Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines

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

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The temperature induces such a rapid vegetation as to injure their
taste, as it prevents their ripening, for, after attaining a certain
growth, the sun dries up the pod in a very few days, to prevent which
they are pulled very early, when the pea is so small and delicate,
being barely formed, that the cooks usually serve up both pods and
peas together at table, after having minced them into small pieces
with a knife, being unable to separate them properly.

The common potatoe is imported from China, and from the Australian
colonies. Those from Van Diemen's Land are the best; the sorts received
from China are usually watery and small, being greatly inferior to
those sent up from Australia.

In the fair monsoon, the Chinamen sometimes get supplies of apples,
pears, cabbage, &c., from Shanghai, and these are considered as
great delicacies.

There are many other fruits and vegetables procurable at Manilla,
but those mentioned are the sorts usually met with.

CHAPTER XXI.

The population of the islands is very uncertain, for although the
Government makes the census _apparently_ with some exactness, a very
little knowledge of the country is sufficient to show that they do not
do so in reality, but that this resembles all their other statistical
information, and cannot be depended upon, although it is useful in
leading to an approximation.

Their data are made up from the revenue derived from a capitation
tax, which is so much per head for all grown up persons; but as it
is the interest of all who may be called upon to pay it to keep out
of the way during the period of its collection, many of them do so
without much difficulty, more especially in the remote districts,
where their facilities for concealment are much greater than in the
neighbourhood of Manilla, or of the provincial capitals, where the
alcaldes reside; so that those actually liable to it are very much
greater than the payers of the tax. I estimate the population at a
little under five million souls, the great bulk of whom are engaged
in agricultural pursuits.

Great numbers of people are also employed as fishermen, artizans
of all sorts, and as manufacturers of cloth fabrics of various
descriptions. In addition to the people so gaining a livelihood
by their industry, there are scattered throughout the islands many
Indians, without any occupation, and apparently altogether dependent
on the fruit of the plaintain-tree for subsistence, and indulging
all their natural laziness and indolence of disposition by its aid,
preferring to subsist on the fruit of this most productive plant,
which they can do, from its being always procurable and at all times
of the year in season, without an effort towards its cultivation,
to undertaking the labour and attention necessary to grow rice.

Some of these people are hunters, occasionally going out to the
wilds in pursuit of game, which must alternate beneficially with
their vegetable diet.

As an article of food, however, the plantain does not appear to be so
nutritive or strength-supporting as rice; at least, those persons who
are principally dependent on it for food appear less robust looking
than the rice-fed population. This, however, may not be entirely owing
to that cause, but may be attributable in some degree to their lazy
habits, which, by preventing them taking much exercise or bodily
exertion, renders the muscles of their bodies less developed than
those of the other Indians whose harder work keeps their frames in
a proper state of health.

In person, the native Indians are a good deal slighter and shorter
than Europeans, but are, on the average, taller and stouter than the
Malays, many of them having that broad make of shoulders and lustiness
of limb which indicate personal strength.

Their countenances are in general open and pleasing, and would
be handsome, but for their smallness of nose, which is the worst
feature in the native physiognomy; however, when that feature is
well shaped, as it frequently is, their faces are decidedly handsome
and good-looking.

These remarks apply to both sexes; a number of the women are very
beautiful, for although their skin is dusky, the ruddiness of their
blood shows through it on the cheek, producing a very beautiful
colour, and their dark, lustrous eyes are in general more lit up with
intelligence and vivacity of expression, than those of any Indians
I have seen elsewhere.

A very pleasant trait, to my taste, is the nearly universal frankness
and candid look that nature has stamped upon their features, which,
when accompanied by the softness of manner common to all Asiatics,
is particularly gratifying in the fairer part of creation.

Their figures are well shaped, being perfectly straight and graceful,
and nearly all of them have the small foot and hand, which may be
regarded as a symbol of unmixed blood when very small and well shaped;
as although the Mestizas gain from their European progenitor a greater
fairness of skin, they generally retain the marks of it in their
larger bones, and their hands and feet are seldom so well shaped as
those of the pure-bred Indian, even although the Spaniards are noted
for possessing these points in equal or greater perfection than the
people of other European countries.

The bath is a great luxury among the natives, and of all country-born
people, who appear to be fully as fond of the water as ducks are,
and never look so well pleased as when they are paddling about in it,
for nearly all the women can swim.

It used to be a very favourite sport to make up a bathing party of
ladies, who, dressed in their long gowns, bathed with their male
friends equipped in parjamas, or in short bathing trousers, without
hesitation, swimming about in a retired part of the river for a long
time, generally stopping at least an hour in the water, on leaving
which, and dressing, all reunited to breakfast, or amuse themselves
in some way, with dancing or music. These parties, however, are now
seldom heard of, as the late arrivals from Spain have been so many as
to be able to take the lead, and give a tone to the society of Manilla,
and are now in the midst of revolutionizing the old habits and customs
of the place, certainly not at all for the better, as they have yet
to learn that what is suitable in Europe is not so in the tropics.

Fondness for gay dress is universal, and the _ninas_ take considerable
pains to understand the subject, and to adorn their natural good looks
to the most advantage by the selection of the most appropriate colours.

Their hair is one of the most remarkable beauties in the native and
Mestiza women, being very much longer, and of a finer gloss, than
that of any Europeans.

The staple and most favourite food of the people is rice seasoned
by sun-dried or salted fish, if they should be unable to procure
it fresh, which is, however, seldom the case, as the rivers in the
country abound with many different sorts, and all of them appear to
be very good and well tasted.

And not only do the rivers abound with fish, but great numbers of
_dalag_ are found in the flooded paddy fields during and subsequent
to the rainy season, when they are soaked with water. How this fish,
which is not very good to eat, being tasteless and insipid, comes
there, is a curious problem, as it is often killed in paddy grounds at
a great distance from any stream, out of which it could come during
an overflow. I am not quite certain whether this fish is ever killed
in a stream or not, or whether it is only found in the paddy fields.

I do not recollect of its once being caught in a river, although
the natives kill the fish in the ditches and paddy fields in large
quantities, either by shooting them with shot, as they flounder in
the fields, or by pursuing and capturing them, and knocking them down
with a stick.

In fact, I suspect the _dalag_ to be an intermediary between the
reptile and the fish, although not naturalist enough to investigate
the subject in a proper manner.

CHAPTER XXII.

Many of my readers may chance to be aware that the whole group of
Philippine islands was mortgaged to Great Britain for payment of the
ransom agreed upon at the time of our conquest of them nearly a century
ago; and as up till this time neither the money nor the interest on
it has been obtainable, as it probably never will be, they are, at
this, or any other time, virtually our property, should the British
Government foreclose the mortgage and demand payment. This, even at
present, when the kingdom is groaning under extreme pressure for the
necessary funds annually squeezed out of it, would not be thought a
prudent course, even by the ultra-economical politicians who are so
lavish of displaying their crude projects of retrenchment on neatly
ruled-off paper.

There is no doubt, however, that the cash is never likely to be
forthcoming from the Spaniards, and, under these circumstances, it
surely would be worth the attention of Her Majesty's Government, more
especially as they profess free-trade ideas, to make this state of
things the basis of a request, or even of a _claim_, on the Spanish
Government, for obtaining some liberal concessions in favour of
their countrymen, and the rest of the world, carrying on commercial
intercourse with the Philippines, which is now limited to Manilla;
all foreigners being prohibited from engaging in the country trade,
or from owning property in lands, houses, or ships in the Philippines.

Of course, the Spaniards themselves suffer for the illiberality
of this policy, as there can be no doubt that, were it more free,
and less burdened with restrictions of all sorts than it now is,
it would be attended with the best effects to their own treasury,
as well as be for the general welfare of the islands.

This is what they cannot yet comprehend; but it would not be difficult
to make them understand it, if the employe who undertook the task
understood it himself, and possessed knowledge enough of the character
of the people he had to deal with. Any request, if made in a proper
tone, by our Government, would draw attention to the subject at Madrid,
and some good might be done, even were it only of partial advantage,
as for many years to come they are not likely to step boldly out into
the subject.

At Zamboanga, opposite Zooloo, there already exists a custom-house
and other government offices for the regulation of their own trade
with these islands. But no foreigners are allowed to reside at
Zamboanga. Surely the permission for them to do so is worthy the
attention of a government which has established and is supporting,
at considerable expense, the colony of Labuan for the object not
only of extending our trade and the use of the products of our
manufacturing population, but also with the more generous and noble
idea of civilizing the people in its neighbourhood by their influence,
and of teaching them the blessings that flow from industry and peace.

The appointment of Sir James Brooke as Governor of Labuan was in every
respect a wise proceeding, as it affords a philanthropist a very wide
field on which to exert his influence. Unfortunately, however, for him,
a number of well-informed people, residing in the neighbourhood of the
spot where his philanthropic exertions are said to have taken place,
deny their having had any existence; but, on the contrary, accuse
that gentleman, through the columns of a Singapore newspaper, of the
worst motives and conduct: in short, he is accused in that newspaper
of murdering innocent natives in great numbers by falsely representing
them to be pirates, to serve his own purposes and gratify his Sarawak
subjects' dislike of them; the naval officers, whose services had
been placed at his disposal to put down piracy, being misled by him.

I am not sufficiently acquainted with all the facts of the case to
say with what truth this accusation is made, although, I believe,
so grave a charge has never been contradicted by him, or by his
friends authorized to do so in his name, and to state the true facts
of the case to the public. But, as far as Labuan is concerned, those
people who are best qualified to judge appear to be of opinion that,
although it should have a fair trial for some years longer, it will
never become a place of much commercial importance.

There is little doubt that were foreigners allowed to settle at
Zamboango, where Zooloo, Mindanao, and the entire southern coasts
of the Philippines would be open to their enterprise, it would be
productive of the most beneficial effects, not merely to our merchants
and manufacturers, but to the cause of civilization throughout all
these barbarous countries, and would probably be found much more
effective in putting an end to the existing state of piracy and
kidnapping, which are now carried on to some extent, than any warlike
means which have hitherto been employed to suppress them.

There are many other objects of a commercial nature worth
the consideration of an enlightened government, such as the
disproportionate protective duties in favour of their national
shipping and the produce of Spain; and some degree of toleration to
the religious opinions of foreigners residing at Manilla might also
be obtained; so far, at least, as to permit their having a piece
of consecrated ground for burying their dead, if no more should be
granted; at present they are not permitted to place the remains of
a Protestant within the limits of consecrated ground; but have to
bury them in a field where Chinamen, who retained their country's
faith till the end of their lives, are laid, and where swine are
continually going about routing up the soil, at the imminent hazard
of disturbing recently interred bodies.

Liberty for foreigners to settle in the country for the purposes of
trade or agriculture, and to hold property, might be obtained without
much difficulty, were it properly explained, and shown that their
doing so would benefit the Spaniards as much as themselves.

Under the existing laws their inability to hold property prevents
those foreigners who, after passing many years in the country, have
become as it were almost native, and where they have contracted ties
and formed connexions which few men would like to break, from settling
down in it for the remainder of their lives. As they have no means of
investing their gains with security, though they have probably reached
an age when the cares of business press heavily on relaxed energies,
and they are disposed to sit down quietly, and enjoy themselves in
the country where they are naturalized in every thing but in the eye
of the law--all the interest which good citizens, holding pecuniary
investments, naturally take in the well-being of the country, is
withdrawn from them. No wonder, then, that they are careless about the
domestic improvement of the Philippines, or of their progress in those
arts which fill the treasuries of rulers, and make subjects happy.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The laws do not appear to be bad in themselves, but the dilatoriness
with which they are administered has the effect of rendering them as
baneful to those living under them as if they were radically bad;
the delays and accidents inseparable from the mode of conducting
legal business are very vexatious, and frequently from its cost it
is quite inefficient for its purposes of justice. However, Spain and
its colonies are not singular in that respect, as there is one great
and flourishing country which I could name, where the same defects
exist, although, thank God, in a less degree than they do either
in the colony of Spain, or in that country itself; so the less said
about the mote in our brother's eye, the better for those who have
at this moment a beam in the organ of their own judicial executive.

In conducting a _pleito_ at Manilla, all is done by writing; first,
the charge is made out and filed; then comes an answer to the charge;
then a counter-answer is put in, and that again is replied to; and
so on they go for any length of time, determined by the weight of
the purses of the respective contending parties, till, if no more
is to be said, or if one or both of them gets tired of the expense,
and the case is decided, the other, if he be a rich man, can refer the
whole affair to Spain, where the same pleadings have to be again gone
through, and all the vexation and expense re-incurred, besides that the
decision of the case may with a little management be protracted for any
indefinite length of time. This is not worse than what happens at home,
and is similar to some of our Scotch cases in former times, when for a
century or more one case would be agitated to gratify family dislike
or prejudice. That no one may think I exaggerate, it may be as well
to mention a case which is still undecided at this moment, and which
originated about 1731, between the lairds of Kilantringan and Miltonise
in Galloway, although near kinsmen, namesakes, and neighbours.

There are few things more dreaded by the Spaniards themselves than
a lawsuit with one another. Many of them, however, are glad of the
chance it gives them to be revenged on people with whom they are not
upon good terms. So vile is the whole law and practice relating to
the testamentary disposal of property, and to such lengths have the
abuses in this particular branch of it gone, that it has become a
proverb among Spaniards to say that a wise man would prefer being
a trustee on an estate, to being heir to it; and several people at
Manilla are well known to be living on their gains from executorships,
&c., having no other means of support. These persons, although their
incomes are almost universally known to be so derived, are not in
the least shunned as dishonest people, but are looked upon as being
perfectly entitled to feather their own nests in place of performing
their duty, as we should understand it to be in Britain.

The police laws and regulations are also badly administered, being
very shameful to the Government which permits things to go on under the
same loose system as before. Were there a more numerous and efficient
police force scattered over the country, none of the Spaniards would be
afraid, as many of them now actually are, to live out of town, or to
make distant excursions to the country, from fear of the _tulisanes_,
or robber-bands, which are scattered about in various places, and are
found pursuing their avocations in the neighbourhood of the capital,
although not so boldly as they did a few years since. These robbers
plunder the country in bands perfectly organized, and bodies of them
are generally existing within a few miles of Manilla,--the wilds and
forests of the Laguna being favourite haunts, as well as the shores of
the Bay of Manilla, from which they can come by night, without leaving
a trace of the direction they have taken, in bodies of ten and twenty
men at a time, in a large banca. They have apparently some friends
in Manilla, who plan out their enterprises, send them intelligence,
and direct their attacks; so that every now and then they are heard
of as having gutted some rich native or Mestizo's house in the suburbs
of Manilla, after which they generally manage to get away clear before
the alguacils come up.

The houses of Europeans are also occasionally attacked, although much
less boldly within the last year or two; yet it is the custom for
people to retire to bed, even in the heart of the town without the
walls, with pistols, a sword, or some other weapon within reach. That
these people do immense damage there is no doubt, as they not only
plunder the country people of buffaloes and horses, but rifle their
houses, if no better prey is to be had, to such an extent, that
the natives are afraid to live at any distance from each other in
many parts of the country, solely through fear of them. From this
cause, patches of fine paddy land in out-of-the-way districts are
left uncultivated, or are hurriedly ploughed and sown by adventurous
persons, who after doing so retire into the nearest village to live,
till the time comes to reap as much of the paddy as the deer and
numerous wild pigs have left untouched.

The punishments of these bad characters are severe enough when justice
chances to get hold of them; and, should their crimes be atrocious,
they occasionally suffer death. Sometimes they are _garroted_, which
is done in this way. After being seated at the place of execution,
with the back towards a high post of wood, the culprit's neck is
encircled by an iron collar attached to the post, and capable of
compression by a powerful screw passing through the post, which, on
the signal being made, the executioner turns, and the victim is choked
in a second. The practice is much less disgusting than hanging, as
no effects are visible to an on-looker beyond the convulsive movement
of a frame loaded with heavy irons to prevent a severe and disgusting
struggle with departing life.

A good many of the _tulisanes_ are soldiers who, after committing some
peccadillo, feared its discovery and punishment, and flying to the
wilds have joined or organised a troop from among the bad characters
in the neighbourhood of their hiding-place.

These executions are not unfrequent at Manilla. One morning, when
riding near the usual place of execution on the sea-beach, I saw six
deserters, who had composed a band of atrocious robbers, suffer death
from the muskets of their former comrades; those who were not killed
at once, having an end put to their existence by the pistols of a
serjeant, who stepped close up to them before discharging the piece.

Truly it was a sad sight to see their former comrades degraded into
executioners. The number of women who had collected to witness the
last act of this tragedy was very great, very much outnumbering the
men present. But they were principally composed of the most worthless
class of females; yet on many of them the example appeared to make
a considerable impression.

I have no doubt, whatever the present popular mawkish
sentimental-mongers may write to the contrary, that these exhibitions,
when happening rarely, tend, in a great measure, to restrain the
passions of the evil-disposed, although some of them may think it
bold, among their hardened associates, to turn the spectacle into a
farce. I firmly believe that no human being can in cold blood look upon
another's death by violent means without being forced to think about
it for some time, greater or less, according to his or her temperament.

For minor offences criminals are sometimes flogged through the
town. They are mounted on horseback, with their legs manacled or
bound under the horse's belly, and a portion of their punishment is
administered at several of the most public places in the town, by
an executioner dressed in red, and with a veil over his face. Thus,
supposing a thief sentenced to receive a hundred lashes or blows,
they would most probably be administered by twenty at a time, in five
different places throughout the capital, proclamation being made at
each place, previous to the punishment, of the offence and of the name
of the offender, who is dressed in the ordinary mode, with a shirt and
pair of trousers, and exposed to the full view of the attending crowd.

Confinement in the jail at night, with labour in irons on the public
roads during the day, is also a usual punishment; criminals being
generally linked in pairs by a chain round the leg of each, and
taken out, under a guard, to work on the streets or roads at Manilla,
Cavite, or Zamboanga, at sunrise, and led back to jail at sunset. But
as they are not forced by the soldiers to work much harder than they
like, they take care not to injure themselves by overtasking their
powers of labour, and are not apparently much discontented with their
condition, from which I have seldom or never heard of their attempting
to escape, although neither their food nor their lodgings in jail
are very enticing; the former being bad black-looking rice and water,
and the jail generally swarming with vermin.

They appear to prefer the partial liberty of getting out of jail, and
of working in the streets in chains, to the monotony of a residence
within the walls of the prison, and the sedentary labour they might
be forced to pursue there.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Among the amusements of the Indians the greatest is cock-fighting,
for which they have a passion; and nearly every native throughout
the islands gratifies this taste by keeping a fighting cock, which
may be seen carried about with him perched on an arm or a shoulder,
in all the pride of a favourite of its master.

During Sundays and feast-days, when no work is allowed to be done,
nearly the half of the native population, if able to muster a few
rials, repair to the village cockpit, to arrange some match for their
favorite fowl, on which they will sometimes stake large amounts,
or to see the sport of their neighbours.

The privilege of opening a cockpit is an important source of revenue
to the Government, which farms it out to the highest bidder, who, I
believe, has the power to stop fighting for money at any place within
the limits of his district other than the privileged arena, for an
admission to which he exacts a small charge from each person, which is
the mode of reimbursing himself for the amount paid to the Government.

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