310 
MANILLA. 
concerns the provinces, the government may be called, notwithstanding 
the officers, courts, &c., monastic. The priests rule, and frequently 
administer punishment, .with their own hands, to either sex, of which 
an instance will be cited hereafter. 
As soon as we could procure the necessary passports, which were 
obligingly furnished by the governor to “ Don Russel Sturges y quatro 
Anglo Americanos,” our party left Manilla for a short jaunt to the 
mountains. It was considered as a mark of great favour on the part 
of his excellency to grant this indulgence, particularly as he had a few 
months prior denied it to a party of French officers. I was told that 
he preferred to make it a domestic concern, by issuing the passport in 
the name of a resident, in order that compliance in this case might not 
give umbrage to the French. It was generally believed that the cause 
of the refusal in the former instance was the imprudent manner in which 
the French officers went about taking plans and sketches, at the corners 
of streets, &c., which in the minds of an unenlightened and ignorant 
colonial government, of course excited suspicion. Nothing can be so 
ridiculous as this system of passports; for if one was so disposed, a 
plan, and the most minute information of every thing that concerns the 
defences of places, can always be obtained at little cost now-a-days; for 
such is the skill of engineers, that a plan is easily made of places, 
merely by a sight of them. We were not, however, disposed to question 
the propriety of the governor’s conduct in the former case, and I felt 
abundantly obliged to him for a permission that would add to our stock 
of information. 
It was deemed at first impossible for the party to divide, as they had 
but one passport, and some difficulties were anticipated from the number 
being double that stated in the passport. The party consisted of 
Messrs. Sturges, Pickering, Eld, Rich, Dana, and Brackenridge. Mr. 
Sturges, however, saw no difficulty in dividing the party after they had 
passed beyond the precincts of the city, taking the precaution, at the 
same time, not to appear together beyond the number designated on the 
paper. 
On the 14th, they left Manilla, and proceeded in carriages to Santa 
Anna, on the Pasig, in order to avoid the delay that would ensue if 
they followed the windings of the river in a banca, and against the 
current. 
At Santa Anna they found their bancas waiting for them, and 
embarked. Here the scene was rendered animated by numerous boats 
of all descriptions, from the parao to the small canoe of a single log. 
There is a large population that live wholly on the water: for the 
padrones of the paraos have usually their families with them, which, 
