On the 22d of November we left Hong Kong for Manila, our agents
concluding to wait no longer for hemp to fall, but to load the ship
with sugar. We took in three million pounds, enough, we were told, to
supply our whole country one day.
We reached Manila Bay Dec. 1, but we would not have wondered had we
been weeks, instead of five days, in contest with the current and
head winds. One day we tacked fourteen times off Manila. At length we
dropped anchor in the spacious roadstead, and waited for the health
officers and the custom-house officials to inspect us. No one is
allowed to have any communication with a vessel until she is officially
visited. Steam-tugs would be an advantage to weary mariners contending
against the current in sight of anchorage.
We were the guests of a gentleman and his wife, he a member of the
house of Messrs. Peele, Hubbell, & Co.[60] We were there seven weeks,
and, even if delicacy permitted, language would fail in the attempt to
express what we enjoyed in that beautiful house. Situated at one end
of the city in the parish of Santa Ana we were removed from the noise
and tumult of business. The river runs near the house with a current
of at least four miles an hour, bringing down, day by day, literally
innumerable wild herbage plants washed from the lakes in the country.
Few things ever gave me a more vivid idea of infinitude than that
ceaseless flow of herbage. Immense plaintain-leaves stood round the
house looking like the blades of huge oars; the banana hung in large
clusters; the garden was filled with many things to delight the eye.
The house covered a large area. You enter it by a spacious driveway,
roofed over with the main building. Stone steps lead up to the story on
which are all the rooms in the house, high and wide, opening into the
large hall. Instead of carpets, floors here are polished, by rubbing
them with the plaintain-leaf. The house was cool and in all respects
most comfortable. The eye is refreshed by constant verdure, the grass
in December and January having the brilliant green which our early
grass presents in the month of June. It seemed strange to be riding in
open carriages at Christmas-time and January, with ladies in muslin
dresses, or requiring only light shawls. The atmosphere is clear, and
the stars have so peculiar a lustre as to be the subject of remark by
foreigners. The river runs about fifteen miles to a lake, by cocoanut
groves, and in some places by steep cliffs nearly two hundred and fifty
feet on each side, covered with foliage, and having small cascades.
In the river there are as many as twenty-eight rapids. Some of our
party ascended them in canoes, spending two days on an excursion with
a company. One evening a party of gentlemen took a small steamer, the
private property of a friend, and went with us up to the lake. It was a
moonlight night; the East-Indian scenery, the curves in the stream, and
at last the scenery of the lake, made the excursion enchanting.
The society in Manila, composed of American, English, Scotch, and
Spanish people, was delightful. Their hospitalities, entertainments,
and numberless courtesies make deep impressions upon a visitor. There
are no unpleasant distinctions among them; they maintain an agreeable
freedom in their intercourse. Indeed one cannot spend a few days in
Manila without feeling glad if it happens to be at the close of a long
tour; for as it will be most likely to be pronounced the climax of his
social experience, it will be appropriate to leave it at the close.
I used to drive with Mr. Peirce when he visited the sugar mills where
his House were obtaining their supply of sugar to load our ship. We saw
the crude material just from the cane, drying in the sun. I remember
that on our passage home from Manila the cabin table happened to be
short of sugar; but having three million pounds on board we ventured to
draw on the cargo for a supply. When it came on table from the hold,
the sight of it made us feel that sugar refinery was far from being a
luxury, for it was hard to believe that the dark, coarse stuff could
ever become white powdered sugar. Could we but shut our eyes, as we
were inclined to do when we put it into our cups, we could draw from
it a power of sweetness, though with a large tare and tret of original
fibrous matter.