the city of Manila itself. It is no wonder that a city should be built entire in so short a time, when more than three thousand men have worked on it. ”

“ And inasmuch as the said fort and town of Manila have been won in lawful and just war, and since, according to the said natives, Manila is the capital of all the towns of this said island: therefore in his Majesty's name, he was occupying and did occupy, was taking and did take, royal ownership and possession, actual and quasi, of this said island of Luzon and of all the other ports, towns, and territories adjoining and belonging to this said island. ”

“ As there are no apartment-houses in Manila, the young clerk on small salary will usually live in a furnished room in the walled city. For the first few months it is a rather dreary life. The cool veranda and the steamer chair, after the day’s work, is a luxury denied the young Americans within the city walls. The list of amusements that Manila offers is an unattractive one. ”

“ That is what America has done to the Philippines."
"If the city of Manila could, by some genius of modern times, be laid down in Europe and ticketed, labeled, bill-posted and guide-booked, it would be famous," says one authority. The city contains an area of more than fifteen square miles and is more densely populated per mile of street than New York. When civil government was established in 1901 the conditions were deplorable. The streets were narrow and filthy and there was no sewer system to speak of. The river and dirty canals divided and subdivided the city. ”

“ Good food and well-served American tables are plentiful enough in Manila to-day. The cold-storage depots provide meats and butter at prices as good as those of the home land, if not better. Manila is no longer congested with the population, both native and American, which centred there in war times. There is not the variety of fruits to be found in the United States, but there is no lack of wholesome, appetizing food. ”

“ That is [132] the only thing anyone ever does. Manila was pictured to me as a very gay place, in fact the Manila papers even go so far as to label it the “Gayest City of the Orient”; but it is really a dreadfully dull little town, with a very occasional dance to enliven the interminable round of dinner and Bridge parties, and those curious and costly luncheon parties which American women give to each other. So much I had already inferred from the Society Columns of the Manila papers, which come to us in Iloilo as a breath from the wide world! ”

“ 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. ”