448 PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND STREETS. [1842. 



belied, in permitting them to watch the passers-by without 

 being themselves visible. In some of the suburbs, the houses 

 are light, airy structures, built wholly of bamboo, in the 

 Eastern mode, and resting on thick poles eight or ten feet 

 above the ground. 



Churches and monastic establishments are by far the most 

 numerous structures of a public character in the city.* The 

 cathedral and archbishop's palace are conspicuous buildings 

 There is also a missionary college, and several hospitals and 

 orphan asylums. On one side of the plaza mayor, is the # 

 government-house, or palace, in which are the residences of the 

 captain general, and the public officers. The square is about 

 one hundred yards in breadth and length, and in its centre 

 there is a bronze statue of Charles IV, mounted on a marble 

 pedestal. The custom-house, or aduana, is a large building, 

 constructed at great, expense, but entirely out of proportion to 

 the business transacted in it, and is tenanted for the greater 

 part of the time, only by the numerous officials, whose high- 

 sounding names and formal politeness always attract the 

 notice of the stranger, and are quite sure to cause many an 

 involuntary smile. On the great square is one of the royal 

 cisrar manufactories, in which three hundred and fiftv males 

 and two. thousand females are employed ; and in the suburb 

 of Bidondo, on the opposite side of the river, there is a simi- 

 lar establishment, in which there are said to be eight thousand 

 females constantly kept at work. Each female makes about 

 two hundred cigars in a day. The manufacture is a gov- 

 ernment monopoly, and the annual revenue derived from the 

 two establishments is over half a million of dollars. 



The streets are well laid out, and have carriage-ways, har- 

 dened by a mixture of quartz with the loamy soil. There 

 are paths, also, for persons travelling on foot — an unusual 

 mode of conveyance, by the way, with the aristocracy of " the 

 celebrated and forever royal city of Manilla," by which son- 

 orous distinction the capital of the Philippines is honored in 



* This is not to be wondered at, when we consider that Manilla contains up- 

 wards of seven thousand clergymen either natives or Europeans. 



