CHAPTER XVIII. 



MANILLA. 



Appearance of the City — Manilla Bay — The Town — Chinese Shops — Aspect of 

 the Mestizas — Dilapidated Condition of City — The Great Earthquake of 

 1863.— Features of the Shocks— Their Effects— Moral Effect on the 

 People — Gaije-Cocks — The River Pasig — Tobacco Manufacture— Taxes op 

 Commerce — Sea Snakes— Tropical Skies compared with Northern — The 

 Southern Cross — Effects of Clear Atmosphere — Moon-blindness— Case. 



It was Christmas-day wlien we anchored in Manilla Bay — 

 dull, wet, and dreary; but warm withal, with nothing to 

 remind us of the season.' The city looked forlorn enough, 

 for at the best of times there is nothing very striking in its 

 appearance, which is pretty much that of a dull continental 

 town built in a hollow ; the houses like so many barns, and 

 the few public edifices which rise above the general level of 

 the housetops being constructed of a dark red stone, which 

 gives thiem a sombre air which even a nearer approach does 

 ■not tend to remove. But when, on the bright sunny days 

 which succeeded, the distant mountains of Luzon appeared 

 with their changing lights and shades, forming a beautiful 

 background to the landscape, there was much that was 

 picturesque and attractive in the scene ; while the placid 

 waters of the bay with the distant mountain of Mariveles at 

 its entrance, behind which the sun nightly disappeared, 

 bathing it in rich gold and purple, completed a very 

 charming panorama. Not always, however, is the bay so 



