VI

First Storm of the Rainy Season--Fourth of July--Chinese "Chow"

Dogs--Crullers and Pie and a Chinese Cook--A Red-Letter Day--The

China-Japan War--Manila Newspapers--General Blanco and the

Archbishop--An American Fire-Engine and its Lively Trial--The

Coming of the Typhoon--Violence of the Wind--The Floods

Next--Manila Monotony.

July 4th.

The mails have been badly snarled up lately, and although nobody

has received any letters for nearly two weeks, none are expected

for about ten days. The other morning began the first real storm

of the rainy season, and we came very near having a bad typhoon,

but someone turned the switch, and it swirled up the back coast on

the Pacific side and crossed through a notch in the mountains, some

distance to the north of Manila, giving the city only four days of

monstrous winds and floods of rain. The streets were two feet deep

with water in the business section, and down at our house by the

sea the wind blew so hard that it carried the tin from our roof off

to visit the next suburb. Then it was that those sturdy windows of

small sea-shells set into hardwood lattice seemed far more secure

than glass, and I doubt if anything less well constructed would have

stood the blast that surged in from the broad bay.

Going downtown in the morning, my carriage was slid clean across the

road by the force of the wind, and once it seemed as if I might be

lifted up into the low clouds that scudded close to the tops of the

bamboo-trees. Huge seas came tumbling ashore on the beach, and the

vessels in the great exposed Bay had all they could do to hang to their

anchors, as the surf sometimes dashed as high as their lower foreyards.

The natives never carry umbrellas in the rain, but march along and

do not seem to mind getting wet to the skin. They do indeed look

bedraggled in their thin clothes, that cling like sticking-plaster,

and it seems as if they would get the fever. During the present blow,

the single pony hitched to a tram-car often found his load moving

him astern, and it was only by leaving the whole car wide open, so

that the air could have free passage through from end to end and side

to side, that he now and then made headway against the blast. This

was not pleasant for the passengers, but made less demand on the

motive-power. The bands at the Luneta have played when they got a

chance, but the wind howls in from the Bay, as a rule, louder than

the tunes bowl out of their brass instruments.

To-day seems to be the Glorious Fourth, and my colleague and I have

just come back from the shipping, where the Captain of the Helen

Brewer asked us to eat a celebrative dinner. All the ships in the

Bay were dressed with flags, and the Brewer, which possessed more

than her share, had a long line stretched from the bowsprit over the

three masts down to the stern. Everybody was interested in the feast,

and the Captain with the false teeth, who comes from New Hampshire,

sent over a goose and some mince-pies. Eight of us sat down in the cozy

saloon and partook of a meal altogether too hearty for the climate. The

day was cool and overcast, and we spent a lazy afternoon on deck,

listening to yarns told by two old salts who seemed to have had more

than their share of wrecks, typhoons, and other adventures.

When we came ashore, at about sunset, there was gathered up from the

remains of the feast the "seven basketsful," and we each went back

in the launch, decorated with a bag of doughnuts under one arm and

a bag of mince-pies under the other.

One of our small family of dogs was run over by the tram-car the

other morning, in front of the house, and now rests in peace in a

little grave down on the beach, hard by the rhythmic cadence of the

waves. His little brother, who was suffering at the time from the

distemper, was so grieved at the loss that he too speedily faded away,

and now lies close beside the other victim of circumstances. On the

tombstone is a touching epitaph:

"Pompey and Nettie, here they lie;

Born to live, they had to die.

The wheels of fate ran over one,

The other was by grief undone."

Most of the large army of dogs that make a Manila night hideous

are of that mongrel order, which is always looking for something to

eat, but now and then one sees a good many of the so-called Chinese

"chow"-dogs about the streets, and with their black tongues, long

hair, and peculiar bushy tails that curl sharply up over their backs,

they are quite as interesting, as unaffectionate. Over in China they

make very good eating up to the age of three months, and from this

fact derive the "chow" part of their name. Although they are very

susceptible to changes of locality and climate, we are now making

negotiations to have one brought over to take the place of the dear

departed eulogized above. And later, I may even try the experiment

of having one for Sunday dinner--if he doesn't make a good pet.

The doughnuts which I brought home from the Brewer have proved very

interesting to my cook, and I have been obliged to count them each

day for purposes of security. He now watches me closely as I make away

with one or two for breakfast, to see just what effect these marvellous

looking "fried holes" have on my intellect. I notice he looks to see

if there are any crumbs left, from which he might gather an inkling as

to the composition of these curios; but so far there haven't been any

crumbs. As he is cooking for us now, instead of the Chinese gentleman

that we originally had, this curiosity is but natural, and some day he

will probably try to furnish us with the native-made article. In fact

he has already tried the experiment of concocting a mince-pie after the

general appearance of one of the earlier donations made by a captain

in the Bay, and the result was worthy of description. As I arranged

to measure the original pie after each meal, before locking it up in

our safe, in order to protect it from disappearing, my faithful cook

could only guess as to its composition by sundry glances from afar. But

being of an inventive mind he conceived the idea of chopping up some

well-done roast beef, mixing with it some sugar and raisins, roofing

it over with a thatch of pastry, and serving it for dessert. And then

as we came to the course in question he stood in the doorway waiting

for our verdict. His effort was worthy of all praise, but his pie

was damnable, and pieces of it went sailing out the windows.

July 28th.

On the 20th instant a steamer arrived from Hong Kong, and had the

honor of being the first vessel to come in from that port in thirty

days. She was supposed to have three American mails aboard, but it

turned out that they were down to arrive by the vessel coming in six

days later. I came to the office the other morning, and looking toward

my desk, found it almost invisible. It looked as if somebody in the

neighborhood were the editor of a paper, and as if all the spring

poets in the universe had sent their manuscripts for inspection. The

desk groaned beneath the bulky chaos of three mails from the United

States, delayed in transmission by the black plague, and fumigated

together down the bay. But no sooner had we gotten through the first

course of an epistolary feast than the captain of a large four-masted

ship shuffled into the room and deposited a huge pot of steaming baked

beans, just fresh from his steward's galley-stove, on the table. What

with beans, letters, magazines, and comic papers, it might be said

our day was a red-letter one.

The other day my colleague and I took dinner off aboard the Nagato

Maru, a smart steamer just in from Japan, and captained by an American

who knows what it is to set a good table. It seems that the China-Japan

war has actually broken out in all its glory, and as there is a vague

rumor that a Chinese war-ship is waiting outside to capture this very

same steamer, she is going to stay here for awhile.

The Japanese have sunk several Chinese transport ships already,

and one of the unfortunate craft used to come here to Manila. In

other directions the Chinese are said to have beaten the Japs badly

on land, but over in this slow old moth-eaten place the daily papers

will publish cablegrams from Spain by the page, that give out nothing

but official stuff and Government appointments; and when it comes to

something of real interest, like a war, they will either be without any

news whatever, or tell the whole story wrong side out in a single line,

that may or may not be true. And so you are probably getting better

news of this whole affair, twelve thousand miles away, than we are,

who are almost on the field of action.

Our Manila papers consist of four pages, the first two of which are

especially reserved for advertisements. Half of one of the inside

leaves is likewise reserved, and the remaining half is covered with

blocks full of gloomy sentiments which relate to the decease of this

or that person. There is a little black frame of type around each

square, and at the top is a cross, with a "R.I.P." or "D.O.M." under

it. Below comes the name of the defunct, with hour, minute, day,

and year of his birth and death, and below his virtues are extolled

and his friends invited to pray for the repose of his soul. Every

year, each person that has died the year before has his anniversary,

both in church and in the newspapers; and when you recollect that

out of a population of 350,000 a good many depart each twelvemonth,

it is hard to see why the whole paper shouldn't consist of these

notices. The other inside page contains the news, and we learn that

a bad odor has been discovered up some side-street; that a dog fell

into the river and was drowned; that a perfumery store has received a

new kind of liquefied scent; that it will probably rain in some part

of the island during the day; and that the band on the Luneta ought

not to be frightened off merely by a few drops that fall from some

passing cloud. And so it goes until the French or English mail comes

in, and then the progressive dailies copy all the news they can find,

out of the foreign papers, and serve it up cold, æt. one month.

I met General Blanco, Governor of the islands, the other evening,

and he seemed to enjoy the good music and good supper which one of

our popular bank-managers and his wife provided for some of us in

the colony on the occasion of a birthday. He is an elderly man, and

kindly, and appears milder in disposition than would seem advisable

for one occupying so important a position. I should think he might

let some of those sharp eyed little ministers of his run him, and he

appears almost too modest, too kind-hearted, to be the ruler that

he is. Suffice to say the General is modest in dress and modest in

manner. He often walks up and down the Malecon promenade by the Bay

in the afternoon, saluting everyone that passes, and when the vesper

bells ring out the hour of prayer from one of the old churches inside

the city walls he stops, removes his tall gray stove-pipe and, as

do a host of other pedestrians, bows his head. To tell the truth he

has little of the Spanish aspect about him and is just the kind of

a man one would go up and speak to on the Teutonic or Campania. In

sharp contrast is he to the Archbishop, who drives about behind

his fine white horses and looks as keen as well-nourished. But who

knows! Appearances are deceitful, and foolish he who trusts to them.

August 11th.

Two steamers have just come in from Hong Kong and are tied up in

quarantine down at Marivelis, at the mouth of the Bay. The mail ought

to be here in forty-eight hours, but two days is a very short time to

give Manila postal authorities, for they really are slow enough to

desire four--one in which to make up their minds to send a launch,

two in which to go, three in which to come back, and four in which

to distribute the results of their camphorated fumigation.

The most noteworthy thing that has happened in the way of excitement

since the last mail was the operating of the new American fire-engine,

which we imported from the States for the wealthy proprietor of our

hemp-press, who is part Spaniard, part native, and part Chinese. It

seems he was up in our office one day, and on the centre-table

saw a catalogue containing pictures of a collection of our modern

fire-fighters. He asked what those things were, and, on being told

that they were used to put out fires, said he wanted one at once,

the biggest we could get him, in order that he might reduce the

insurance he was paying on his large store-houses and still go on

collecting the premiums from those whose goods were in his charge.

Although ours is an exporting business, and we do not know much about

fire-engines, yet the occasion seemed auspicious, the prospect of

payment sure, and the outlook interesting. The result was that we

forwarded the order to New York by the first mail, and the other

day, after four months of waiting, the pieces of the big engine came

over on the Esmeralda, in big cases. They were very heavy, and the

natives began the exhibition by nearly dropping the boiler into the

river as they attempted to hoist it into a lighter. To skip over the

difficulties which were encountered in hoisting the cases onto the

quay in front of the offices of our well-to-do purchaser, we come to

the mental hardships that were encountered in putting the machine

together; for no one in Manila had ever seen a Yankee fire engine

before, and although we had a full description of the complicated

mechanism, with drawings of the parts, and numbers where each piece

was to fit onto some other piece, there was no one in town who could

help us much in getting it into working order.

Fortunately, the hemp business was dull and my colleague and I were

thus enabled to give more attention to this Chinese puzzle than if

the fibre market had been booming. The red wheels with gold stripes

were the first thing to be adjusted, and the eyes of the onlookers

who happened to be strolling up and down the quay opened to large

dimensions as the covering was stripped from the nickel-plated boiler

and the process of establishment went on. At last the big machine

was on its feet, with valves and gear adjusted, and with the slight

assistance which we got from a Spanish engineer who knew something

about marine machinery, we found out that the whistle ought not to

be screwed onto the safety-valve.

Several Englishmen who happened to come by in the early stages of

our efforts made sarcastic comments on the appearance of our new toy,

and could not see how an affair with so much gold paint on the wheels

and so much nickel on the boiler was going to work successfully. But

we did not say much, since we were well occupied in trying to find out

the proper way to fill the boiler. Someone suggested pouring the water

down the whistle, and so, mounted on a step-ladder, one to us began

the interesting experiment. The water seemed to run in all right,

as it gurgled down through the pipes, and did not leak out of the

bottom. As there did not seem to be any other loophole to the boiler,

we concluded this must be the right method, and took turns for an hour

in emptying the contents of an old kerosene tin into the whistle-valve.

Next, with great trepidation, we started a fire in the grate, and were

rejoiced to see that the new engine was soon fuming away like an old

veteran. It quite spruced us up to hear the fire crackle under the

boiler; but our heads became even more swelled when steam enough was

generated to tickle the feed-pump into taking care of all the vacant

lots in the boiler-tubes.

When our friend Don Capitan found that the engine was going to work

and knew its business, he said we must have a big trial and let all

Manila see the show. To this end he sent around printed programmes

of what was going to take place, to all the prominent people in the

city--for he was an Alderman, by the way--inviting them to inspect

the working of the engine and partake of a collation afterward in

the spacious buildings of the hemp-press.

Wednesday, the fatal day, arrived, and the great American fire-engine

stood out on the quay glistening in the sun, the centre of an admiring

crowd of open-mouthed natives. The Englishmen in the background rather

put their heads together and shook them the wrong way, as they often

do at anything American, but the natives allowed their lower lips to

drop from overwhelming admiration. Everybody was curious, and all were

expectant, from the small kids dressed in nothing but the regulation

Philippine undershirt, who played shinney with the coal for the boiler

and looked down the hose-nozzle, to Don Capitan himself, who went

around shaking by the hands all the high and mighty officials who had

come to see his latest freak. My associate and I felt fairly important

as we gruffly ordered the police to clear the ground for action and

blew the whistle to scare the audience. The huge suction-hose was run

into the river, and our host made his pet servant jump in after it to

hold the strainer out of the mud. Ten natives were stationed at the

nozzle of the four-inch hose, which was pointed up the small plaza

running back from the quay, and while I poked up the fire to give us

a little impressive smoke, Rand rang the bell and turned on steam.

The affair worked admirably, and the big stream of yellow water went

so far as to gently soak down a lot of baled tobacco that was lying

on a street-corner at the next block, supposedly beyond reach. The

owner of the tobacco, thinking that a thunder-storm had struck

the town, came to the door of his office, just behind, to see what

was up, and, as the engine suddenly began to work a little better,

the stream of water somehow knocked him over and played around the

entrance to his store-house. At the rate things were going it looked

as if the exhibition would prove expensive and, to avoid diplomatic

complications, we shut off steam long enough to shift the hose over

for a more unobstructed spurt along the river.

In a few moments after the change had been made an open throttle made

a truly huge torrent belch from the long nozzle with such force as

to make the ten hose-men feel decidedly nervous, but it did not stop

them from turning the stream toward a lighter which was being polled

down the Pasig by two Malays. The foremost was washed backward into

the lighter, and the hindmost swept off into the river as if he had

been a cockroach. A Chinaman who was paddling a load of vegetables to

the Esmeralda in a hollow tree-trunk suffered the same fate. He and

his greens were swished out of the banca, in an instant, and he found

himself sitting on his inverted craft floating helplessly down-stream.

Then suddenly, as we opened the throttle to the last notch, the hose

men, in their excitement to wet some coolies loading hemp, far up

the quay, tried to turn the torrent back onto the pavement, but,

with its force of fifteen hundred gallons to the minute, it was too

quick for them, and with one mighty "kerchug" broke away to send the

nozzle flying around like a mill-wheel. Before they knew what struck

them the ten men holding the nozzle were knocked prostrate, and two

small boys in undershirts, who were playing around in the mud-puddles

near by, were whisked off into the river like so much dust. A dozen

lightning wriggles of the hose, and the frenzied cataract shot a

third boy through the wire door into the office of our friend, Don

Capitan. Inside the door, on a wooden settee, were sitting some of the

family servants holding their infants, and the same stream on which

the boy travelled through the door washed the whole party, settee

and all, across the hallway into a heap at the foot of the stairs.

Outside, the audience stampeded, and the man in the river, holding

on to the suction hose, had hard work to prevent being drawn up

through the strainer and pumped out the other end in fragments. All

this took place in a quarter of the time it takes to tell of it, and

events followed each other in such quick succession that the hose had

started to turn over on its back and charge on the engine before one

of us rushed in to shut off steam. The two boys washed into the river

were fished out more dead than alive, but more frightened than hurt,

and the native Philippine policeman on duty at the front arrested

them promptly for daring to be drowned. The boy blown through the

screen-door had his ear badly torn, and was likewise arrested for

not entering the house in a more civilized manner. The natives nursed

their bare feet stepped on in the rush; the Englishmen, who had been

sarcastic several days before, said nothing; but the Spaniards asked

where the collation was, and, waterlogged though they were, began to

eat like good ones. The policeman marched the three boys in undershirts

to the station-house, and next morning the daily newspapers devoted

more space than was usual in describing the wonderful machinery that

came from America, for the benefit of their readers, who, like that

English dude of old, "didn't weahlly dweam that so much wattah could

come out of such a wehwey diminootive-looking affaiah."

Otherwise, in Manila we are now enjoying the so-called veranillo,

or little summer, which every year comes along about the middle of

August, and which consists of two or three weeks of cool, pleasant

weather, that comes between the rains of July and the typhoon season of

September. And fine weather it is, with a jolly breeze blowing in from

the China Sea all day, with delightful afternoons, moonlight nights,

and fresh mornings.

September 20th.

There has been no opportunity to start letters off for the other side

of the globe since the early days of the present month, on account

of a typhoon which has visited our fair capital, and which has so

delayed steamers that all connections seem to have been scattered to

the four winds. I have long been waiting to become acquainted with

one of these aërial disturbances, and at last the meteorological

monotony has been broken.

Early in this eventful week, warnings came from our most excellent

observatory, run by the Jesuit priests, that trouble was brewing down

in the Pacific to the south and east, and by Friday signal No. 1 of the

danger system was displayed on the flagstaff of the look-out tower. The

news about the storm was indefinite, but the villain was supposed to be

slowly moving northwest, headed directly for Manila. Saturday up went

signal No. 2, and in the afternoon No. 3, and by evening No. 4. Still

everything was calm and peaceful, and Sunday morning dawned pleasant

but for the exception of a dull haze. Early in the afternoon up

went signal No. 5, which means that things are getting pretty bad,

and which is not far from No. 8, the worst that can be hoisted.

Everybody now began to get ready for the invisible monster. All

the steamers and ships in the river put out extra cables, and the

vessels in the Bay extra anchors. No small craft of any kind were

permitted to pass out by the breakwater, and later navigation in the

river itself was prohibited. Still everything was calm and quiet,

but the haze thickened and low scud-clouds began to sail in from the

China Sea. Shortly after tiffin at our residence by the seaside, our

gaze was attracted by a native coming down the street, dressed in a

black coat with shirt-tails hanging out beneath, and wearing white

trousers and a tall hat. He carried a decorated cane, wore no shoes,

and marched down the centre of the street, giving utterance to solemn

sentences in a deep musical voice. In short, he was the official crier

to herald the coming of the typhoon, and as he marched along the bells

up in the old church beyond our house rang out what poets would call

"a wild, warning plea."

The natives opposite began hastily to sling ropes over the thatch of

their light shanties, and one of the Englishmen who lived not far back

of us had already stretched good solid cables over the steep-sloping

roof of his domicile. A sort of hush prevailed, and then sudden

gusts began to blow in off the bay. The scud-clouds increased and

appeared to be in a fearful hurry. The roar of the surf loudened, and

one after the other of our sliding sea-shell windows had to be shut

and bolstered up for precaution. The typhoon seemed to be advancing

slowly, as they often do, but its course was sure. Our eight o'clock

dinner-hour passed and the wind began to howl. Before turning in for

the night, we moved out of our little parlor such valuable articles as

might be most missed if they decided to journey off through the air

in company with the roof, and later tried to sleep amidst a terrific

din of rattlings. But slumber was impossible. Our house trembled like

a blushing bride before the altar, and for the triumphal music of the

"Wedding March" the tin was suddenly stripped off our rain-shed roof

like so much paper. And then the racket! Great pieces of tin were

slapping around against the house like all possessed; the trees in the

front garden were sawing against the cornices, as if they wanted to

get in, and the rush of air outside seemed to generate a vacuum within.

At 3 A.M. things got so bad that it seemed as if something were

going to burst, and my chum and I decided to take a last look into

the parlor before seeking the safety of the cellar. No glass would

have withstood the gusts that came pouncing in from the Bay, but

our sea-shell windows did not seem to yield. The rain was sizzling

in through the cracks like hot grease when a fresh doughnut is

dropped into the spider, and the noise outside was deafening. As

our house seemed to be holding together, however, we gave up going

to the regions below, and turned in again, thankful that we were not

off on the ships in the Bay. Now and then the wind lulled somewhat,

and blew from another quarter, but by early morning came some of the

most terrific blowings I have ever felt, resulting from the change

of direction. Down came all the wires in the main street; over went

half a dozen nipa houses to one side of us, and "kerplunk" broke off

some venerable trees that for many years had withstood the blast. The

street was a mass of wreckage, as far down as the eye could see, and

few signs of life were visible. During the rest of the day the wind

blew most fiercely, but from the change of direction it was easy to

see that the centre of the typhoon was passing off to the northwest.

I sallied out later in the afternoon, dressed in not much more than a

squash-hat, a rubber coat, and a pair of boots, whose soles were holy

enough to let the water out as fast as it came in. It was as much as

one could do to stand against the blast, but I managed to keep along

behind the houses, cross the streets, and reach the Luneta, where

all the lamps bent their heads with broken glass, and where the huge

waves were flying far up into the air in their efforts to dispose

of the stone sea-wall. The clumps of fishing and bath houses which

stood perched on posts out in the surf were being fast battered to

pieces, and those which were not minus roof and sides were washed up

into the road as driftwood. The natives were rushing gingerly hither

and thither, grabbing such logs as they could find, while some of the

fishermen's families were crouching behind a stone wall watching their

wrecked barns, and sitting on their saucepans, furniture, and babies,

to keep them from sailing skyward. The surf was tremendous, the vessels

in the bay were shrouded in spray, and several of them seemed almost

to be ashore in the breakers. A steamer appeared to have broken adrift

and was locked in the embrace of a Nova Scotia bark. But everything

comes to an end and as night drew on the winds and rain subsided and

comparative quiet succeeded a season of exaggerated movement and din.

The typhoon was wide in diameter, perhaps two hundred miles, and so

was not destructive, like the one that laid Manila low way back in the

'80's. It seems that the larger the diameter of one of these circular

storms, the less its intensity, and although the wind at any given

time is moving with tremendous velocity within the circle, the whole

disturbance is not advancing at a pace much over a dozen miles an hour.

After the typhoon came the floods, and the old Pasig covered the

adjacent country. The water concealed the road to the uptown club

at Nagtajan under a depth of several feet, and one could without

difficulty row into the billiard-room or play water-polo in the

bowling-alley. Two of my friends were nearly drowned by trying to

drive when they should have swum or gone by boat. The pony walked

off with their carriage into a rice-field, in the darkness, and was

drowned in more than eight feet of water. The boys only crawled

out with difficulty, and just managed to reach "dry land" (that

with three feet of water over it) in the nick of time. As it was,

one of them practically saved the other's life, and has since been

presented with a gold watch, which does not run.

One of the bank-managers was to give a dinner-dance at his house

next evening, to which everyone was invited, when word came that

his bungalow could only be reached by boats, and that the festivities

would have to be put off until the parlor floor appeared. To the north,

where the actual centre of the typhoon passed, the railway was swept

away, the telegraph line that connects with the cable to Hong Kong

torn down, and the country in general laid under water. But the show

is now concluded, and business, which had been paralyzed for a week,

once more starts up with the coming of the cablegrams.

Manila life goes on as ever, and it is curious to note how fast the

days and weeks slip backward. Everyone agrees that the most rapid

thing in town, except the winds of the typhoons, is the speed with

which the Philippine to-day becomes yesterday. The secret seems to

lie in the fact that there are no landmarks by which to remember

the weeks that are gone. The trees are green all the year round,

and there are no snow-storms to mark the contrast between winter and

summer. There are no class-days, no ball-games, and no coming out

in spring fashions to break the orderly procession of the sun, moon,

and stars. We wear our white starched suits every day in the year, and

one's wardrobe is not replete with various checks, plaids, and stripes

that mark an epoch in one's appearance. We cannot, like Teufelsdröch,

in "Sartor Resartus," speculate much on the "clothes philosophy,"

though we may do so on the centres of indifference; for our garments

are not complex enough to invite transcendental theorizing. Manila

food is alike from Christmas morn to the following Christmas eve, and

so, take it all in all, the past is practically without milestones,

and seems far shorter than one in which many events make the measured

steps more clearly differentiated.

At present everybody dates his ideas from the typhoon, and that

will remain a landmark for some time, if the fire which took place

the other evening on the banks of the river does not usurp its

position. Ten thousand bales of hemp, and a lot of copra, sugar,

and cocoanut-oil were sent aloft in less earthly form. Æsthetically

the sight was beautiful, and the eye was charmed by the mingling of

vast tongues of blue, green, red, and yellow flames, some of which

burst forth from the very waters of the river itself on which the

inflammable materials had excursioned. Our new fire-engine was on

hand for the first time, in actual service, and, together with the

small English engine brought out from London, did its duty. America,

as usual, was in the lead, and everybody stood aghast to see the big

five-inch stream mow down the brick walls of the burning houses like

grain before the reaper. One native in particular, whose frail hut was

washed to splinters by that big cataract played upon it to save it from

the flames, said he'd rather lose his property by fire than to stand

by and see the blooming bomba (fire-engine) blow it all to bits. The

local department, as usual, lost their heads, and while some began to

chop the tiles off the roofs of neighboring houses, others directed the

streams from the hand-pumps onto the choppers. Even our gallant friend

the American broker, who helps swell the number of Yankee business

men in Manila to four, almost got roasted alive by being shut into an

iron vault as he tried to rescue some valuable papers belonging to a

customer and had to be soused with water, after his miraculous escape,

to lower his temperature. But at length Providence and water prevailed,

and the damage did not come to more than half a million dollars.