Within the walls of the city is the cathedral, the inside of which is very handsome, though the exterior is destitute of all symmetry, and seems to have been intended as a contrast to the majestic architecture of the interior.
The governor’s palace resembles a decent barn or warehouse, both externally and internally. It is large, dirty, and ill distributed, the basement being used as a prison.
The Cabildo, or Town House, is a handsome building, and the only one in the country which has any pretensions to symmetry, of which the architects of the Phillippines take every opportunity of shewing a sovereign contempt:—so much so, that it is rare to find even the doors and windows, or the angles of a room, correctly placed and laid out! These three buildings form three sides of a small square, the only one in the city, of about 100 yards on each side, the fourth side being occupied by private houses. In the centre is a handsome pedestal of reddish marble, on which no statue has yet been placed.[112]
The streets of the city are narrow and dirty; and the middle being a hollow, in rainy weather forms a continued puddle. They are paved at the sides with granite from China, the stone in the immediate neighbourhood of Manila being too soft. The pavement is not in good repair, and in some streets only occupies one side; the other, which is generally occupied by a large house, or the wall of a convent, being heaped up with dirt, rendered solid by long accumulation, and forming a hill against the wall, the receptacle of …. This is not confined to bye-lanes, but is most common in the great square (Plaza Constitucional) in front of the cathedral![113]
The city and suburbs are well lighted, and the European quarters of the last are cleaner than the city.
The convents, which occupy nearly one third of the whole area of the city! are more distinguished for their size and massy architecture, than for their beauty. The church and convent of St. Augustine, and that of the Jesuits (now fast falling to decay), are, however, neat and well built. That of San Domingo is the most extensive.
The hospital of St. John of God, a military order of Knights Hospitallers, is extensive, but for want of funds, is but indifferently entertained.[114] There is also a university (St. Thomas), two colleges for the instruction of Indians and mestizos, and three convents of nuns, who receive girls to educate. There are also two schools for girls, both endowed by the piety of single individuals; the first of these being a Spanish lady, who came out from Spain for the express purpose of devoting herself to the education of Indian and mestizo girls! The other is that of a mestizo woman of the village of Binondo, a suburb of Manila.
There are some large houses, but they are generally ill-built and inconvenient, the rooms being often excessively large, and always badly laid out. The ground floor is used for warehouses, stables, &c. and always includes a large court-yard. The first floor only is inhabited. The architecture of the lower part is very massive, being often walls of solid masonry of eight or ten feet thick, with large arches from side to side, and connected with massy beams. At the height of the floor, these walls are discontinued, and on them are raised at distances clumsy pillars of brickwork, or at times of wood (which is seldom straight). These pillars are connected at the top by large joists in all directions, having wooden forelocks driven through them close to the pillars; and on this framework are laid the rafters for the tiled roof; the interstices of the pillars, and divisions of the rooms, being filled up with brick and plaster. The ends of the floor timbers being allowed to project over the walls, form a gallery of eight or ten feet in width along the front of the house, and round it when insulated: this gallery is boarded for about four feet in height in front, and then filled up with sliding windows, the small panes of which are filled with plates of thin mother-of-pearl shell,[115] forming one continued window, like the front of a hot-house. The communication to this gallery is by wide folding doors from the rooms, a large one having four or five, which thus admit light and air into the apartments; but the shell windows, when closed against the sun, transmit an intolerable heat, and the houses are not in general cool ones. The galleries are often used as dressing, and even as bathing rooms; and as they overhang the streets, the passenger is often sprinkled from them, in consequence of this dirty practice.
The exterior of these galleries being painted a curious mixture of tawdry colours, such as black, grey, blue, yellow, and red, in panels, flowers, ovals, &c. on white or grey grounds, with their shell windows above, and the grated ones of the godowns below, gives a tawdry and unsociable appearance to the houses. The better sort, and those newly built, have venetians, which greatly improves both their appearance and comfort.
All the houses have a cross, and some two or three, on the roof or gables, as a preservative against evil spirits,[116] and lightning; and though few years pass without many accidents from the latter, the crosses are still preserved in preference to conductors, even in the magazines, not one of which is provided with this useful preservative, though that of the citadel contains many thousand pounds of powder.