V Manila — Homeward Bound
My country, sir, is not a single spot
Of such a mould, or fixed to such a clime;
No! ’tis the social circle of my friends,
The loved community in which I’m linked,
And in whose welfare all my wishes centre.
Miller’s Mahomet.
Whose heart has ne’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
W. Scott; Lay of the Last Minstrel.
There blend the ties that strengthen
Our hearts in hours of grief,
The silver links that lengthen
Joy’s visits when most brief.
Then dost thou sigh for pleasure?
Oh! do not widely roam,
But seek that hidden treasure
At home, dear home!
Bernard Barton.
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.
Manila Cigars
I visited the great cigar factories and imagined how my friends, lay and clerical, would envy me the privilege. But I could not be in the atmosphere of the factory ten minutes without experiencing a feeling akin to vertigo, which made me retreat to the open air. By going out and in several times I succeeded in gratifying my curiosity. The gentlemanly foreman begged me to take some of his products as specimens. I told him I could not appreciate them. He said if I would allow him to give me only one he was sure that he could overcome my repugnance. He went to a private drawer and drew out one on which he duly expatiated, then wrapped it in a paper and gave it to me. It is now in my drawer at home, two years old, well seasoned; waiting for my decision whether it will be safe to give it to some clerical friend who will promise that he will leave off smoking if I will treat his resolution with this very choicest Manila. Or would the gift have a powerful effect in an opposite direction?
The Church of Santa Ana
We were near the old Church of Santa Ana, whose bells many times a day remind the faithful of their devotions. They were played skilfully, with a loud noise and with a vivacity such as I never before heard from bells. On one bell a man would drum a tune, the military music on a church bell having a decidedly frivolous effect. At six o’clock in the afternoon, the native inhabitants pause wherever they may happen to be at the vesper bell, and perform their devotions. I frequently met the Archbishop and his secretary in an evening walk, who would stop suddenly when the bell struck and, uncovering their heads, would repeat their prayers. I visited most of the churches. Imposture nowhere reigns with more open demands upon the credulity of the people. In one of the churches there are large paintings of the “Holy Girdle,” whose marvellous cures, and power over serpents, and the bestowment of blessings in answer to faith in it, are described in large letters. Each of the many parishes has a monthly procession in which the population join. One evening we encountered a procession which blocked the streets for two hours. Four thousand women in black filled each side of the wide street, chanting Scripture and prayers, the men occupying the middle of the street with an imposing show of images of canonized persons surrounded with lighted chandeliers. Each woman in this procession had a lighted wax candle which she had bought of the priests, to be returned to them after the march. This is the source of a large revenue to the Church. These processions keep up a lively enthusiasm among the people.
Pina Articles
The manufacture of the Pina articles employs the people at home. These exquisite articles, such as veils, handkerchiefs, &c., are made of the fibre of the pine-apple; at almost every house in some of the poorer parts of the city you see this work on small frames, exposed to the sun.
Game Cocks
The men are very many of them occupied in the training of game-cocks; frequently every tenth man you meet will have one of these birds under his arm.
Tiger and Buffalo Fight
One Sabbath we were told there was a fight between a tiger and a buffalo on exhibition. The buffaloes are meek, docile animals, used instead of oxen. Their horns are wide-spread and very long. The buffalo took the tiger on his horns, threw him high, and the fall indisposed him for further effort.
Fire-Flies
Some of the most beautiful objects here are the trees filled with fire-flies. Sometimes all along a road the trees will be crowned with the small creatures, their light constantly emitted; so that the tree looks as though it were filled with gems. Few sights are more attractive.
Spanish Music
The inhabitants resort in the evening to the Pier, which is a solid structure extending a sixteenth of a mile into the bay, a sea-view on all sides; and once a week there is music by the bands, which draws crowds. Much of this Spanish music is more sentimental than we are accustomed to hear addressed to the populace, exciting a thoughtful attention.
Climate of Manila
Manila is the capital of Luzon, one of the Philippine Islands. The climate in December and January was intensely hot. After nine o’clock in the morning, it was not agreeable to be out of doors, even to drive; but at five in the afternoon, and in the evening, the cool sea-breezes made it pleasant to be abroad.
Religious Service
Religious services are sustained on Sabbath evenings by a few christian friends at the house of one of their number, but there is no public place of Protestant worship there. It was instructive to go from China, from the depths of heathen idolatry, into the depths of formalism under the name of Christianity. You question whether you have advanced at all into the light of truth; for though it is a relief to be where the Scriptures and the names and forms of christianity are heard and seen, you are impressed with the bias of the human heart to idolatry. To come from heathenism in China, and Roman Catholic superstition in Manila, into christian temples here at home, makes you wonder that only a certain number of leagues of salt water separate between us and such places as Canton or Manila.
Tropical Fruits
Of all the fruits which I have tasted in any part of the world, nothing has seemed to me preferable to the East Indian Mango. It is about the length of a full grown cucumber, as large as the largest specimens of that vegetable, smaller at one end that at the other. It has a flat stone extending from end to end. The skin is about the thickness of that of the banana. You stand the mango on one end in your plate and slice it on either side of the stone. Two slices then lay before you. With a dessert spoon you take out piece after piece of the tender fruit, and when you have eaten both halves to the skin, there yet remains the stone, which has a great deal on it. You take it up in both hands and pass your mouth around it. By this time your hands and face are a spectacle which you can judge of by the predicament which you see your neighbor to be in. You are ready to agree with the East Indian maxim that a mango never should be eaten except in a tub of water. You cannot help beginning with another; but let it be small, or you will be likely to inquire if you may not divide your second with a friend. The fruit is of about the same color inside as the muskmelon, but it is harder, though not tough, not disagreeably sweet; juicy, nutritious. We began to receive them at Hong Kong in May, from Manila, where they are in perfection. We were surprised on seeing them upon the table at Christmas in Manila, a forcing process being used there to bring them forward.
Another valuable fruit in the East Indies is the Mangastene. It is of the size of the tomato and looks like it in shape; it is of the deep purple color of the purple grape. The outside shell, which is easily broken by the hand, being removed, a snow white fruit appears, divided like the tomato into as many sections. Its juice is slightly acid,—more correctly, acidulated,—a pleasant sour. There being little or nothing solid in it, the saying is that one may eat of the fruit indefinitely. There are few fruits better adapted to a warm climate.
At Shanghai the Watermelon attains a degree of perfection which I have never known exceeded.
The Pumelo, though a coarse fruit, is valuable. It resembles the West India shadduck; it is a large, fleshy orange, not so juicy as that fruit.
To those who are fond of the banana it must be a delight to spend time where they can fully gratify their taste for it. The Sandwich Islands gave us the best specimens.—I cannot say it would be easy for me to enlarge this description of foreign fruits; indeed it would be painful, for the mention of these fruits is a vivid reminder of lost joys, joys pure, innocent, health-giving, a source of gratitude to the Giver of all good, stimulating the anticipation of future pleasure, which divine revelation does not consider it beneath itself to specify among the promised pleasures of heaven. It used to be a pleasant theme of meditation in those East India regions, that in the fields of the blest there is a species of tree (not, of course, one solitary tree) which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields fruit every month. It was a harmless fancy of an invalid which twelve of all the fruits known to him he would select for that species of tree to bear. His taste would make grave mistakes in putting the watermelon, for example, on the same tree with the plum; which led him to question whether the structural nature of the tree might not be supposed to be as far beyond his present botanical knowledge as the yield of the tree would surpass his present experience. His acquaintance with the almost perpetual banana gave him some idea of the practicability of vegetation reaching to the extent, even, of yielding fruit every month; so that without consulting with the botanical critic he would load his tree with the East Indian mango, mangastenes, apricots, muskmelons, peaches, pears, grapes, apples, quinces, watermelons, banana, figs; and then he would consider how inadequate was a pomological catalogue to express the known objects which stood ready to tempt his appetite. The queen of Sheba, herself from the East, perhaps admonished him by seeming to say that a greater than Solomon would hereafter ‘feed him and lead him to living fountains of waters.’
The Cassowary
At Manila one object after another would be continually presenting itself to our notice, leading the thoughts into the still remote parts of the eastern world. In the yard of a gentleman stood this singular creature, which you felt obliged to call a bird yet you would prefer that it should be classed as an animal, for it seemed to belong among animals, though it is a biped. Its enormous legs, eighteen inches long, its fleshy protuberance on its head, coarsely imitating the tuft on the head of the peacock, left you in doubt how to assign it a place among the tribes of the animal kingdom, reminding you of the exploit in rhyming which a wit perpetrated with its name and its place of nativity, making Cassowary to rhyme with ‘missionary,’ and Timbuctoo with ‘hymn-book too.’
Leaving Manila
We left Manila Jan. 20th, with great regret. We were taking leave of valued friends, besides bidding adieu to scenes of interest which had not been surpassed in our experience. We had reached the eastern limit of our long voyage; we were to turn and find our way to the western continent. Objects of thrilling interest were yet to be passed. But how could we help feeling the need of special assistance in the great undertaking of going round the other half of the globe? These words came to me, and some lines were suggested by them:
“When the even was come he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.” Mark iv. 25.
They went, and as they sailed
A storm came down upon the lake;
It made the boldest spirits quake;
Their faith forsook them, so their courage failed.
He on a pillow slept;
The stormy waters waked not Him.
But prayer had power to break the dream
Which through the tempest Him asleep had kept.
There on Gadara’s shore
Hell’s sullen legion knew his form;
He and the twelve, escaped the storm,
Enrage their spiteful enemies the more.
He speaks, the gale goes down;
The legion at his bidding flee;
The maniac finds recovery
And spreads abroad the Nazarene’s renown.
We leave what may betide,
Saviour! to thy Almighty power.
So, trusting in thy love each hour,
We will pass over to the other side.