Throughout the islands there is a part of every village set apart for
the market-place, where in the early morning, and after sunset in the
evening, the utmost activity in buying and selling prevails. At all of
these places rice, fish, and butcher meat (generally, but not always),
fruit, and merchandise of the most suitable sorts to supply the wants
of the people who are likely to purchase it, are exposed for sale. It
is a curious scene to walk through such a place for the first time,
especially after sunset, when the red glare of the torches or lamps
shows to perfection the sparkling eyes, swarthy features, and long
hair, which, waving about over the foreheads of the men, gives them a
wildness of look, which their sombre dress, consisting of a dark blue
shirt and trousers, having nothing to attract the attention from the
sparkle of their eyes, makes all the more striking.
In Santa Cruz market-place at Manilla, between the hours of six and
eight in the morning and evening, an immense crowd collect to supply
their household wants, and innumerable are the articles displayed
in the shops;--here the cochineal of Java, there the sago of Borneo,
or the earthenware of China. In the Bamboo Islands the more perishable
commodities are exposed for sale; and fish being the principal article
of the natives' food (and also a favourite one of the white men),
is found exposed for sale in large quantities. But all so offered
is dead, even when the vendor is a Chinaman, although in his native
country great quantities of it are hawked about the streets by the
sellers carrying them alive, in water, so that the purchaser is
certain always to have this food fresh and untainted by keeping;
for even a few hours is sufficient to spoil it in this climate.
The market is well supplied with all descriptions of fish caught in
the Pasig or the bay, most of which are well tasted; the fishermen of
the villages in the neighbourhood being the principal suppliers. A
small sort is found in the river very much resembling white-bait in
taste. Shrimps are also consumed in large quantities. After the rains
there may generally be procured, by those who like them, frogs, which
are taken from the ditch round the walls in great numbers, and are
then fat, and in good condition for eating, making a very favourite
curry of some of the Europeans, their flesh being very tender.
The natives principally eat fish, but there is besides a large quantity
of beef and pork consumed by them, which are always procurable,
except on Fridays, when some little difficulty may be experienced in
procuring flesh, as there is only enough killed on the morning of
that day to supply the wants of the invalids. The country-fed pork
is seldom or never seen at the tables of Europeans, these animals
being too frequently allowed to feed in a most disgusting manner;
and many pigs may at any time be seen in the suburbs of the town
where the Indians dwell roaming about the streets, and efficiently
performing the duties of scavengers, by removing the filth and garbage
from many of these remote streets.
But notwithstanding their knowing, and in fact daily seeing, this
gross and disgusting mode of feeding, it is the most universal and
favourite food of the Chinese at Manilla, and is also a favourite
with the Indians.
The continued use of pork so fed not unfrequently produces a skin
disease called sarnas, something resembling itch.
Fowls, turkeys, and ducks, both tame and wild, are at all times
procurable, the supplies of the latter being from the Laguna. Geese
are seldom or never exposed for sale, but are sometimes sent from
China to private persons merely for their own consumption.
It is a curious thing that geese will not produce eggs, or sit upon
them to hatch their young, at Manilla; and it is also a sufficiently
odd circumstance, that turkeys die in a short time after reaching
Singapore, where they are sometimes sent to private individuals for
domestic use, although they thrive very well both in the Philippines
and in Java. At Singapore, however, after being a few days ashore,
some of them are attacked by a peculiar sickness, apparently giddiness
of the head, which invariably ends in death in a few minutes after
the commencement of the attack. All these birds are subject to it at
that place, if allowed to go about too long before being seized upon
by the cook.
The principal food of the Indians being rice, it is found exposed for
sale, in large and small quantities, in the bazaars, where nearly all
the kinds of fruits of the season may also be found. The catalogue
of fruits grown in the islands is a long one, but among those most
commonly seen may be reckoned plantains of all kinds, of which
there are an immense variety; mangoes, which are remarkably good,
and superior to any species grown in the East, excepting those of
Bombay, to which they are equal; the custard-apple, the pine-apple,
seldom equal to those of Batavia or Singapore; limes, and oranges,
not very good, and greatly inferior to those of China, from whence
some are imported by the trading Spanish vessels constantly running
between the two places; melons of different kinds, of middling quality;
cucumbers, pumpkins, jackfruit, lanzones, and many other sorts.
The best gardens, or those from which Manilla is chiefly supplied with
fruit, are in the vicinity of Cavite, from which place the country
people bring it every morning, the carriers being generally young
women, who, from the steadiness requisite to balance the fruit-baskets
on their heads, acquire a good walk, somewhat at the expense of their
necks, however.
The most common sorts of vegetables exposed for sale appear to be the
sweet potatoes, yams, and lettuce; and green pea-pods are sometimes
to be had, but the latter are seldom good.
The temperature induces such a rapid vegetation as to injure their
taste, as it prevents their ripening, for, after attaining a certain
growth, the sun dries up the pod in a very few days, to prevent which
they are pulled very early, when the pea is so small and delicate,
being barely formed, that the cooks usually serve up both pods and
peas together at table, after having minced them into small pieces
with a knife, being unable to separate them properly.
The common potatoe is imported from China, and from the Australian
colonies. Those from Van Diemen's Land are the best; the sorts received
from China are usually watery and small, being greatly inferior to
those sent up from Australia.
In the fair monsoon, the Chinamen sometimes get supplies of apples,
pears, cabbage, &c., from Shanghai, and these are considered as
great delicacies.
There are many other fruits and vegetables procurable at Manilla,
but those mentioned are the sorts usually met with.