Here was superb commercialism.
The American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands opens the way to China by the China Sea. In the progress of events the achievements of Magellan have led the ships of the West to the East again, and it is possible that there may yet be great Mongol emigrations to the western shores of the southern continent. The lantern or farol of Magellan was never more prophetic than now. So suggestion lives.
TRAVELERS' TALES OF THE PHILIPPINES.
Hong Kong is the market place of the Eastern world. Here the East and West meet in the airy bazaars, and from it, it is easy to find one's way to Luzon, over the bright sea mirrors, the sleepy, dreamy splendors of the China Sea.
But few travelers have written books on Luzon, and those have usually published them in French or in Spanish. Travelers from the East have, as a rule, not remained long on the island, where earthquakes, typhoons, malarial fevers, and the plague itself have been not unfrequent visitors, and where one welcomes gratefully the shadows of the night in the seasons of fervid heat. The rain storms are downpours and deluges that are blinding, but they leave behind their inky tracts a paradise of beauty and bloom.
The morning on the China Sea in serene weather is a royal glory. It has the odors of Araby and the freshness of an Eden. The earth seems waiting. The sails hang listlessly on the glassy, breathless straits, and the sun sheds its splendor through the pale blue air as powerfully as the clouded heavens poured down the rain.
The Filipinos are a sensitive race, and many of them have a keen sense of injustice. Great numbers of them have a church education, and their views of the world are bounded by what they have learned of India, China, and Malaysia and Iberian peninsula from the priests of Spain.
A recent traveler from Manila said to me:
"The Filipinos have hot blood and are revengeful, but they are quick to discern justice. A boy who attended me at the hotel came to me one day bleeding.
"'My master has beaten me,' he said, 'with a rawhide.'