434 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Indies, we were in sight of islands, mostly controlled by 
the Dutch, British and Germans. We passed near enough 
to the island of Ceram to see the native temples among 
the palm trees on the beach, also near enough to Celebes 
to see some volcanoes, for there are many active vol¬ 
canoes in these islands, our steamer starting up schools of 
flying fish. One sees just enough of these islands to fire 
the imagination and hears enough from the traders and 
travelers about cannibals, headhunters and savages, 
which inhabit them, to make it diflicult to decide whether 
he would like to land on them or run away from them. 
Our first sight of the Philippines was the southern end 
of Mindanao—the largest island of the group, which 
stretched along our right, while on our left was the Sulu 
archipelago-also part of the Philippines, stretching along 
Bay, passed strongly fortified Corregidor Island, then 
passed Cavite—where Dewey annihilated the Spanish 
fleet in 1900—and anchored inside the breakwater. 
Manila has a population of about 350,000, including 
about 7,000 whites. The population of the islands is 
seven and a half millions, including 600,000 savages and 
15,000 whites, mostly Americans, British and Spanish. 
We went up the Pasag River in a launch to the old Bridge 
of Spain. This river is a busy one, with native sailing 
craft, painted in gaudy colors and with peculiar shaped 
high sterns and queer shaped sails contesting the right of 
way with modern steamers. There is a strange blending 
of the old and new in Manila, in the streets are heavy 
wheeled Filipino carts drawn by patient and slow moving 
cariboos or water buffalos, with grey hairless hides like 
Canal in Manila, Philippine Islands. 
toward Borneo. There are over 3,100 islands in the Phil¬ 
ippine group, the three largest being Mindanao, Luzon 
and Panay, we saw all of them and passed within half a 
mile of the town of Zamboango, where the American 
military hearquarters for Mindanao are. Native thatched 
huts on poles stretch along the water front among the co- 
coanut palms for miles on either side of the town and 
many natives in their queer looking boats, with outrig¬ 
gers on both sides came out towards us. Vegetation is 
luxuriant—as in all East India Islands, everything looks 
peaceful along the water front, but we could see many 
blockhouses and other evidences of past warfare. The 
American flag flying there looked mighty good to us seven 
Americans aboard our Japanese steamer and before we 
had seen very much of the Philippines, we earnestly 
hoped that the Stars and Stripes would continue to float 
there. 
Early on the morning of June 26th, we entered Manila 
a rhinoceros—along side of a touring automobile or elec¬ 
tric street car. The modern Manila Hotel, as large and 
fine as many of the California ones, is within easy walk¬ 
ing distance of Filipino villages of thatched huts. Such 
contrasts. 
We strolled through the Spanish walled city and 
lunched at the Manila Hotel and dined in the English 
club, where dozens of brown lizards 7 inches long were 
running over the ceilings, keeping them absolutely clear 
of flies and insects. An automobile ride took us through 
the Filipino quarters on the outskirts of the city, nearly 
all of these huts are built on stilts and are made of light 
matting thatched with palm leaves, the Filipinos still live 
in very crude style and it will be a long time before they 
can govern themselves. We went through the Bilibid 
prison, claimed to be the largest in the world, a very in¬ 
teresting sight and one that I would not have missed for 
much, we saw 3,700 prisoners drilled with the finest mili- 
