RAMBLING NOTES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LIII, Issue 2793, 24 July 1903, Page 2

RAMBLING NOTES.

(ByG. J. B.)

(Continued)

7 here wag a great fire here a few weeks ago, and it swept acres atid fiCtee Gf baffiboo houses up The natives ware camped ia tents, busy building fresh housee, which they Soon rattle up and tha'ch with grass This is a great place for fighting cocks, and every Sunday they have great fights. It seems strange to tee suoh a number of men carrying theee birds under their arm wuh a piece of string tied to them The river Pasig runs up into the city, and it s varms with ehij-pii g of tv.-ry kind—hundreds of steam Inunchea and great unwieldy tampans decked over with oval mats and a fami'y l.Ving ift each end of them. We have six of them alongside of us now teking in coal, and one of them has 25 people living on it-, besides 20 roosters and a few pigs. She is about 100 feet; long and carries 60 tots of coal. We have;6oo tone to put out, ani are to be wotkiog all day to moraow (Sunday). There is to b 3 hor c racu g and cook fighting torn-now, so there ie uot much Sunday abcuo it. There are aleo hundreds of canoee hollowed out of the log and a bim boo outrigger on each side, carrying passengers and cirgo about, so altogether it ie a Very busy scene. After having a good look round Manilla, have come to the conclueion that i' is the dirtiest cilv 1 have seen. In the outskirts of the town the gutters are full nf stagnant water, that, if stirred, wmld causa a p'agne Whilst exploring these quarters I did cot fail to smoke con tinuously The rmrketß here are a eight worth BPe : rg. The brl fig* cover some 50 acres of ground, atiJ eveiy kiud of fuod \» here displayed Cv ttmers in hucdreda throne the stalls and purchase what they rrqulro here is fish of every sort from cockles to crabs, cured fish of every deecription, ihrimpe, equid, ttc, elc Stalls i f ne»t i f is ctr ioto strips about a foot long, and the buyers carry it on their firgers by a bit of string. Every bit of the animal is used up. from nose to tail, even the hoofs being on sale. Then come vegetable stale, fruit stalls, confec tionery, then fancy goeds, boots and clogs, and everything elee you could possibly want Women sitting down Ine stock-catching ia each other's heads was quite a common oc enpation, and from the number of catcliM made they seemed to be haviig fair sport. Drove about three miles out of the city to see the national epoit of cockfightirt;, and it pas the most excising thing I have seen. It waa held in an immense building rf bamboo work with galleries all round 'lhere woulrt be about 5000 PhiHpincs aud Ohinamen present, and the noise of this crowd oallirg out aid betting was like the hum of a ihowand swarms of bees. Hundreds of bookmaker?, or cish fielders I fehould say, are roun'i pusluug a handful of dolUrs in yor.r face, wanting to back thtir favourite A considerable amount of money change il hands on every fight The fights are got oil r&pidly, some 200 having finished when I arrived. None of the fights Usted a minute as with the huge steel sputa they put on tl c bird, it is soon all over, and oue or the other is a dead bird. The Spaniards are much preferred by the Philpinos to the American 3 whom they hate. Aβ showing what a emtiU phceNew Zealand i«, I called at the Post Office to get Borne Rtampp, and asked tin lady clerk (who was an American) the rale of postage to New Zealand. She sail " Whar'a New Zealand?" I tosj aatoa , ished I could not reply, but stood gazing i.t her, so she appealed to a gentleman alongside, who said " Oh, I guess it's away dov v in Australia somewhere." What wou d King Dick say to this ? Along the which are built of stone, hundreds of ol I cannon are stuck up and used for piles for making vessela fast to. The heat there w»s unbei raMe, and we are all glad to get o-i l , of the city of flying shirt tail's, as all the men wear their shirts outside their trousers—no coat cr vest.

It took us three days to run to Hon> Kong. When 60 miles off shore we passe.l several hrpe Chinese junke fishing. The approach to Hong Kong is very pretty, Rβ you pass through numerous email islands. Thtre is an immense amount of shippti g hire, ond our steamer wa* fairly rushed hj sampans with boardinghouse runners, who had their sign boards painted on their hu_e hate, which are about the size of an umbrella, A. steam launch came up with about; 100 of these fellows, and you could ccc no thing except etraw h*t?, all held up to fit , traot the attention of our Chinese pa»s>ngers BoU hooks were stuck inbo our tulw«k-<, and ropes with an iron hrok thrown in'o the rigging, aud up these the fellows swarmed in hundreds, tnd soon the passengers and their belonging* were bunileJ over the side and taken aehore. These Chinoto watermen are much superior to tho ordtnary run of Chinese we see in the Colonies. They are fine built, muscular fellowe, and danger , ousmen to tackle when ey turn pirate-. Only a few months ago. between HoogKony and Cantoo, a pirate junk seized one of tho steim launches and robbed all the passengers, and then ran her aehore and escaped Hong Kong has a population <f a quarter < f a million The streeU are very sttep and narrow, but Lhtre are con.c verj fine etoue buildings Nearly all the shops are owned b> Chinere. Thing* are very upa'.de down hero for you pass gargs of women and girh break ing stones, and carrying earth, β-uid, and mortar in little cane baskets across their sh)uldera Some of the yirls are not more thin 10 years old, and T have seen women ar. thn work over 70. All the dreeem-king v dom by men, who stylo themselves Indy tailors. I think they ought to bfi made to change plaoee. The riokshawi are very much in cvidenc- here, and as soon as you pop out of an hotel there are a dozan flying at you for a lare. It is a comfortable mode of travelling and they keep up a steady jog trot for hours, only a pair of iru ks on thorn and a towel to wipe themselves down. Ine plague ie pretty bad here, and last week there were 100 oasee. 90 tl whi h wore fatal including three Europeans. It has been prevalent here now for the last three ye are. Tho lower class don't say anything about U, and when a man dies he is dumped out in the street, and it is difficult to find where he came from. I not Iced them bury cc vet al houses that had been onndemned and pulled down. There is a worderful cable tram here that takes yru up to tho peak at back of town, which ii almost perpendicular There is a very fine hotel at the Peak, and maoy private residences. Our steamer has to go into dock, so all the passengers are aehore and seeing the sights. There are many tterman steamers here with carpoee of iron sleeper and rails for the Canton railway, which hae started. Having a day or tv r, to spare we ran up to Canton,

(To be continued).