MANILLA. 
237 
CHAPTER IX. 
The Alceste left Macao roads on the evening of the twenty-eighth 
of January, and shaping her course for Manilla, made Point Capones 
on the second of February ; and having beaten into Manilla Bay 
during the night, anchored the following day about noon at the dis- 
tance of a mile and a half from the town. The Embassy landed the 
same afternoon on the northern bank of the river which flows past 
Manilla in a suburb opposite the city, and found themselves in the 
midst of a crowd occasioned by a procession in honour of the puri- 
fication of the Virgin. This festival falls on the preceding day in 
our calendar, as the Spaniards of Manilla continue to adopt a 
system of reckoning time which the first discoverers of the Phillip- 
pine Isles established. 
A scene that presented itself to us on landing produced a fa- 
vourable impression on our minds as to the wealth and population 
of the colony. A great number of the better classes of both sexes, 
chiefly in European dresses, were driving about in open carriages 
drawn by sleek and high-mettled ponies bred on the island. 
Amongst the pedestrians were many of the inferior clergy, distin- 
guished by their large cocked hats with long tassels before and behind. 
The mass of the crowd was made up of the half casts ; of whom, 
both men and women were remarkable for their well proportioned 
figure and erect gait; the latter especially being tall, very finely shaped, 
and having a dignified carriage. Their dress was well adapted to the 
climate, and admitted the freest play of their limbs ; consisting of 
a loose linen tunic, which scarcely reached the cabaya, or em- 
