MANILA CONTINUED--CALZADA--SEA-CUCUMBER--CIGAR-FACTORY
AT BINONDO--EXPORTS--DUTIES--WEIGHTS AND
CURRENCY--EXCHANGE--IMPORTS--LUZON--CAVITÉ--HURRICANES--LAGO DE
BRIA--PINA--INDIAN AND BUFFALO--VISITS TO THE ALCADE.
There is a fashionable drive in Manila, called the Calzada,
encompassing, probably, two thirds of the circumference of Manila:
it passes over a low, level piece of ground, bordering on the fosse
or ditch of the city on one side, and on the open country and
parade-ground fronting the bay, on the other. Along this drive,
carriages may be seen rolling, filled with well-dressed ladies, but
mostly of a dark complexion, (Mestizoes,) smoking cigars with most
perfect nonchalance: some are puffing paper cigars--others, those which
resemble, in size, Havanas; and again others, a ponderous article which
would occupy an indefatigable smoker a week or ten days.
There are no public houses in the neighbourhood, and the only amusement
is a dull drive at sunset, day after day, over the same grounds, in
preference to others infinitely more pleasant, stopping occasionally
to light a cigar from a slow match: this latter article is carried by
boys, who infest the road, making loud and frequent vociferations,
going upon the full run. The market is abundantly supplied with beef,
fish, fowls, ducks, turkeys, geese, fruit, and vegetables. A large
proportion of the labouring class take their meals in the street,
from the innumerable venders which occupy the sidewalks, to the great
annoyance of pedestrians. Among the strange articles exposed for sale
in every street are fried locusts, made into a curry. That disgusting
looking fish, called by some ichthyologists, Holothurial--sea-cucumber
and sea-slug by the English--Bichos do Mar by the Portuguese--Tripango
or Trippany by the Javanese--Swala by the Sumatrans--and Balaté by the
Philippine islanders, is in common use among the Chinese and Europeans.
I have eaten it made into a soup or stew: it has a taste between the
green fat of a turtle and the soft gristle of boiled beef, and is said
to be very nutritious, but not equal to the edible bird’s-nests, or
nests of the sea-swallow of these seas. No less than five thousand,
four hundred and eighty-six piculs of one hundred and thirty-seven
pounds each, equal to seven hundred and sixty-eight thousand and forty
pounds, were shipped from this port to Canton last year, as appears by
the custom-house returns, besides a large quantity smuggled. By far
the larger portion is brought here by American vessels from the Fejee
islands. These fish resemble, when contracted, a cucumber, and it is
difficult to discover the eyes and mouth: some are black, others white,
gray, &c.: they are, at present, sold at fourteen dollars per picul,
the cargo.
The land in the vicinity, for many miles, is low and marshy, but neatly
cultivated with rice. It is surprising that health should be enjoyed at
all in the midst of rice-swamps, in this sultry climate: thousands of
huts are built in the midst of them, when it would prove fatal to the
whole population in almost any other country. The healthiness of the
climate, I think, must be attributed to the narrowness of that part of
the island, and to the constant and refreshing breezes which dissipate
its miasma. The bamboo is one of the most useful among the vegetable
creation--houses, chairs, fences, settees, buckets, boxes, baskets,
hats, drinking-cups, fans, mats for boats, spear-handles, sails, &c.,
are made of its wood; while the tender root is served up at the table,
boiled and roasted, used as a pickle and as a sweetmeat. I visited the
celebrated great cigar-factory at Binondo; about five thousand females
are employed in it, and about six hundred men: it is a royal monopoly.
Every person is searched twice a day to see if he pilfers any of his
majesty’s tobacco--he being the sole owner and master of the factory.
[Sidenote: MANILA--EXPORTS.]
The principal articles exported, (except gold and silver,) were indigo,
sugar, rice, hemp or abacia, cotton, cocoa-nut oil, sulphur, balaté, or
bichos do mar, coffee, wax and hides, in the following proportions:--
Indigo, thirty-one thousand, one hundred and nineteen arrobas, of
which twenty-five thousand were agua rose or liquid, in jars; sugar,
six hundred and seventeen thousand, seven hundred and thirty-eight
arrobas, excepting eighteen thousand arrobas of the first quality;
rice, one million, seventy-four thousand, one hundred and seventy
arrobas, including two hundred thousand, uncleaned; hemp, or abacia,
one hundred and fifty-three thousand, four hundred and forty-seven
arrobas--it is of two qualities, and is called, in the United States,
Manila-grass or hemp; cotton, four thousand one hundred and ninety-five
arrobas; cocoa-nut oil, six thousand, nine hundred and sixty-four
arrobas; sulphur, two thousand, four hundred and eighty arrobas; balaté
or bichos do mar, five thousand, four hundred and eighty-six arrobas;
coffee, fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-five arrobas; hides,
twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight arrobas.
The minor articles of export are dried shark’s fins, oysters, muscles,
shrimps and other dried fish, oil of sesamum, edible bird’s-nests,
ploughs, hatchets, knives, cowries, rattans, canes, sail-cloth of
yéacos, dammer or pitch, tortoise-shell, horns, mother-of-pearl,
shells, tallow, shoes and boots, chocolate, soap, cigars, tobacco,
saltpetre, lard, dried deer and ox sinews, birds of paradise, wheat,
flour and bread, mats and palm hats, cigar-cases, rum, molasses,
sugar-candy, sweetmeats, groundnuts, gomuti or sagwire, cabinet
furniture, ebony and Japan woods, and Agal, a species of sea-weed,
or rather dulse, dissoluble into a glutinous substance, and used in
China as a valuable paste: also sinamaya, a fine cloth, made from the
avacá; and piña, which is a narrow cloth, made from the fibres of the
pineapple; it is, deservedly, considered as one of the most beautiful
fabrics in the world--is transparent, of a great variety of beautiful
patterns, and equal in the fineness of its texture to cobweb-muslin.
A large portion of the rice is exported to Canton by Americans, to
save the measurement duty, or to Lintin when they proceed elsewhere to
purchase other than China goods. Occasionally the export is prohibited,
either from scarcity or the caprice of the government.
The export of hemp, abacá or avacá, in the year 1829, was eight
thousand, four hundred and one piculs: in 1832, it had increased to
thirty-seven thousand, five hundred:--this article is the fibrous bark
of a wild banana, (musa textilis,) which grows abundantly in all the
Philippine islands. Gomuti or sagwire is exported in its natural state,
or made into cables, &c.: it resembles very coarse black horse-hair--is
the produce of the borassus gomuti or aren palm, which yields the
sagwire for cordage, and is found lying between the trunk and the
branches, on a soft gossamer-like texture, which is used in calking the
seams of ships: it also makes a useful tinder for kindling fire--grows
luxuriantly, away from the seacoast, but never produces more than two
crops of the sagwire.
The cocoa-nut oil is mostly shipped to Singapore, and from thence to
England, where it is manufactured into candles: it is of two qualities;
the best is boiled from the green nut--the ordinary kind is ground
from nuts, broken and exposed some days to the sun: the first quality,
only, is bought for shipping; as casks cannot be obtained, it is sold
in jars, and readily congeals when the thermometer is at 70°. Wheat
is raised in abundance, and ship-bread, of a very superior quality,
is generally sold at from four to five dollars the hundred pounds. As
salted beef, pork, butter, and hams, are purchased only by foreign
captains, they are of very slow and uncertain sale.
The _Import Duty_ in foreign vessels is fourteen per centum, Spanish;
the _Export Duty_, three per centum, excepting on hemp, which is free.
The importations for the year 1831 amounted to one million, seven
hundred and ninety-four thousand, three hundred and seventy-nine
dollars; the exports for the same period, to one million, four hundred
and fourteen thousand, seven hundred and ten dollars.
The gold and silver imported, amounted to three hundred and
thirty-seven thousand, two hundred and eighty-seven dollars, and the
amount exported, on which duties were paid, was forty-nine thousand,
two hundred and nineteen dollars. A large sum in gold, silver, and
in the dust produced in the island, is smuggled out of the country,
principally by the Chinese.
_Weights._--The quintal is four Spanish arrobas of twenty-five pounds.
The picul is here one hundred and thirty-seven pounds, Spanish, or one
hundred and forty pounds, English.
The _currency_ of the island is dollars and their parts, and doubloons;
the latter being worth sixteen dollars. _Exchange_ on London was four
and a half prem.; on Canton, two per cent. discount: but it necessarily
fluctuates very materially.
The _imports_ are British, India, and China goods, wines, sheathing
copper and nails, iron and steel, cocoa from Peru, &c. During the
southwest or foul monsoon, the shipping lies at Cavité, and in the
northeast or fair monsoon, (from October to April,) from three to five
miles from the entrance to Pasig, below the bridge which unites Manila
with Binondo.
[Sidenote: POPULATION--TAXES.]
The _population_ of the archipelago of the Philippine islands,
according to the returns made, in the year 1792, was one million, four
hundred thousand, four hundred and sixty-five; in 1805, one million,
seven hundred and thirty-nine thousand, two hundred and five; in
1812, one million, nine hundred and eleven thousand, five hundred
and thirty-five; in 1815, one million, nine hundred and twenty-seven
thousand, eight hundred and forty; in 1817, two millions, sixty-three
thousand, three hundred and ninety-five; in 1818, two millions, two
hundred and forty-nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two.
The increase in twenty-six years, from 1792 to 1818, was about sixty
per cent.; if to this be added thirty-seven per cent. for the increase
in sixteen years, from 1818 to 1834, the population at present amounts
to three millions, one hundred and twelve thousand, two hundred and
ninety-seven. The island of Luzon had a population of one hundred and
forty-nine thousand, six hundred and ninety-five: if to this we add
thirty-seven per cent. up to 1834, it will give two hundred and five
thousand and eighty two. Of this number, nearly one half is within
a circuit of twelve miles of the capital. The number of the negro
race, called Aetes, Ygorzotes, or Papuas, was estimated at seventeen
thousand, three hundred and fifty-five: this number does not include
many thousands, probably, who live among the fastnesses of the
mountains.
The principal object of the Spanish government in ascertaining the
number of inhabitants, was to levy a capitation tax; in some cases as
low as one rial per head--in others, twelve rials. The Chinese pay a
much higher tax than any other foreigners; the traders, in 1832, paid
six dollars per annum--the common labourers, half that amount. The
latter tax forced many of the poorer class to emigrate: the Spanish
government is afraid of them, and wishes also to employ the natives of
the country; it therefore laid this heavy impost for the purpose of
driving them away.
No foreigners have permission to remain there, even to this day, as
permanent settlers: they are liable to be ordered out of the country
by the governor at any moment, and this right is not unfrequently
exercised.
The island of Luzon, which derives its name from Luzong, a large
wooden mortar used by the natives for cleaning rice, was discovered
in 1521, and in 1571, Manila was founded. The discoverers found the
country about Manila thickly settled with an active people called
Tagalor; at the north of this nation they met with and conquered
the Pampangoes, Zambales, Pangasinanes, Yloeds, and Cagayanes: at
the eastward of the Tagaloes were the Camarines. Each of these was
a distinct people, having a particular language. None of them had a
sovereign or chief magistrate; they were divided into a great number
of small villages, containing from fifty to one hundred families,
each governed by a chief, who was chosen for his wisdom and his deeds
in arms. These petty states were continually at war with each other,
making slaves of their unfortunate prisoners--the mountains were then,
as now, inhabited by the negro race, common to many of the islands in
the eastern archipelago. These different races of people, with the
exception of about ten thousand, still form the population of the
island.
[Sidenote: CAVITÉ--PASIG.]
Three leagues from Manila is Cavité, called by the natives Caveit,
because it is a crooked point of land extending into the sea. (Here is
a small arsenal, and some small vessels are built, and occasionally a
ship of war. It was formerly the resort of the Acapulco ships, before
South America freed herself and commerce from the shackles which
deprived her of all participation in a free trade.) The natives were
found to have all the necessaries of life--rice, beans, millet, camote,
a species of potato, pine-apples, oranges, mangoes, hogs, ducks, fowls,
goats, and buffaloes, were in abundance. The island abounded in deer,
wild pigeons, and other game; the gomuti-palm yielded them, when fresh,
a pleasant beverage--when fermented, an intoxicating liquor: the pith
furnished with sugar--when the liquor was properly boiled down, a
farina, inferior to sago, and of the inside of its triangular-shaped
fruit a sweetmeat was made. The cocoa-palm afforded a delicious
beverage, and oil for cooking or burning: the areca-palm with its nut,
and the betel-leaf, produced their favourite buyo. The lakes, rivers,
bays, and ocean, swarmed with myriads of fish, which they ensnared in
the most ingenious manner, with nets, lines, &c.
The island is traversed by a chain of mountains, extending from north
to south, from which others branch out; some are found isolated, in the
midst of plains, while others are surrounded by water. Volcanoes are
found in various parts; between the provinces of Albay and Camorines
is the Mayon, shaped like an obtuse peak; it forms a good landmark for
navigators; there is also at Taal a similarly-shaped mountain in the
midst of a lagoon; it is called Bombou. Hot springs are found in many
places. The island suffers at times from the effects of tremendous
earthquakes, which destroy massive buildings, rend asunder the solid
walls of Manila, and shake the mountain in the ocean, to its centre.
The volcanoes, also, overwhelm whole villages with ashes, stones,
sand, and water; making steril, verdant fields; carrying ruin within
its influence, and destroying the hopes of the poor husbandman. It is
subject also to desolating typhoons or hurricanes, sweeping in their
erratic course, hundreds of slight-built huts, prostrating the largest
trees, dismasting or foundering at their anchor, numerous vessels, and
driving on shore or wrecking others, for nothing moveable at times can
withstand these mighty winds. The hopes of the planter are also, in a
few hours, destroyed by devastating clouds of locusts, which infest the
land, devouring in their course every green thing.
Possessing a humid and warm atmosphere, the soil naturally yields an
abundance of the necessaries of life, but the seasons generate many
fatal diseases.
[Sidenote: PASIG.]
On Manila Sunday, (our Monday,) a party of eight, one beautiful
morning, before sunrise, proceeded in three veloches (carriages of
a certain description) to the village of Santa Anna, distant about
three miles over a fine road and highly-cultivated country, where we
embarked on board two large bankas of about eight-and-thirty feet in
length, dug out of a tree, having a light bamboo-roof which could be
elevated or depressed at pleasure, and paddled by four Indians. Between
eight and nine o’clock, we arrived at the town of Pasig, situated
about three miles from the entrance of the lake; the passage up was
delightful--the land bordering on the river was low but well cultivated
with rice, sugar-cane, &c., and fruit; it was one continuous village on
either bank. Being a holyday, the natives were well and gayly dressed;
hundreds of canoes passed us, laden with fish from the lake; others
with fruit, vegetables, eggs, areca-nut and betel-leaf, beef, pork,
fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys, cocoa-nut oil, molasses and sugar, cloth,
of various kinds, baskets, mats, hats, &c., made of bamboo, all under
cover of the moveable roof; they were paddled by an equal number of
men and women, all apparently, in good spirits, and having always at
hand a joke, to bandy with our canoe-men, in the Taga language; they
were hurrying on to the great markets at Manila and Binonda, to dispose
of their various articles. On the shores, men, women, and children
were fishing with every sort of contrivance that can be named, in
the shape of nets, hooks, and lines; some men with nets scraping up
the mud from the bottom to obtain shrimps, which they found in great
abundance; others taking very large craw-fish. Hundreds were bathing
in the river, near the banks; whole families were seen together, from
the grand-mother to the grand-daughter, washing their long black hair
with vegetable soap, called by the natives gogo, being the inner-rind
of a tree growing here in great plenty. Many of the palm and bamboo
cottages were erected on piles close to the bank of the river, and
some canoes were made fast to the ladder ready for any of the family
to take an excursion, when they wished to go to the village-church,
or to gossip with a neighbour and partake of his hospitalities, which
consist of Burgo and a cigar, a fishing-party, a main of fighting-cocks
or a boat-race. The fronts of the houses being open, all the operations
of the various families could be distinctly seen. We met with many
hotels, alias eating-shops, placed on piles some distance from the
shore, where our boatmen stopped to obtain their breakfast, which
consisted of rice, shrimp and other fish, in abundance, for which they
paid about two cents per head. Many loungers were reposing on the
bamboo-flooring, smoking or chewing burgo, flirting with the young
damsels, who were indulging themselves in the same luxury as their
beaux; at the same time, perhaps, combing out and oiling their hair,
which generally reaches to the waist, and occasionally adjusting
their tapa or outer-cloth, which is either of striped silk or cotton,
extending halfway below the knee; some wore a nicely-laced embroidered
muslin handkerchief on their heads and shoulders; their feet, or rather
toes, are covered with scant and showy slippers, having no heels nor
any quarters, cut down within an inch and a half of the end; these
were well bespangled, and some of them bound with a stripe of gold or
silver lace; they are only worn on special occasions, by particular
individuals; a large proportion of the people go barefooted, or wear a
high wooden shoe, plain or ornamented with brocaded or spangled-velvet,
or gilt-leather. Every man who is able, wears shirts of the truly
beautiful piña, or cloth made of the fibres of the pine-apple, which
is manufactured on the island. The shirts, made from this cloth,
as fine as cobweb-muslin, beautifully embroidered about the bosom,
collar, and wristbands, are worn by all the Indians and Mestizoes,
on the outside of the trousers; the latter are made of piña, or fine
grass-cloth, (called siramaya,) according to the ability of the owner.
As for stockings, they are about as useful to a young Tagalo girl, as
knee-breeches to a Scotch-highlander.
Reclining on our gay pillow, stretched at ease, full length, on a
clean mat, laid on a raised bamboo-floor, discussing the merits of
cold roast fowl, ham, and tongue; a bottle of claret, and a bottle of
porter for our breakfast, I thought there were not many persons in the
world more comfortably situated for the time being. We stayed for a
short time at the house of the alcade of Pasig, a native gentleman of
Tagola parentage, and were hospitably invited to dinner. Having walked
through the town, visited the church and bazar, (which we found well
stocked with rice and fish,) we returned to the lake. The late heavy
rains had so swollen its waters that our canoes were paddled across
extensive paddy fields, where we met with others, fishing; we passed
close to several large craft, having two masts but no bowsprits, with
large mat sails, cables, and wooden anchors of various shapes. They
were clumsily constructed and badly rigged, but gayly painted on their
high bow-boards and on each quarter; the high stern was also painted
with flowers and a figure of the patron-saint after which the vessel
was named, in the gayest colours. There was nothing to be seen, on this
part of the excursion, excepting a wide expanse of water; mountains and
hills, in the distance, and fishing-snares placed in every direction.
Game of various kinds abounds among the hills, affording fine hunting.
Boa-constrictors and other reptiles may be found in abundance, and in
the creeks, alligators of an immense size. In the lake there are said
to be one hundred different varieties of fish; but it requires a week’s
leisure, a suitable banka, with many et ceteras, to enjoy the manifold
beauties with which this sheet of water is reputed to be surrounded.
We were much amused when on our passage to the lake, in discovering,
at a distance, a man floating with the stream and seated upright in
the water; we were unable immediately to discover what supported him
in that position, but shortly after we descried the projecting nose of
an enormous carabou or Indian buffalo. The Indian appeared to be quite
at his ease, sitting astride the ponderous animal, smoking one of the
immense-sized cigars I have before mentioned, and which would last out
a reasonable cruise. With the left hand he grasped the animal’s tail,
to support him in the current, and a rope passed through the nose (the
usual custom here) served to direct the _figure-head_ to any part to
which he fancied to go. He was hailed by our Indians and asked where he
was bound; he replied he was on his way to pay visits to some Señoritas
down the river, and, subsequently, was going to Manila, to sell his
carabou, (a distance of about ten miles.)
[Sidenote: PATERO.]
The scene was occasionally enlivened by the sound of a guitar,
proceeding from a canoe or a cottage on the shore. Rafts of cocoa-nuts,
containing many thousands, guided by a single man standing in the
centre of them, holding a long pole, with other rafts, of bamboo and
timber, were constantly passing us. On our return from the lakes we
visited several small streams on the left hand of the river, on which
is situated an extensive village called Patero, alias Duck-town--a
very appropriate name for the place, for I never before saw so many
ducks together; the cottages were standing very near to each other, and
thousands of these birds were feeding on the river, being secured by
a slight fence made of bamboo. Raising ducks and fishing seemed to be
the only employment. Every thing about the inhabitants wore a rustic
appearance, which was heightened, in a certain degree, by the plantain
and mango trees, overshadowing their picturesque habitations: some were
washing clothes in the stream, others, cooking in the open air--many
were stretched out at full length, asleep; children were hanging in
cots under the shadowy branches of the trees, soothed by gentle breezes
which rocked them to sleep--others, of a larger growth, in a state of
nudity, were playing with the ducks, sailing mimic boats, or making
_dirt-puddings_--not a few in number were diverting themselves with
cock-fighting--others were endeavouring to make a little musick, and
some were playing the game of draughts, with small stones. A portion
of the young Indian girls (Tagalos) were decorating or anointing
their pretty persons--others were paddling about in small canoes,
which they would occasionally upset to create a hearty laugh and
then, like dripping Naiads, again scrambling into them, would repeat
the same frolic. This village, or a succession of villages, extends
several miles along various outlets from the main river, from which no
portion of it can be seen, being completely hidden by the trees on the
banks; it contained, in 1818, three thousand, eight hundred and forty
inhabitants, all Indians; at this period, 1834, it has, probably, four
thousand, five hundred souls.
We returned to the hospitable alcade’s house about two, being only
a couple of miles from Patero, where we found a sumptuous dinner,
consisting of not less than twelve dishes of fish and meat, with a
variety of sweetmeats, fruit and coffee, (but no wine or spirits,) and
then cigars and buyo, for those who chose them. We did ample justice
to this repast, although nearly burnt up with a hot sun. This town, or
rather cluster of villages, is inhabited wholly by Indians, principally
Tagalos, and contained in 1818, twelve thousand, one hundred and forty
souls; at the present period, it has probably a population of fifteen
thousand; the houses are mostly built of bamboo and palm, and stand
on piles. In violent typhoons it is found necessary to secure them
with ropes, passed over the roofs, and fastened to strong posts. Their
elevation on piles is found a necessary security against the lake,
which occasionally, after violent rains, spreads its wide stream over
all the lowlands bordering upon it. The inhabitants raise cane and rice
in large quantities, with some wheat, Indian corn, fruits, &c. Fishing,
more or less, is the occupation of every one; they, apparently, live in
great simplicity and comfort, wanting nothing. A considerable quantity
of sugar is made here, there being several extensive buildings for
that purpose. Having taken leave of our kind host, we proceeded down
the river to Manila, and again were much delighted with the richness,
beauty and variety of the scenery. The mango with its umbrageous arms,
affording a delightful shade to the weary traveller--the plantain
and the banana, disputing every foot of ground, on the banks of the
river, the tall and graceful bamboo overtopping every thing around
it--extensive fields of cane, waving gently their green leaves to the
passing breeze, with fields of paddy, exhibiting the green spiral
leaf of the plant above the flooded meadows; numberless cottages were
seen, deeply seated in the midst of luxuriant fruit-trees, and a
massive church or convent was always in view, in some delightful spot.
Again we met Indians, of both sexes, fishing or bathing, going upon a
water-excursion, or to a ball, to chew buyo, to have a little chit-chat
or scandal with a neighbour, or visit a holy friar of a neighbouring
convent. These rapid and varied scenes, with our agreeable company,
afforded us much pleasure as we lay in our bankas, enjoying the rapid
passing views, which lapse of years cannot efface, exhibiting a rural
picture of great simplicity and beauty; the principal actors being a
race of Indians noted for the mildness of their tempers and for their
great hospitality.