GLIMPSES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 34, 22 August 1891, Page 297

GLIMPSES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

Manilla, with its suburbs, has a population of nearly 300,000 souls. Its aspect outside the business centres is that of a city of a long-past era. The rivet Pasig, on both sides of which the city is built, forms a port lined

three deep on each side with native boats and sailing vessels from every part of the globe. The large ocean steamers are obliged to remain in the road outside. The principal business street is a thoroughfare called the Escolta, which is the centre of commercial activity. The outlying streets, lined with churches, convents, and often with ruins of the last earthquake, are quiet and often deserted. Among the shops, the drug stores are conspicuous and greatly resorted to for the cooling beverages whose sale they carry on extensively. The population presents a curious admixture of race and

costume—Europeans, Chinese, Tagaloes, negritos and the hybrids that since the advent of the Europeans form a rapidly increasing class—a class apart, in the seaports of China, Japan and Further India. The animation is greatest at nightfall, when the cigarmaking establishments are closed and the suburbs are inundated with the Tagaloe working-women, the two-wheeled

caramattas crowded with natives, and the carriages of the wealthy Europeans going to the surburban drives. The streets are crowded, the vehicles go at a dashing rate, and the gendarmes on foot and on Horseback are kept in a state of brisk movement to prevent collisions and keep the wayclear. The native women of all classes, young and old, wear the hair Boating on the shoulders, and all smoke huge cigars. Their bare feet are thrust into slippers if the weather is dry, or shod with high-heeled shoes if it is wet. This female procession having contemplated leisurely all the dry goods and cheap jewellery exposed in the shop windows and on stalls along the homeward route, finally disappears with the other signs of animation, the band has ceased playing at the seaside promenade, the Luneta, and the town settles down into a dreamy quiet, only enlivened by occasional promenaders, balls and the songs and gaiety of the cafe concerts. The natives are given to gay colours in dress, cheap jewellery, religions festivals, and cock-fighting. The male Tagaloe, when dressed up, wears over his pantaloons a short shirt made of the fine fibres of the pineapple, costing from £8 to £2O. The Sunday robe of the women of the race is of fine silk, and they aie covered with jewellery. The passion for ornament is universal. The walls of the churches and chapels are surcharged with rich ornaments of complicated design. The high altar and image of the Virgin in the country are of ten of solid silver, though the pueblo may be poor, and gold and precious stones are lavishly used in the making of other sacred objects of the sanctuary. Every village has its goldsmith. A similar richness of church ornaments is noticeable in Mexico and the South American

countries. With all the individuals of Chinese or Malayan descent cock-fighting is a veritable passion, and with the Indians of the forests and mountains it is a wild infatuation. In all the houses of the poor, on all the native boats, are seen fighting cocks going through a methodical course of training. At every step one meets a native with his game bird under his arm. In cases of sudden fire the cock is saved, though everything else in the honse may be destroyed. An Indian will go without eating for an entire day rather than be deprived of his favourite amusement. The sport brings a handsome revenue to the Government, though it is the ruin of the people. The Chinese are numerous in all the centres of population

of the Philippines. They succeed here as they succeed wherever they get a foothold among a people levs energetic and less intelligent. They are always assisted by their compatriots on their arrival, and directed to some point where it is likely they will find occupation. They engage at first in the most degrading occupations, saving a few dollars which they lose at a cock fight : but often working their way up

till at last one finds them behind the counter of a wellstocked shop ; hair elaborately dressed, elegantly shod, and arrayed in the finest silks of Canton. Then they are baptised into the Catholic Church, having some well-known European as godfather, and marry a young girl of the country, who yields reluctantly, tempted by the riches of the proposed husband. This is the legal wife, but morganatic ones are adder! until the merchant, who is ever growing richer, has accumulated an imposing harem. Thenceforward they live comfortably ami entertain elegantly. These are the successful ones. There are, however, all sorts —thieves, banditsand conspirators, and the Chinese [opulation is augmenting so rapidly that the thoughtful begin to be alarmed. There were 5,703 in the islands in 1828, and in 1878 there were over 50.000. which is out of all proportion with the increase of the European element. The negritos, who bear a striking resemblance to the negroes <>T Africa, are principally found in the mountains not far from Manilla They are supposed to have been the primitive inhabitants. They were forced back into the interior when the Indonesians or Polynesians invader! the islands, and these last were driven into the forests in their turn on the airival of the Malays. The Malays are also found in the southern part and along the east coast of Formosa. The date of these successive invasions is unknown. As to the negritos, curious alike for their resemblances to and their differences from the negroes of Africa, the chance tourists will not much longer have an opportunity to study them, since they are gradually disappearing before the aggressive Tagaloes, whose rancheries encroach more an i more upon

their forests. As it is they are exceedingly timid and receive visitors in their miserable villages only after a great deal of parleying and with many precautions. Their households and household appliances are of the most primitive kind. They hunt a little with the bow, that univeisal weapon of the savage, and cultivate a little rice and a few vegetables. They exchange their rice, resin and wild honey for coarse stuff's and iron for arrow heads, and are outrageously defrauded by the Tagaloes. They generally go naked, but put on some slight drapery when they receive visitors. The y oung negrito does not bn’y his wife, as is common in the i slands of the Pacific, bnt makes a present to his future fa her-in-law, who in return

gives as dowry to the bride a few nece-sary hou«eholit articles. The welding gives occasion to a festival, in which the tribe participate. The wedding ceremony is unique. The bride and groom climb two saplings not far apart. The chief bends the llexible trunks towards each other, and when the foieheads of the afliinced meet they are legally married.