The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines Part 24

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHILIPPINE ISLANDS]

Some years ago a terrible cold came to Manila. It was on a late December night, near morning. The thermometer went down to 74. Think of that, and of the poor coolies, and of the negritos, or the little black dwarfs, and of those who lived in the thousands of huts of bamboo or reeds! True, 74 would indicate a hot day in our American June or July, but in Manila it was a cold morning, and the people came shivering into the streets, to tell each other of their sufferings.

The best description of Manila before the war that we have seen was written by Crozet, and is contained in an English translated book ent.i.tled Crozet's Voyage to Tasmania, New Zealand, the Ladrone Islands, and the Philippines. From this beautifully ill.u.s.trated work we present a view of the city and the surrounding island as it appeared seven years or more ago:

"The city of Manila is one of the most beautiful that Europeans have built in the East Indies; its houses are all of stone, with tile roofs and they are big, comfortable and well ventilated. The streets of Manila are broad and perfectly straight; there are five princ.i.p.al streets, which divide the city lengthwise, and about ten which divide it broadways. The form of the city is that of an oblong, surrounded by walls and ditches, and defended on the side of the river by a badly planned citadel, which is about to be pulled down and rebuilt. The city walls are flanked by a bastion at every one of the four angles. There are at Manila eight princ.i.p.al churches, with an open place in front of every one; they are all beautiful, large and very richly decorated. The Cathedral is a building which would grace any of our European cities, and has just been rebuilt by an Italian Theatin,[A] who is an able architect. The two rows of columns which support the vaults of the nave and of the aisles are of magnificent marble; so also are the columns of the portal, the altars, the steps, and the pavement. These marbles are obtained from local quarries, are of great variety, and are of the greatest beauty. The s.p.a.ce in front of the Cathedral is very large, and is the finest in the city.

[A] A regular order of clergy established at Rome in 1524, but which does not appear to have spread much beyond Italy and France.

"On one side the palace of the Governor is flanked by the Cathedral, on the other by the Town Hall. The Town Hall is very beautiful. At the extremity of the place in front of the Cathedral a large barracks is being constructed, which is to be capable of lodging eight thousand troops.

"Private houses, as well as public buildings, are all one story high.

Spaniards never live on the ground floor, on account of the dampness, but they occupy the first floor instead. The heat of the climate has induced them to build very large apartments, with verandas running right round the outside, so as to keep out of the sun; the windows form part of the verandas, and the daylight only enters the rooms by means of the doors which open out on to these verandas. The ground floor serves as a storehouse, and to prevent the rising of moisture from the soil its surface is raised a foot, by means of a bed of charcoal; then sand or gravel is placed on top of this bed, which is finally paved with stone or brick laid with mortar.

"As the country is very subject to earthquakes, the houses, although built of stone, are strengthened with large posts of wood or iron fixed perpendicularly in the ground, rising to the top of the wall-plates, and built within the walls, so that they can not be seen, and then crossed on every floor by master girders, strongly bound together and bolted by wooden keys, which so consolidate the whole building.

"Manila is built on the mouth of a beautiful river, which flows from a lake, called by the Spaniards _Lagonne-de-bay_, and which is situated five leagues inland. Forty streams flow into this lake, which is twenty leagues in circ.u.mference, and around which there are as many villages as streams. The Manila River is the only one which flows out of the lake.

It is covered with boats, bringing to the city every sort of provision from the forty agricultural tribes established on the lake sh.o.r.es.

"The suburbs are bigger and more thickly populated than the city itself; they are separated from it by a river, across which a beautiful bridge has been thrown. The Minondo suburb is more especially inhabited by half-breeds, Chinese, and Indians, who are for the most part goldsmiths and silversmiths, and all of them work people.

"The Saint Croix suburb is inhabited by Spanish merchants, by foreigners of all nations, and by Chinese half-breeds. This quarter is the most agreeable one in the country, because the houses, which are quite as fine as those of the city, are built on the river bank, and thereby they enjoy all the conveniences and pleasantness due to such a position.

"In spite of such advantages, the city is badly situated, being placed between two intercommunicating volcanoes, and of which the interiors, being always active, are evidently preparing its ruin. The two volcanoes are those of the Lagonne-ed-Taal and of Monte Albay. When one burns, the other smokes. I shall speak later on of the former of these volcanoes, which, to me at least, appeared a most singular one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Native Houses in Manila.]

"Until the shocks of the volcanoes shall decide its fate, Manila remains the capital of the Spanish establishments in the Philippines. Here reside the Governor, who is called the Captain General and President of the Royal Audience. Don Simon de Auda filled this office when I arrived at Manila. This Governor had previously been a member of the Royal Audience, and when the English, at the end of the last war, took Manila, he escaped from the city before the surrender, placed himself at the head of the Indians of the province of Pampague, and, without regard to the capitulation of the city, he is said to have succeeded in confining the English within their conquest, starving equally the conquerors and the conquered. Noticing that the Chinese established outside the city walls were furnishing provisions to English and Spaniards alike, he butchered them, putting more than ten thousand to the sword. It seemed to me, however, that the Spaniards in general considered the efforts of this councillor to be more harmful than advantageous to the welfare of the Spanish colony. The English, hara.s.sed by the Indians under Don Simon de Auda, had on their part armed and raised other provinces of Luzon, so as to oppose Indian to Indian, and this sort of civil war did more harm to the colony than even the capture of Manila by the English.

"However this may be, Don Simon de Auda returned to Spain after the peace, was rewarded for his zeal by being made Privy Councillor of Castile, and was sent back to Manila as Governor General of the Philippines. Since his arrival in his province he has started a number of important projects, but difficult to be carried out at one and the same time. He has started considerable fortifications in various parts of the city, very large barracks, d.y.k.es at the mouth of the river, a powder-mill, smelting furnaces and forges to work the iron mines, and a number of other useful works, which might have succeeded better had they been started in due succession.

"The Philippine Archipelago contains fourteen princ.i.p.al islands, the Government of which is divided into twenty-seven provinces, which are governed by _alcaldes_ under the orders of the Governor Captain General.

All these islands are thickly populated, being about three million.

These islands extend from the tenth to the twenty-third degree north lat.i.tude, and vary in breadth from about forty leagues at the north end of Luzon up to two hundred leagues from the south of the southeast point of Mindanao to the southwest point of Paragoa.

"They are all fertile and rich in natural products. But although the Spaniards have been established here for more than two hundred years, they have not yet succeeded in making themselves masters of the islands.

They have no foothold on Paragoa, which is almost eighty leagues long, nor on the adjacent small islands; they only possess a few acres on the big island of Mindanao, which is two hundred leagues in circ.u.mference, nor are they yet fully acquainted with the interior of the island of Luzon, where they have their chief settlement, namely, the city of Manila. Luzon is the largest of these islands, being a hundred and forty leagues long from Cape Bojador to Bulusan Point, which is the most northerly point, and about forty leagues broad. In the northern part of Luzon, near the province of Ilocos, there are some aborigines with whom the Spaniards have never been able to establish communication. It is believed that these people are the descendants of Chinese, who, having been shipwrecked on these sh.o.r.es, have established themselves in the mountains of this part of the island. It is said that some Indians know the routes by which access is gained to this people, and that they have been well received by them; but it is in the interest of these Indians to withhold the knowledge from the Spaniards, on account of their great trade profits with those people, who lack many things and have only provisions and gold."

THE STORY OF THE PATRIOT RIZAL.

DR. JOSe RIZAL, a virtuous Catholic reformer, was the Samuel Adams of the awakening of moral feeling against the tyranny of Spain. He sought to reform the Government and to correct corruption in the Church.

He belonged to the province of Cavite. He was a small man, of a clear, sensitive conscience, and great intellectual penetration and force. It became the one purpose of his life to free his countrymen. "He organized the Revolution," says a monument to Samuel Adams, and Dr. Rizal sought to organize a revolution in a like manner as the "last of the Puritans"

in New England, by the collecting of facts for correspondence with patriots at Manila and Hong Kong.

In his school life he beheld the universal corruption going on around him. His heart was moved to pity the people.

He wrote a letter in which he urged reform by the expulsion of corrupt officers of the Government and of certain immoral priests. This awakened the Government and made him secret enemies. He was accused by the Government of treason and by the decadent priests of the Church of blasphemy. He held to his convictions against all opposition, knowing that right was right and truth was truth.

He sought to unite the worthy representatives of the State and Church in an effort to bring about a change which should honor morals and give justice to the people. Among men of conscience his influence secretly grew. He hoped to gain such force as to make an appeal to the court at Madrid.

He organized a moral revolution.

Conscience is power, but its progress is slow.

In 1890 Dr. Rizal published a pamphlet that stirred the island world. He pictured the sufferings of the natives under the Spanish rule. He appealed to the enlightened Church, conscience and humanity.

The patriot's friends saw that the reform movement was about to be crushed, and said to Rizal:

"Escape to Hong Kong!"

There was a patriotic club in Hong Kong that sought the emanc.i.p.ation of the natives of Luzon and the Philippines from the extortions of Spain.

It would be well for him now to go there.

"How shall I leave the city?" was the one question that suddenly haunted his mind.

He must go by sea. He could not go on board a ship without being detected and detained.

"Get into a perforated box," said a fellow patriot, "and I will ship you with the merchandise."

Dr. Rizal secreted himself in the perforated box, and was shipped from Luzon to Hong Kong.

He was received with great enthusiasm by the Philippine patriots in Hong Kong.

But he was more dangerous to the officials of Luzon in Hong Kong than at Cavite. It became a problem with the latter how to get him once more in their power.

The Governor General Weyler caused a dispatch to be sent to him which stated that he "was too valuable a man for the State to lose his services," that his past conduct would be overlooked, and that he could safely return to his own island.

Honest himself, he could not believe that the dispatch was insincere.

He went back to Manila. His foes were bent on his destruction.

He was one day absent from his rooms attending probably to his medical duties, when some soldiers led by a spy entered his apartments and searched his trunks and pretended to find there seditious books.

Dr. Rizal was arrested. His enemies formed the court to try him for treason.

The books were put out as evidence against him.

"I imported no books," said he.

"But the books are here."

"The customhouse officers found no books in my trunks," said Dr. Rizal.

"But here are the books that witness against you."

"There were no books in my room when I left it," said he.