Their usual drink is wine of different kinds, which they take out of a glass or tumbler, as we would beer or water: the quantity consumed is moderate enough, about a pint being a usual allowance—and that is frequently mixed with about an equal quantity of water. Sherry, claret, priorato, pajarete, manzanilla, malaga, and muscatel, are the sorts most in request, all of them being of ordinary quality, to the taste of any one accustomed to drink good wine at home, from which the wines procurable here are as different as possible, and especially the sherry. But in that resides a mystery known best to the wine-merchants, who doctor up the wine consumed in Great Britain to suit the taste of those who buy it from them. Strange to say, even to this, a Spanish colony, there is not sent out a single pipe of wine, such as any one accustomed to drink the British composition would call good sherry.
Claret, or vino tinto, is very generally used in preference to tea or coffee at breakfast, but at that early time of the day it is mixed with a large proportion of water. This meal, however, is not a general one in the Philippines, as the custom of taking chocolate in the morning destroys all appetite for it, and the early dinner hour of the Spaniards in general, does not render it essential.
The want of interesting occupation, and the heat of the sun, preventing out-of-door exercise during the day, has doubtless originated these indolent customs, which have given rise to many bad habits, and the low scale of morality prevailing among them.
A large proportion of them being bachelors, are in the habit of selecting a mistress as a companion with whom they may forget the dullness, and shake off the apathy of their aimless existence; a very large proportion, in fact, nearly all of them, being in the habit of choosing such a household companion from among the Creole, Mestiza, or native girls, but generally from the last two races.
The native girls have the reputation of proving more faithful to their lovers than the other two, as they look upon such a connection in the light of a marriage, and consider themselves guilty of no immorality during its continuance. When a native beauty forms such a connection with a white man, her relations do not sunder all the former ties existing between her and them, by casting her off, but on the contrary are, as frequently as not, highly pleased at it, viewing the affair in the light of a fortunate marriage for her.
These feelings, however, are not universal, for some of the richer class of Indians would be highly displeased with a female relation forming such a connection.
Among the Indians themselves this arrangement frequently takes place, as very many of the poorest people are unable to save money enough to pay their marriage fees, and in the event of a couple living together without having had the ceremony performed previously, they regard themselves, and are considered by their neighbours, as not the less man and wife. As an instance of the extent to which this prevails among them, I may mention a circumstance which struck me much at the time:—
Being near the cathedral at Manilla one evening in April last, I entered an open door of the edifice and wandered into a room attached to it, where several people were in waiting, and among them several women with children to be baptized. I stopped to witness the ceremony, and had the curiosity to look into the register where their names were enrolled; in that book, two of them were described as illegitimate children, and the third was the only one born in matrimony.
Although the custom does not prevail to anything like the extent of two-thirds of the population, still it is a very frequent one, and proves among other things, that the sort of religion prevailing among the people is only that of forms, possessing no sufficient hold over their minds to regulate their conduct.
Compare their religious ideas with those of the old Scottish covenanters, or English puritans, and how different are the effects of faith; but perhaps they are not more dissimilar than the natures of the two races are. For there is no race in the world with all the good qualities of the Celtic breed crossed by the Saxon, and that again by the Norman; for depend upon it, blood tells in every human being—aye, and as much in men as in dogs or horses.