CHAPTER III
An American ship was boarded at Hongkong for Manila, P. I., but the vessel had been built in Glasgow, Scotland. The distance from Hongkong to Manila is 630 miles, and 60 hours' time is required to sail between the two points. The fare, first-class, was $25—four cents a mile for sea travel. One has little choice anent "class" on these boats, as second-class is very inferior. First-class accommodation, however, was good. After two days of rough sailing land was sighted, and next morning the ship passed through the right channel of Corregidor Island into Manila harbor. Thirty miles from the entrance is Manila. After leaving the ship, it was the first time I had been on American territory for nearly three years.
What a marked difference in the appearance of streets in Manila to other cities of the Far East. Instead of Chinese or natives moving merchandise and other wares on split bamboo sticks or by ox carts, or donkeys drawing two-wheeled vehicles, large, fat mules and horses were hitched to big, four-wheeled trucks loaded with heavy wares, together with big motor trucks taking part in the healthy business scene. Besides, flitting about the streets were light, neat-appearing, two-wheeled vehicles drawn by smart-moving ponies. The two-wheeled trap, called a calesa, is the chief conveyance. The men driving these were certainly a strange class of "cabbies," for they did not seem to care whether they secured a fare or not. The calesas, numbering 3,000, are both a handy and a cheap conveyance, the charge being 20 cents for the first and 15 cents for each additional hour.
The principal business street is known as the Escolta, and little can be said in its favor. Most of the business houses are conducted by Chinese, Indians and Arabs; and a great many of the buildings are owned by these merchants, who would be satisfied to do business in a pig pen so long as money came over the stye. The street is well paved, well policed, and a good street-car line has been laid in the center. But it is the lop-sided appearance of the thoroughfare that grates on one. The sidewalk at the head of the street is eight feet wide, and gets narrower and narrower until the walking space has been reduced to eight inches. The Escolta being the Broadway of Manila, it is well crowded with Filipinos, Chinamen and Americans. A better street might be substituted for the Escolta, but that thoroughfare is owned by Chinese.
The only way to make a modern town out of Manila would be to destroy the relics of Spanish "art" and rebuild on scientific lines. The best way to accomplish this would be to have fires started in sections of the city when a tornado is blowing a gale of 60 miles an hour, the firemen devoting their energies to protecting people, but not putting a hand to a hose to combat the ravages of the flames.
A good street-car system courses the city and outlying districts, but the fare, like the steamship charge, is too high. There are first-class and second-class cars, and the fare for first-class is six cents and second-class five cents. The United States and her colonies are the only territories we have traveled in where a receipt is not given a passenger for his street car fare.
Manila has few good buildings, in which respect the Philippine capital differs from cities in British colonies, but after Manila has been under American control from 50 to 100 years there will no doubt be a better showing in this respect.
We had reached another place where potatoes do not grow, where one gets only condensed milk for his coffee, where meat and flour are imported from Australia, and cabbage, onions, celery and cauliflower come from other countries; where vaccination is the first precaution suggested for the preservation of life; where one is apt to become sick if he drinks water that has not been boiled; where one dare not, if life should be dear to him, eat a piece of raw carrot or other vegetable, or even fruit, that grows near the earth; where every one sleeps under netting at night to keep the mosquito from injecting into his system malaria fever germs, and where one must not forget to keep a weather-eye out for the bubonic flea. Everything unerringly suggests that the tropics have been reached.
Doctors say it is not necessary to drink whisky in the Philippines to ward off disease, but as cooks are liable to forget to boil the water, few of the old "tropicalians," while in sympathy with medical oracles, seem to place faith in the mindfulness of island cooks. Convulsions and consumption are, in order, the causes from which most people die in Manila. The death rate per 1,000 of the total population is 39.61.