[1] An effective cure for a centipede bite is a plaster of garlic mashed until the juice flows. The plaster must be renewed every hour.
[2] A good dish can be made of the rice-birds, known locally as Maya (Munia oryzivora, Bonap.; Estrelda amandava, Gray) and the Bato-Bató and Punay pigeons (Ptilinopus roseicollis, Gray).
[3] According to Edouard Verreux, cited by Paul de la Gironnière in his “Aventures dʼun gentilhomme Breton aux Iles Philippines,” p. 394 (Paris 1857), there were at that date 172 classified birds in this Archipelago.
Manila Under Spanish Rule
Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is situated on the Island of Luzon at the mouth and on the left (south) bank of the Pasig River, at N. lat. 14° 36′ by E. long. 120° 52′. It is a fortified city, being encircled by bastioned and battlemented walls, which were built in the time of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, about the year 1590. It is said that the labour employed was Chinese. These walls measure about two miles and a quarter long, and bore mounted old-fashioned cannon. The fortifications are of stone, and their solid construction may rank as a chef dʼoeuvre of the 16th century. The earthquake of 1880 caused an arch of one of the entrances to fall in, and elsewhere cracks are perceptible. These defects were never made good. The city is surrounded by water—to the north the Pasig River, to the west the sea, and the moats all around. These moats are paved at the bottom, and sluices—perhaps not in good working order at the present day—are provided for filling them with water from the river.
The demolition of the walls and moats was frequently debated by commissions specially appointed from Spain—the last in October, 1887. It is said that a commission once recommended the cleansing of the moats, which were half full of mud, stagnant water, and vegetable putrid matter, but the authorities hesitated to disturb the deposit, for fear of fetid odours producing fever or other endemic disease.
These city defences, although quite useless in modern warfare with a foreign Power, as was proved in 1898, might any day have been serviceable as a refuge for Europeans in the event of a serious revolt of the natives or Chinese. The garrison consisted of one European and several native regiments.
There are eight drawbridge entrances to the Citadel[1] wherein were some Government Offices, branch Post and Telegraph Offices, the Custom-house (temporarily removed to Binondo since May 4, 1887, during the construction of the new harbour), Colleges, Convents, Monasteries, a Prison, numerous Barracks, a Mint, a Military Hospital, an Academy of Arts, a University, a statue of Charles IV. situated in a pretty square, a fine Town Hall, a Meteorological Observatory, of which the director was a Jesuit priest, an Artillery Dépôt, a Cathedral and 11 churches.[2] The little trade done in the city was exclusively retail. In the month of April or May, 1603, a great fire destroyed one-third of the city, the property consumed being valued at ₱1,000,000.
The Old Walls of Manila City