Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines

R >> Robert Mac Micking >> Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines

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Some one will object that it is an immoral trade, which caters to
the worst passions of the nature of the Chinese. Let it be proved so;
let us see something more than mere prejudice; let it be shown to be
worse than the conduct of the farmer, at home, who raises and sells
barley to make whiskey; or of the distiller, who makes it; or of
the West Indian, who produces rum from his estate, as both of these
stimulants increase the evil passions in men while swayed by them,
to a much greater extent than opium.

Smoking tobacco does no good to the person who practises it; it is
a vice, although those addicted to it may call it one of the lesser
sins. But would it be just or wise to prohibit the growth of tobacco,
because smoking it may not be a virtue?

To attempt stopping the use of opium is no wiser, and just as futile,
in China, as King Jamie's foolish decrees against tobacco proved to
be in Britain.

Wheat is grown in the provinces of Ylocos, Tayabas, and the Laguna,
but is seldom or never more than enough to supply the wants of the
European population, none of it being exported; and the import of
foreign wheat is prohibited, although it is frequently conceded to
the bakers, on their memorialising the Governor, and showing that
the prices at the time of their doing so are excessively high.

Although sulphur can scarcely be ranked in the same category with the
preceding articles of commerce, I set it down here, as a considerable
quantity is annually shipped to China. It is brought from the vicinity
of the volcanoes in Bisayas: the best is said to come from Leyte,
which is worth about one and a quarter dollar per pecul. Residents
at Manilla usually immerse a large block, weighing about two peculs,
in the wells from which their drinking water is taken, just as the
rainy season commences, and it is found to have a most salutary effect
upon the water impregnated with it, causing less liability to those
who drink it, to suffer dysentery from its use.

Cowries, the shells of a small snail, are found on the shores
of several islands, and are shipped as an article of commerce to
Singapore, &c., where they are, I believe, purchased by the Siam
and Calcutta traders, as they serve for money in several of the
countries of Asia. Those found on Sibuyan island, in Capiz province,
are considered the best, being the smallest and stoutest. They are
sold by the cavan, weighing nearly a pecul, if of good quality,
at about two dollars per cavan.

Pitch, or tar, is brought from Tayabas to Manilla, in boxes or baskets,
and is employed, I believe, principally by the shipwrights there,
in the prosecution of their business. Some of the natives also use
it for making torches, it being cheaper than oil.

Betel-nut, or areca, is, as is well known, used nearly all over
Asia, all the natives of which are excessively fond of the taste
the mastication of it produces in their mouths. The prepared leaf is
called a _buyo_ in the Philippines, when it is spread over with lime,
and a morsel of betel-nut enclosed in it. Immense quantities of it are
consumed in the islands and in China, and in former times, I believe,
it formed a branch of the excise revenue.

_Hides._--The quantity of buffalo hides shipped to China and Europe
is considerable. Those exported to China are sometimes shipped without
being salted, although it is necessary that all those sent on so long
a voyage as it is to Europe should undergo that process. Buffalo hide
cuttings are generally prepared for shipment by being immersed in
lime-water, from which they are withdrawn perfectly white and coated
with lime.

Buffalo hides weigh about 21 lbs. a-piece, and cow, only about the
half of that. Deer hides are also sometimes, though rarely, cured
and exported.

The beef of the buffalo, cow, and deer, is cured for the China
market, by being salted and allowed to dry in the sun: it is then
called _sapa_.

Tamarinds, which are called sampaloc by the natives, are seldom
exported for sale.

The woods of the country are various and valuable; but, perhaps,
the best known for its useful properties, is the Sapan dye-wood,
called sibocao. It comes from various provinces; but principally from
Yloylo and Pangasinan.

Good wood is stout, straight, well-coloured, and with no appearance
or trace of water having been used to heighten it, which may be
easily detected on a careful inspection, although the unwary have on
several occasions been known to have purchased, and shipped home to
Britain, quantities of the common firewood in place of it, as after
being wetted, it acquires the colour of Sapan-wood, sufficiently to
deceive an ignorant or careless purchaser.

Nearly all of the straight wood is sent to Europe, and the roots to
China and Calcutta, where they are said to be quite as well liked
as straight wood, and beyond a doubt they produce more dye than
the latter.

The mountains of the Philippines are clothed with numberless varieties
of woods of almost every description of Oriental timber; but the
markets of Europe being so distant, and the cost of freight to them so
enormous, very few are sent there, except, perhaps, ebony and molave,
although several beautiful descriptions of wood are employed by the
cabinet-makers of the country and those of China, some of which are
of superior beauty to anything I have ever seen at home when made up
into furniture.

The ebony principally comes from Cagayan and Camarines, the wood from
which is perfectly dark, and as good as any I know of. The Cagayan
wood is very beautiful, being marked by broad black and white, or
black and yellow stripes; it takes a polish very well, and forms a
peculiarly fine timber for the cabinet-makers to exercise their skill
upon, its rays producing magnificent tables, &c.

Molave is a wood of great solidity, and of incredibly lasting
properties; and it resists, better than all others, exposure to
the weather. It is said to become petrified when immersed for some
time in water, and in fact it appears to be nearly as lasting and
incorruptible as stone itself. It is employed for nearly all purposes,
and large quantities of it are shipped to China.

Narra is a common description of red wood, somewhat resembling
mahogany, which occasions it to be largely used in cabinet-making. From
the lower parts of this tree I have seen a table exceeding two yards
square, cut out, in one piece.

Tindal wood resembles narra, but has a higher colour than the latter,
which, however, gets sobered, and becomes darker by age.

Alintatas is of a beautiful yellow colour.

Malatapay is also yellow, or rather coffee-coloured, and is well
veined for ornament.

Lanete is a white wood, and is made use of for a variety of purposes.

All the preceding woods are capable of being made into furniture of a
very handsome and valuable description, and were they better known in
Europe, would be largely employed for that purpose, as people would
be willing to purchase them for their beauty, even at the high prices
which the distance and expense of transit would occasion.

Among the common useful woods for ship-building and other purposes,
may be mentioned the banaba and mangachapuy: the latter does not
stand water well, however.

Yacal, for beams and joists of houses, &c., and a tall, straight
wood, called _Palo Maria_, is valuable for supplying spars, &c.,
to the shipping of the colony.

Baticulin, for cutting up into boards or deals.

Dungo unites strength and solidity to an immense size.

Teak is found in Zamboanga, and its value is too well known to require
any remark upon it.

Ypil is brought to Manilla from Yloylo, and being a very lasting and
hard timber, is of the greatest value, and is applied to a variety
of uses.

These are some of the many species of woods abounding in the country,
whose number and value are yearly increasing as they become better
known to the foreign timber merchants of China and elsewhere. The
China market alone would take off greatly increased supplies, were
they allowed to ship the timber from the ports next to where the
woodman's axe had felled the tree, in place of forcing it to bear
all the heavy charges which its transport to Manilla in the first
instance now subjects it to.

The investigations of Don Rafael Arenao have been of great service
to me in forming a list of these; and for several other particulars
scattered throughout the preceding pages I have to thank him.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The money current in the Philippines consists of Spanish and South
American dollar pieces principally, although no two of them have
precisely the same weight in silver. Thus the Chilian dollar of 1833
had 456.24 grains of pure metal, while that of the Rio de la Plata
has only 441.24 grains of silver.

Nearly all the Mexican dollars differ in their quantity of pure silver;
for example, that of the coinage of 1832 had only 442.80, while that
of 1833 had 451.20 grains of pure metal. The old Spanish dollar has
445.08 grains of pure silver, and the half dollar 222.48 grains;
while the Bolivian half dollar has only 168.60 grains of pure silver;
and the Bolivian quarter-dollar piece has only 84.84 grains of pure
silver; while the standard Spanish quarter-piece contains 111.24
grains of unalloyed silver.

The golden doubloon, weighing an ounce, is worth sixteen dollars in
Manilla, although it usually sells for considerably less in China.

Both of these coins are subdivided into halves and quarter-pieces,
and the dollar is divided into eight reals, one of which is
equal to two and a half reals of the vellon money current in the
Peninsula; and the Manilla real is represented by a copper currency
of seventeen cuartos. In calculations, however, the real is divided
into twelve parts by an imaginary coin called grains; so that by
$3. 2. 6. would be understood three dollars, two reals, and a half
real, or three dollars and five-sixteenth parts of a dollar.

The copper money in circulation is so scanty, as to be perfectly
inadequate for the purpose; and at the time of my leaving Manilla,
the usual charge for exchanging a dollar for copper money was a
quartillo, or the quarter of a real, worth about a penny halfpenny
of English money.

In consequence of this scarcity, the natives are in the habit of
employing cigars as money, to represent the smaller coins; and all
over the Philippines a cigar is actually the most important circulating
medium, each representing a cuarto.

At various times the scarcity of copper coins has given rise to
extensive forgeries of them, and caused a considerable depreciation
in their actual value, the false coinage being all of spurious metal.

The gold which is found at Pictas, in Misamis, and at Mambalao,
Paracala, and Surigao, is consumed in the country in ornaments, &c.,
and some of it is sent also to China. The amount annually produced
at these places is very uncertain; and the quantity exported to China
is probably a good deal more than the amount set down in the tabular
statement, it being a thing of so very easy export, that I should
suppose at least an equal number of taels are sent there privately,
to what appears in the table to have passed the Custom-house.

Its value in Manilla varies, according to quality, at from twenty
dollars a tael down to fourteen for the inferior sorts.

CHAPTER XXXV.

After travelling so far together, the reader will permit me to direct
his attention to the geographical position and natural advantages of
the Philippines, which are unequalled by any other islands in the whole
eastern Archipelago. Their vicinity to the immensely populous empire
of China is in itself enough to render them a most flourishing colony.

The Spanish and local governments are alive to the importance of this,
and appear desirous to encourage trade to a limited extent, but are
apparently anxious to hold the reins of it, and to regulate it as they
deem best for themselves, or at any time to put a stop to it entirely.

The evils arising from the changeable elements given birth to by
their interference it is difficult to over-estimate, as from the
ignorance, which prevails through all classes, of the first elements
of a commonwealth, and from their capricious notions of government, and
want of knowledge of the advantages of liberality and of the facilities
given to the prosecution of commerce, few persons of prudence care
to expose their capital very extensively to the chances of trade.

At present the Philippines want some infusion of foreign capital
and energy into the veins and local arteries of the country, which,
backed by the enlightened application of science, would cause these
islands to emerge from the obscurity now surrounding them, and force
them to assume the important position for which nature has apparently
destined them.

This will not come to pass until the present opinions of the Government
and people are considerably changed with reference to their commercial
legislation, or until all government interference in affairs of that
nature is left off, so far as the interests of the revenue will permit,
when the people will be insensibly but wisely taught by experience
to rely upon themselves alone.

The principles of commerce, and the wealth of nations, as laid
down by Adam Smith in his great work, which is almost deserving of
immortality for the truths it tells mankind, are as true and as sure
in practice as they are in theory; and should the wisdom and truth
of his investigations ever be applied to the commercial regulations
of these islands, it is difficult to foretell the destiny that may
ultimately await them.

It appears to me to be as unwise to attempt to restrain the course of
nature and its fruits, aided by the energies of man to develop or to
use them, as it would be to bind down the mind of a man of genius,
or of a poet, in order to prevent their operation, or to hinder the
great conceptions of their muse, or the scientific research which a
bright genius renders serviceable to his fellow mortals, from ever
seeing the light. No one will defend the justice or wisdom of the
time which forbade Galileo to publish, or even himself to believe in,
his great discoveries; but is that more unjust than the policy of
rulers, who shut up from the beings whom God has created to use them,
the fruits of our common mother, the earth?

It is equally absurd to prevent and to prohibit in either case;
but notwithstanding this, the passions and prejudices of mankind are
violent enough to permit of the one, although they would by no means
suffer the other. Wisdom and passion can seldom or never accompany
each other.

Philanthropy will ultimately banish from our codes all such regulations
as tend to check the fruitfulness of the soil and its use by man,
who has been endowed with reason in order that he may assist the
operations of nature. The constant and unrestricted use of the bounties
of nature does not lead to their abuse; the contrary is the fact,
for it is only when our appetites are excited by the obstacles to
their attainment that they become excessively indulged and depraved.

The illiberality of the Government places the existing position of
foreigners in rather an equivocal position, for they are only there
upon sufferance; and in the event of any disturbance, such as happened
at Manilla in 1820, or of a war between the two nations, what would
become of the foreigners or of their property?

It has already been shown to the world that our fellow-subjects at
Manilla in 1820, might be murdered in the streets like dogs, and no
retribution be demanded by their Government; and to this day their
personal liberty and property can at any time be endangered by the
caprice of the Governor or of his subordinates.

In 1848, an alcalde laid hold of a number of British subjects,
and threw them suddenly into prison, because he happened one day to
discover that the time for their permission to remain in the country
had years ago expired, which all of them had been led to expect it was
quite unnecessary to have renewed so long as they remained quiet and
well-conducted members of the community. As the alcalde did not know
very well what to do with them when he had got them into the jail,
he kept them there for a few days till he had smoked a good deal,
and thought a little about them, and then he told the jailor to let
them out again.

Our trade with China would be materially improved by the attention
of Her Majesty's Foreign Secretary being directed to the position
of the Philippines in connection with our own interests with them,
and with the great empire adjoining them. Besides, it is a shame to
ourselves that such things should exist in the colony, not only of
a friendly European power, but of one so much indebted, as Spain is,
to the valour of our arms for her independence, and to our liberality
for possessing this colony at all.

THE END.

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON,
London Gazette Office, St. Martin's Lane; and Orchard Street,
Westminster.

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