MANILA
The acqusition of the Philippine Islands by the United States has led to a great increase of the literature on the islands, especially in regard to educational and industrial progress. Among the old books that have good sketches of Manila are A Visit to the Philippine Islands by Sir John Browning.
For sketches of the city since the American occupation see Worcester, The Philippine Islands and Their People; Landor, The Gems of the East; Dennis, An Observer in the Philippines; Potter, The East To-day and Tomorrow; Moses, Unofficial Letters of An Official's Wife; Hamm, Manila and the Philippines; Younghusband, The Philippines and Round About; Stevens, Yesterdays in the Philippines; Arnold, The Philippines, the Land of Palm and Pine; and LeRoy, Philippine Life in Town and Country.
HONGKONG
Good descriptive sketches of Hongkong may be found in Norman, The Peoples and Politics of the Far East; Des Veux, A Handbook of Hongkong; Colquhoun, China in Transformation; Penfield, East of Suez; Treves, The Other Side of the Lantern; Ball, Things Chinese; Thomson, The Changing Chinese; Singleton, China As Described by Great Writers; and Liddell, China, Its Marvel and Mystery.
SINGAPORE
Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, was one of the British Empire builders who was very shabbily treated by the English government. Unaided, he prevented the Dutch from obtaining exclusive control over all the waters about Singapore and he was also instrumental in retaining Malacca, after the East India Company had decided to abandon it. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java after the English wrested the island from the Dutch in 1810. His ambition was to make Java "the center of an Eastern Insular Empire," but this project was thwarted by the restoration of Java to Holland. The Raffles Museum in Singapore, one of the most interesting in the Orient, was his gift.
Sketches of Singapore may be found in Sir Frank Swettenham's British Malaya, Malay Sketches and The Real Malay; Wright and Reed, The Malay Peninsula; Belfield, Handbook of the Federated Malay States; Harrison, Illustrated Guide to the Federated Malay States; Ireland, The Far Eastern Tropics; Boulger, Life of Sir Stamford Raffles; Buckley, Records of Singapore.
RANGOON
There is a large literature on Burma, which seems to have appealed to British travelers. Among the books that have chapters devoted to Rangoon are Cuming, In the Shadow of the Pagoda; Bird, Wanderings in Burma; Hart, Picturesque Burma; Kelly, The Silken East; MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India; Vincent, The Land of the White Elephant; Nisbet, Burma Under British Rule and Before; Hall, The Soul of a People and A People at School.