"I am afraid," said he, "that you will find Manilla a dull place. We have no theatre at present, and the newspapers contain nothing you would care to read; the only relief we have to the prevailing monotony is the religious processions, and I believe there will be none of these for two or three weeks. The amusement of the people is in cock-fighting, a vice that was introduced by the Spaniards, and has been adopted by every native that can afford to keep a bird. Some of them never go out-of-doors without their favorite birds in their arms; and there is hardly an hour of the day or night when there is not a fight going on in a dozen places in Manilla."
After some further talk about the city and what it contained, it was agreed that the gentleman would call late in the afternoon with a carriage to take the Doctor and his young companions to the evening promenade. The arrangement concluded, the gentleman retired, and the party sat down on the veranda to pass away the hot hours of the middle of the day and talk about the sights of the city.
The boys brought out their note-books to record what they had seen in their morning's walk; and when they had finished, they had a conversation with the Doctor relative to the Philippine Islands and their history since the time the Spaniards went there. They were astonished to find that the group comprised more than 1200 islands; but their surprise was somewhat diminished when Doctor Bronson told them that only twenty of the whole number were of any consequence, the rest being principally rocky islets. The entire group was said to have an area of about 120,000 square miles, and a population of from five to six millions. Some of the islands are independent, but the largest and most important belong to Spain, and have so belonged for more than three hundred years.
SPANISH GALLEONS ON THEIR WAY OVER THE PACIFIC.
"The group was discovered," said the Doctor, "in 1521 by the celebrated navigator Magellan, and occupied by the Spaniards about thirty years later. There have never been more than 10,000 Spaniards here at any one time, and probably there are not to-day over 5000 or 6000 persons of pure Spanish blood in all this region. For a long time the most of the trade of the Philippines was with Mexico, and once a year a ship or galleon was sent from Manilla to Acapulco with a load of silks and other valuable products of the East, which were sold for more than twice their cost. The last of these voyages was in 1811, owing to a royal decree that broke up the monopoly held by the rulers of the islands. Sometimes two or more galleons sailed together; the voyage across the Pacific Ocean was frequently more than one hundred days in length, and instances have been known of one hundred and fifty days being taken between Manilla and Acapulco. Now a sailing-ship that would not make the voyage in forty-five or fifty days would be considered slow, and a steamer would accomplish it in twenty-five."
One of the boys wished to know what the galleons brought back from Mexico in return for the silks they carried there.
"The greater part of their cargoes," was the reply, "was in silver dollars, and it is from this course of trade that we now find the Mexican dollar in such general circulation in the Far East. Then they brought quicksilver, which was sold in China at a large profit; and they brought cochineal and other dye-stuffs. Sometimes a single cargo would sell for $2,000,000, but this was unusual; the ordinary value of a cargo was about $500,000 at starting, and the returns were double that amount. There was very little produce of the islands in these cargoes, but mainly the silks and other Chinese goods which had been bought by the merchants of Manilla with gold-dust, sapan-wood, skins, and edible birds'-nests, together with the silver dollars, of which the Chinese are very fond.