iio The National Geographic Magazine 



Some months ago a square half mile of 

 the Tondo district of Manila, consisting 

 almost entirely of nipa huts, was burned. 

 A month later most of them were re- 

 stored. The nipa house is entered, not 

 by a stairway, but by a ladder from the 

 outside. The rooms are commonly 

 small and the people live very closely. 

 The houses are, of course, only one 

 story in height. Indeed, throughout 

 the islands the buildings, as a rule, are 

 low, most of the residences containing 

 only one story, while business buildings 

 rarely rise to more than three. 



FOOD AND DRINK 



In the Philippine Islands no white 

 man drinks raw water — that is, unless 

 he courts cholera or dysentery. When- 

 ever possible he boils it or distills it, pref- 

 erably the latter. In Manila is a large 

 distilling plant, carried on by the gov- 

 ernment for the use of its civil employes. 

 The natives are by no means as careful, 

 and most of them drink the water as 

 nature provides it and attempt to avert 

 cholera by prayers and charms. 



The native lives principally upon rice 

 and fish, with a little fruit and vege- 

 tables. This low diet is by no means 

 satisfactory to the Europeans and Ameri- 

 cans in the islands, which do not pro- 

 duce at present the kinds of food which 

 they demand; consequently the table 

 of the American is supplied mostly with 

 frozen meat, brought from Australia or 

 the States, and with canned vegetables 

 and fruits. Fresh milk, except from 

 caribao, is practically unknown in the 

 islands, there being only half a dozen 

 milch cows in Manila, and the necessity 

 is supplied by condensed milk and canned 

 cream. The islands produce very few 

 fruits which are palatable to Americans. 



Since the Spanish times the prices of 

 most commodities and the wages of most 

 kinds of labor have doubled and trebled, 

 not only in Manila, but in most parts of 

 the Philippines, and rents, especially in 

 Manila, have soared skyward. Houses 



which five years ago were rented for 

 25 pesos a month now cost two or three 

 times as many dollars. A group of 

 houses recently built of nipa, containing 

 four rooms each, were rented long be- 

 fore their completion at the rate of $36 

 gold per month, the annual rent of the 

 house amounting to more than twice the 

 cost of the structure. 



PHILIPPINE CURRENCY 



Until recently the money in use in 

 the islands was what is called Mex., 

 the unit of which was the Mexican dol- 

 lar or peso, which had varying values 

 in gold, ranging from 40 to 50 cents. 

 Heretofore, during American occupa- 

 tion, American money has been used to 

 some extent, and the natives have thor- 

 oughly learned the distinction between 

 the two and their relative values. Until 

 the introduction of the Conant dollar, 

 Mex. was the common medium of ex- 

 change, and a somewhat bulky and 

 heavy one. A lady starting on a shop- 

 ping expedition found it necessary to 

 place in her carriage a bag full of pesos. 

 Fifty or a hundred dollars in pesos, the 

 equivalent of $20 or $40 gold, made 

 about as heavy a load as she would care 

 to carry from the carriage into the shop. 

 Often upon returning from a shopping 

 expedition she brought back less weight 

 with her than she carried. Very little 

 paper money was in Use. One would oc- 

 casionally receive bills on the Hong- 

 kong and Shanghai bank, or on a Fili- 

 pino bank, but they were generally so 

 filthy that the heavy silver was prefera- 

 ble. While the average Filipino is re- 

 puted to be somewhat light-fingered, 

 few people even take the trouble to lock 

 up their money, for it is commonly be- 

 lieved that Mex. is too nearly worthless 

 to be stolen. 



At the time of the introduction of the 

 Conant dollar, American money was 

 well known to the natives, not only in 

 Manila, but throughout the islands gen- 

 erally. Even the newsboys and boot- 



