By the bull of Pope Alexander VI., of May 4, 1493, which was then universally recognised as law, the earth was divided into two hemispheres. All lands thereafter discovered in the Eastern Hemisphere were decreed to belong to Portugal; all the Western to Spain.
The St. Lazarus Islands were well within Portugal’s rights, but as the use of the log and the variation of the compass were unknown, an error of fifty-two degrees in longitude was made, and to Spain the islands were given on the basis of that error.
By whom the name of Philippines was given to the archipelago it is impossible to say. In 1567 it appears to have been used for the first time.
The manufactures of the islands consist of silk, cotton, and piña fibres cloth, hats, mats, baskets, ropes, coarse pottery, and musical instruments.
The northern islands of the archipelago lie in the region of the typhoon, and have three seasons,—the cold, the hot, and the wet. The first extends from November to February or March, when the atmosphere is bracing rather than cold. The hot season lasts from March to June, and the heat becomes very oppressive before the beginning of the southerly monsoon. Thunder-storms of terrific violence occur during May and June. The wet season begins with heavy rains, known by the natives as “collas,” and until the end of October the downpour is excessive.
“Earthquakes are sufficiently frequent and violent in the Philippines to affect the style adopted in the erection of buildings; in 1874, for instance, they were very numerous throughout the archipelago, and in Manila and the adjacent provinces shocks were felt daily for several weeks. The most violent earthquakes on record in the Philippines occurred in July, 1880, when the destruction of property was immense, both in the capital and in other important towns of central Luzon.”
Though situated in the equatorial region, the elevations of the mountains give a range of climate that allows the production of a great variety of valuable crops. Tobacco, sugar, hemp, and rice are the chief staples produced. The swamps and rivers are infested with crocodiles, and the dense woods with monkeys and serpents of many species. Rich deposits of gold are known to exist, but have been little developed.
To quote from the Revue des Deux Mondes of Paris:
In the same district are found Indians, Negritos, Manthras, Malays, Bicols, half-breed Indians and Spaniards, Tagalas, Visayas, Sulus, and other tribes. The Negritos (little negroes) are real negroes, blacker than a great many of their African conquerors, with woolly hair growing in isolated tufts. They are very diminutive, rarely attaining four feet nine inches in height, and with small, retreating skulls. This race forms a branch equal in importance to the Papuan. It is believed to be the first race inhabiting the Philippines, but, as well as everywhere else, except in the Andaman Islands, it has been more or less absorbed by the stronger races, and the result in the archipelago has been the formation of several tribes of half-breeds numbering considerably more than half a million. Side by side with them, and equally poor and wretched, are the Manthras, a cross between the Negritos and Malays and the degenerate descendants of the Saletes, a warlike tribe conquered by the Malayan Rajah Permicuri in 1411. Then come the Malay Sulus, all Mohammedans and still governed by their Sultan and their datos, feudal lords who, under the suzerainty of the Spaniards, have possessed considerable power.
The soil is fully sufficient—indeed, more than sufficient—to support this population, whose wants are of the most limited character. The land is exceedingly fertile and bears in abundance all tropical products, particularly rice, sugar, and the abaca, a variety of the banana-tree. The fibres of the abaca are employed in making the finest and most delicate fabrics, of which from three to four million dollars’ worth are exported annually. The exports of sugar amount to about four millions and a half, of gold to two millions and a half, and of coffee and tobacco close on to a million and a quarter each. The rice is consumed at home. It forms the staple food of the people, and nearly three million dollars’ worth is imported yearly. The husbandman cannot [pg 358]complain that his toil is inadequately rewarded. A rice plantation will yield a return of at least fifteen per cent.; if he plant his farm with sugar-cane he will realise thirty per cent., if not more. On the other hand, the price of labour is very low. An adult who gains a real fuerte (about thirteen cents) a day, thinks he is doing well.