If one has thoughts of going out to the Philippines he should learn how
to speak Spanish, and how to accept, "cum grano salis," descriptions
of the country, either too glowing or too gloomy. Some have gone
to Manila and liked it, others have made their retreat homeward
echo with tales of weary woe about this Malay capital. To each it
seems to mean something different according as he kept his health
or lost it, as he fell in with the life or didn't, and as he was
successful or unsuccessful in that for which he left the upper side
of the globe. Before buying one's ticket for the Far East one must
not be moved by the suggestions of "thoughtful" persons, who say you
are going to the ends of the earth and must therefore take all sorts
of clothes, pianos, and means of subsistence. Accept their sympathy
but not always their advice, and if Manila be your destination, be
assured you are not bound for an altogether isolated village. They
may do some things out there which are not down on the programme of
a day's routine in the United States. The fire-engines may be drawn
by oxen, the natives--contrary to Biblical suggestion--may build the
roof to their shanties first and make arrangements for underpinning
afterward; women may smoke cigars, and snakes may be more effective
rat-catchers than cats or terriers. But there are shops in Manila,
tailors, drug-stores, parks, tramways, churches, electric lights,
schools, and theatres which are not altogether unlike those in the
Western world.
And, in times of peace, the capital is not an altogether bad sort of
a place to live in, though I can't say as much for some of the lesser
towns. One may be susceptible to fever, in which case he must avoid
sleeping near the ground or going about much in the sun. He may suffer
from prickly heat, in which case he will not want to take oatmeal,
drink chocolate, eat mangoes, or smoke pipes. Or he may become a
mark for sprue--that peculiarly oriental disease which seems to
destroy the lining to one's interior--in which case the quicker he
takes the steamer for Japan or for 'Frisco the better. He may run
against small-pox, but ought not to take it. He will have a cold
or two, but won't hear of cholera or find a native word for yellow
fever. Should the wind strike in from the northwest during the wet
season, he must look out for typhoons, and not be surprised if,
like my friend the Englishman, he some day finds only his upright
piano on the spot where his light-built house stood--the rest of his
things having hastened to the next village. If he feels the ground
getting restless he must look out for the oil lamps on the table,
or the tiles on the roof. He must not take too cold baths, sleep in
silk pajamas, or walk when he has the "peseta" to ride. And in all
things he will be better off by remembering to apply that motto of
the ancient Greeks, mêden agan--in nothing to excess.
Manila is the new Mecca, and for some time to come she is going to
be looked at on the map, talked about at the dinner-table and by the
fireside, and written up from all quarters. At present this Pearl of
the Orient is but a jewel in the rough, but with good men to make her
laws, and her gates wide open to the pilgrims of the world, she soon
should shine as brilliantly as any city in the Far East.