The Old Fort.--There was a stone fort on the south side facing Ermita,
known as the Fortress of Our Lady of Guidance; and there were two
or more bastions, each with six pieces of artillery,--St. Andrew's,
now a powder magazine at the southeast corner, and St. Gabriel's,
over-looking the Parian district, where the Chinese were settled.
The three principal gates to the city, with the smaller wickets and
posterns, which opened on the river and sea, were regularly closed
at night by the guard which made the rounds. At each gate and wicket
was a permanent post of soldiers and artillerists.
The Plaza de Armas adjacent to the fort had its arsenal, stores,
powder-works, and a foundry for the casting of guns and artillery. The
foundry, when established by Ronquillo, was in charge of a Pampangan
Indian called Pandapira.
The Spanish Buildings of the City.--The buildings of the city,
especially the Casas Reales and the churches and monasteries, had been
durably erected of stone. Chirino claims that the hewing of stone, the
burning of lime, and the training of native and Chinese artisans for
this building, were the work of the Jesuit father, Sedeño. He himself
fashioned the first clay tiles and built the first stone house, and so
urged and encouraged others, himself directing, the building of public
works, that the city, which a little before had been solely of timber
and cane, had become one of the best constructed and most beautiful
in the Indies. [54] He it was also who sought out Chinese painters
and decorators and ornamented the churches with images and paintings.
Within the walls, there were some six hundred houses of a private
nature, most of them built of stone and tile, and an equal number
outside in the suburbs, or "arrabales," all occupied by Spaniards
("todos son vivienda y poblacion de los Españoles"). [55]
This gives some twelve hundred Spanish families or establishments,
exclusive of the religious, who in Manila numbered at least one
hundred and fifty, [56] the garrison, at certain times, about four
hundred trained Spanish soldiers who had seen service in Holland and
the Low Countries, and the official classes.
The Malecon and the Luneta.--It is interesting at this early date to
find mention of the famous recreation drive, the Paseo de Bagumbayan,
now commonly known as the Malecon and Luneta. "Manila," says our
historian, "has two places of recreation on land; the one, which is
clean and wide, extends from the point called Our Lady of Guidance
for about a league along the sea, and through the street and village
of natives, called Bagumbayan, to a very devout hermitage (Ermita),
called the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guidance, and from there a good
distance to a monastery and mission (doctrina) of the Augustinians,
called Mahalat (Malate)." [57] The other drive lay out through the
present suburb of Concepcion, then called Laguio, to Paco, where was
a monastery of the Franciscans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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