292 Voyage of the Novara. 



That which the strang-er understands by tlie emphatic word 

 '' comfort " is only to be fomid In the houses of European re- 

 sidents, and is not obtainable by money. The two hotels 

 lately started levy, unchallenged, Californian prices for even 

 the most moderate requirements, and so far as cleanliness 

 and orderliness are concerned, lag far behind the commonest 

 country inn in North America or the British colonies.* 



Despite the various races that meet the stranger's gaze, 

 Manila has, beyond any other colony in the East, the appear- 

 ance of a European town. One remarks here, that the colon- 

 ists are more completely amalgamated with the natives, and 

 that with the religion these latter have also adopted a consider- 

 able proportion of the customs of Europeans. 



Among the populace of Manila belonging to the coloured 

 races, that most prevalent in the capital is the Tagal, or 

 Tagalag, on whose territory the Spaniards founded their first 

 settlement. The obscurity that envelopes their origin has 

 never been disjDelled, although some of the older religious 

 writers thought they found on Borneo and other islands of 

 the Sunda Archipelago some traces of their stock. They 

 were confirmed in this impression by the fact, that in the 



* One of these hotels, the Hotel Fran9ais, was, at the time of our visit, kept by a 

 Frenchman named Dubosse, a man of a most adventurous disposition, who after- 

 wards accompanied the French army to China as a mess-man, and was one of the 

 victims seized by Sang-ko-lin-sin's soldiers, near Pekin, in September, 1860, who met 

 with such a horrible fate. The other inn, the Hotel Fernando, kept by a North Ame- 

 rican, is yet more filthy and noisy than the first-named, since, being situated on the 

 harbour, it serves for a rendezvous for the various ships' captains. In neither of 

 these is the charge less than 4 to 5 Spanish doUaa-s a day, or about £1 sterling. 



