Climate.

The average shade temperature of Manila all the year round is 83° Fahrenheit. The highest I have ever seen there was 96°, at 2 P.M. in May, and the lowest 68°, at 6 A.M. in December.

The temperature of the sea-water on the shore at Malate is usually 82°, and that of well-water about the same. The water-pipes from the reservoir at San Juan del Monte are not buried, but are carried on an embankment. They are partly shaded from the sun by clumps of bamboos, but on a hot afternoon the water sometimes attains a temperature of 90°.

Those figures are high, yet the heat is mitigated by the sea-breeze, and the nights are usually cool enough to allow a refreshing sleep.

The climate of Manila is not harmful to the constitutions of healthy Europeans or Americans between twenty and fifty years of age, provided they at once adopt a mode of life suitable to the country, and in clothing, diet, habits and recreations, adapt themselves to the new conditions. On the other hand, I apprehend that, for persons of either sex over fifty who have had no previous experience of life in the tropics, there will be great difficulty in acclimatising themselves, and the mortality amongst such will be abnormal. Ladies’ complexions will not suffer more than if they lived in a steam-heated house in Harlem, New York.

In all this part of the world the weather depends upon the monsoons. These blow with great regularity over the ocean, six months from the north-east and six months from the south-west. Their action on any particular place is, however, modified by the situation of mountains with regard to that place. The changes of the monsoon occur in April—May and October—November. It is the south-west monsoon that brings rain to Manila, and it has a fine stretch of the China Sea to career over, all the way, in fact, from the shores of Sumatra, till it drives the billows tumbling and foaming into the bay.

The typhoons form far out in the Pacific near the region of the Western Carolines, and, whirling round the opposite way to the hands of a watch, they proceed on a curve that may strike Luzon, or, perhaps, go on for a thousand miles or more, and carry death and destruction to the fishermen of Fo Kien or Japan.

When a typhoon passes clear, the usual result is several days of continuous heavy rain, but the air is cleared and purified. But should the vortex of the cyclone pass over your residence, you will not be likely to forget it for the rest of your life.

The year in Manila may be roughly divided into three seasons:—

May is the terrible month of the year, the month of fevers and funerals. Let all who can, leave Manila before this month arrives.

Hot, dry winds, dust-laden, pervade the houses, and have such an effect even on well-seasoned hardwoods, that tables, wardrobes and door-panels, split from end to end, or from top to bottom, with a noise like a pistol-shot, leaving cracks a quarter of an inch wide that gape till the rainy season restores the moisture.

At this time the heat is at its maximum, and all nature gasps or fades. Not a drop of rain has fallen for months, the roads are inches deep in dust, the rivers nearly stagnant, and covered with a green scum, the whole country quite brown, the vegetation burnt up by the sun. Only the cockroaches rejoice; at this season they fly at night, and you may have a few fine specimens of the Blatta Orientalis alight on your face, or on the back of your neck, should you doze a moment on your long chair. Personally, I am proof against a good deal, but must confess that the hairy feet of a cockroach on my face or neck make me shudder.

As the month draws to a close, every afternoon the storm-clouds gather over the Antipolo Hills. All Manila, lying in the glare and dust, prays for rain. Overhead, a sky like burnished copper darts down heat-rays that penetrate the roofs, and literally strike the heads of the occupants. The dry air is surcharged with electricity to such an extent that every living thing feels the powerful influence; the sweetest natures become irritable, and quite ready to admit that “this is, indeed, a beastly world.”

The nervous system suffers, the newspapers relate cases of stabbing, or even running amok amongst the natives, and perhaps some suicides occur. If, as not unfrequently happens, you should at this time receive an invitation to the funeral of a friend or compatriot just deceased from typhoid fever, and to be buried within twenty-four hours, you will begin to wonder whether Manila is good enough for you. Day after day the rain-clouds disperse amidst the rumbling of a distant thunder-storm, and day after day do longing eyes watch for their coming, and hope for the cloud-burst.

At last, when the limit of endurance seems reached, a cool breath of air heralds the downpour. The leaves rustle, the feathery bamboos incline before the blast, the sky darkens, the cataracts of heaven are loosed, and the water tumbles down in torrents.

Now keep yourself in the house, and on the upper floor, and let the water from your roofs run to waste. The natives, usually so careless of a wetting, avoid bathing or wetting themselves with the first waters, which they consider dangerous, and not without reason. The exhalations from the newly-wetted earth are to be avoided; these earth-vapours are called by the Tagals Alimóom. Now the dust is washed off the roofs and leaves, and in three days the fallows are covered with small shoots of grass or weeds, the maidenhair ferns and mosses spring from every stone wall. The reign of dust is over; the reign of mud begins. Now the frogs inaugurate their nightly concerts. After a time you get used to the deafening noise; you do not even hear it. But they suddenly stop, and you are astonished at the stillness.

As the rainy season proceeds, the air is almost entirely saturated with moisture: the saturation in August sometimes exceeds 97 per cent.

Now green mould will grow upon your boots and other leather articles, if left a couple of days without cleaning. Everything feels damp, and it is a good plan to air your wardrobe round a brazier of red-hot charcoal.

You will have noticed that the natives universally build their houses upon piles. So do the Malays all over the Far East. This is the expression of the accumulated experience of centuries, and you will be wise to conform to it by never sleeping on the ground floor. To a dweller in the Philippines this tip is worth the price of the book.