Yesterdays in the Philippines

by Joseph Earle Stevens

Cool, but Combustible. A Typical Nipa House.

See page [81].

On the Sunday after the King’s name-day, a costly display of fireworks took place off the water, in front of the Luneta, further to celebrate the occasion. The bombs and rockets were ignited from large floats anchored near the shore, while complicated set-pieces were erected on tall bamboos standing up in the water and bolstered from behind with supports and guy-lines. The exhibition began shortly after dinner, and never had I seen a crowd of such large dimensions before in Manila. There must have been twenty-five thousand people jammed into the near vicinity of the promenade, and a great sea of faces islanded hundreds of traps of all species and genders.

The display was excellent, and both of the large military bands backed it up with good music. One of the set pieces was a royal representation of a full-rigged man-of-war carrying the Spanish flag, and she was shown in the act of utterly annihilating an iron-clad belonging to some indefinite enemy. The reflections in the water doubled the beauty of the scene, and with rockets, bombs, mines, parachutes, going up at the same time, there was little intermission to the excitement. Several rockets came down into the crowd, and one alighted on the back of a pony, causing him to start off on somewhat of a tangent. Otherwise there were no disasters, and it was nearly midnight before the great audience scattered in all directions.

The electric lights, of course, are of tremendous interest to the more ignorant natives, and every evening finds groups of the latter gathered around the posts supporting the arc-lamps, looking upward at the sputtering carbon, or examining the bugs which lose their life in attempting to make closer analyses of the artificial suns.

A fresh edition of the opera company has come out again from Italy, and performances are given Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Everybody, as usual, is allowed behind the scenes during the intermissions, and the other evening, in the middle of a most pathetic scene in “Faust,” a Yankee skipper, somewhat the jollier from a shore dinner, walked directly across the back of the stage and took his hat off to the audience. Episodes like this are hardly common, but in Manila there are not the barriers to the stage-door that exist in the U.S.A. The artillery-band on the Luneta has several times played the “Washington Post March” which you sent me, and which I gave to the fat, pleasant-faced conductor. The championship games at the tennis-court have begun, and all of the English colony generally assemble there to see the play just before sunset. Small dinners and dances are also numerous, and the cool weather seems to be incubating gayety.

February 22d.

Manila is said to have the most complete astronomical, meteorological, and seismological observatory anywhere east of the Mediterranean. Not to miss anything of such reputation, several of us decided to make a call on Padre Faure, who presides over the institution, and who is well known scientifically all over the world. At the observatory we were cordially received by an assistant, who spoke English well enough to turn us off from using Spanish, and were conducted over the establishment. Here were machines which would write down the motions of the earth in seismological disturbances, and which conveyed to the ear various subterranean noises going on below the surface. Still other instruments were so delicate that they rang electric bells when mutterings took place far underground, and thus warned the observers of approaching trouble. Another, into which you could look, showed a moving black cross on a white ground, that danced at all the slight tremblings continually going on; and the rumbling of a heavy cart over the neighboring highroad would make it tremble with excitement. A solid tower of rock twenty feet square extended up through the building from bottom to top, and was entirely disconnected with the surrounding structure. On this column all of the earthquake-instruments were arranged; and any sort of an oscillation that took place would be recorded in ink on charts arranged for the purpose. Various wires and electric connections were everywhere visible, and an approaching disturbance would be sure to set enough bells and tickers a-going to arouse one of the attendants.

The great school-building in which the observatory was placed was fully six hundred feet square, with a large court-yard in the centre containing fountains and tropical plants in profusion. After leaving the lower portions of the building, we ascended through long hallways, to visit the meteorological department above. Barometers, thermometers, wind-gauges, rain-measurers, and all sorts of recording instruments filled a most interesting room; and Padre Faure gave us a long discourse on typhoons, earthquakes, and various other phenomena. From the roof of the observatory a splendid view of the city, Bay, and adjacent country may be had, and Manila lay before us steaming in the sun. Before leaving, we saw the twenty-inch telescope, constructed in Washington under the direction of the Padre who was our guide, which is soon to be installed in a special building constructed for the purpose. He seemed much impressed by the United States, and at our departure presented us with one of the monthly observatory reports, which give the whole story of the movements of the earth, winds, heavens, tides, stars, and clouds, at every hour of the day and night, for every day during the month, and for every month during the year.

Last Monday was again the usual bank-holiday; and on the Saturday before, the customary three of us who seem to be more energetic at seeing the country than our friends, decided to take another excursion up the river into the hill-country.