Chapter XXVIII
The Picturesque Philippines
Having now devoted a good deal of time to the consideration of political conditions in the Philippines, let us turn our attention to the islands themselves and consider their physical characteristics, their climate and their commercial possibilities.
There has been much discussion as to the number of islands in the archipelago. The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey has counted them. Big and little they number thirty-one hundred forty-one, of which ten hundred ninety-five are large and fertile enough to be inhabited.
The total land area is a hundred fifteen thousand twenty-six square miles. The Philippines lie between 5° and 22° North Latitude and 117° and 127° East Longitude. It follows that the lowlands throughout the archipelago have a tropical climate, and in the past those two words have been very generally considered to spell danger for people of the white race. In this connection it should be said, first, that the Philippines have one of the most healthful tropical climates in the world, and second, that the results of sanitary work both there and within the limits of the Panama Canal zone have largely eliminated the tropical climate bugaboo. There is plenty of malaria in some portions of the archipelago, but that is a matter of mosquitoes, not of climate, and there is no difficulty in freeing any given region from this disease if drainage is practicable.
The two great drawbacks to life in the tropics are admittedly heat and humidity. Curiously enough the heat in most parts of the Philippines is never extreme. We do not have in Manila anything approaching the high temperatures sometimes experienced in New York or Boston. Humidity in the atmosphere makes heat trying, and is responsible for what we call “sultry” days. The dry-bulb thermometer shows how hot one is, but it takes an instrument with a wet bulb to show how hot one feels. Fortunately, the periods of greatest heat and greatest humidity do not coincide in the islands. April and May are the hottest months, while August and September have the highest humidity.
It must be remembered, however, that very extreme heat for a few days, followed by cool weather, is not so debilitating as is a lower temperature which is nevertheless continuously high. There are often many days in succession during May when the thermometer stands in the nineties, but there is usually a cool northeasterly breeze at that season, and throughout the Philippines, except in the Cagayan valley and in one or two other inland regions of the larger islands, hot nights are almost unknown. Indeed, it is doubtless due to the fact that the land area is broken into myriad islands, and is therefore swept by the cooling sea breezes, that it has such an exceptionally healthful climate. The heat is never trying when the monsoons blow, and they blow much of the time.
Speaking of the islands in general one may say that they have a wet season from July to October and a dry season from December to May, the weather during June and November being variable. On the Pacific coast, however, these seasons are reversed, and in the southern Philippines they are not well defined, the rainfall being quite uniformly distributed throughout the year. During the months of November, December, January and February weather conditions are usually ideal, with bright, clear days and cool and decidedly invigorating nights. Comfort throughout the year is largely dependent on occupying well-ventilated houses from which the winds are not shut off.
The following table shows for each month the highest temperature, the lowest temperature and the average temperature recorded at Manila from 1885 until 1912:—