December 8th.—Late in the afternoon we brought up in the roadstead of Sarawak, on the northern coast of Borneo. The place is not at all enlivening; neither house, human being, nor boat, to indicate we are in habitable land. The town itself, the capital of a small rajahship governed by an Englishman, lies some twenty miles up a river, in the estuary of which we are anchored. The province was presented by the Sultan of Borneo, in 1843, to Sir James Brooke, uncle of the present proprietor, who, on the decease of Sir James, in 1868, succeeded to the territory.
Here the "Lapwing," after having taken the admiral up the river, parted company, whilst we continued our way along the Bornean shore.
December 12th.—We awoke to find ourselves in the midst of a labyrinth of isles most wonderful to behold, vaguely guessing which, out of so many, can be Labuan. The rattling of the chain through the hawse, decides it. A small settlement over which England's flag keeps guard, lies before us. This is the town of Victoria. This small island, previous to 1846, belonged to Borneo, but in that year the Sultan ceded it to Britain, as a convenient station for checking piracy on his sea-board. It lies off the north-eastern end of the great island of Borneo, and within view of its precipitous heights and mist-clad peaks.
December 14th.—Coaling is a long process at Labuan, first, because the ship lies so far from the shore, and next, because of the insufficiency of convenient boats, and the necessary coolie labour to put the coal on board, thus it took us two whole days to get in as many hundred tons. By the evening of the 14th however, we had cleared the islands, and shaped course for Manilla against a head wind.
December 19th.—It has taken us twelve hours to clear the intricate, and gusty approaches to Manilla Bay, the wind, occasionally meeting us with such force, accompanied by such a chopping sea, that we sometimes made no progress at all. On coming to anchor we were rather surprised to find the "Lapwing" had preceded us, and was lying close in shore.
Manilla, the capital of Luzon, the largest of the Philippine Islands, is a city of considerable magnitude, and has all the appearance of a Spanish town in Europe, these islands having belonged to Spain for over 300 years.
Though we arrived on a Sunday it was anticipated there would be no difficulty in procuring coal immediately. Had the British been in authority here we should have been privileged to do so with impunity. When this conclusion was arrived at, one potent factor had not been considered—"the Church"—and for once in a way we were thankful to the Church. The archbishop of Manilla and his subordinates hold more real sway over the minds and bodies of the natives—Indians, as they are called—than all the temporal power of the governor, backed by his guards, or even than the king himself.
Amidst all the Spanish jabber around, it is refreshing to hear ourselves hailed in genuine English, and soon the author of the sound grasps us by the hand and welcomes us to his house, a request we gladly comply with.
The houses are very like those of Gibraltar, and one's memory is rapidly borne back to the "Rock," especially as everything around is Spanish.
Perhaps the great feature of the place is its cathedrals; one in particular, a magnificent structure, so roomy and lofty that I should think half the devout of the city could find accommodation therein. In less than two years subsequent to our visit the whole of this grand pile was little better than a heap of ruins, from an earthquake wave which passed over these islands. This most terrible of natural phenomena is of frequent occurrence in this quarter of the world. In many parts of the city we observed whole streets and churches in ruins, as if from a recent bombardment.