Beautiful Philippines: A Handbook of General InformationPhilippine Islands. Commission of Independence
History
Beautiful Philippines: A Handbook of General Information
Philippine Islands. Commission of Independence
Philippines -- Description and travel; Philippines -- Economic conditions
The lowest average rainfall for the last twelve years for the whole
Archipelago was 60.73 inches in the driest region, the highest,
125.68, in the wettest. Manila's average was 75.46.
VI. THE CITY OF MANILA
[Entrance to Manila Bay]
You enter Manila Bay thru a narrow passage in the middle of which is
the famous Island of Corregidor, the "Rock," the "Gibraltar of the Far
East," the "Home of the Big Guns," that guards the harbor. It is also
a hydroplane station of the United States. The island is a stalwart
sentinel, as it were, at the harbor's mouth. Nearby are two other
"watch dogs" of Uncle Sam, known as "El Fraile" and "El Carabao,"
two other well fortified islands holding many a surprise for any
invading fleet.
Down the bay your steamer glides amid the shipping of many nations
and the launches of the customs and quarantine soon appear to "look
the stranger over."
MANILA.--After the quarantine and customs inspection you get off
your steamer and you are in Manila, the capital of the Philippine
Archipelago. Your first impressions are of the tourist sort. Your
interest is immediately arrested by the dress and habits of the
Filipinos, of the Chinese, and of the various residents from every
quarter of the globe. The water buffalo or the carabao, the one horse
carriage, or the carromata, and the slippers, or "chinelas," worn in
the streets by the poor will startle you to the realization that you
are in a world other than your own. The every-day clothes worn by the
people give you an ensemble of all the colors imaginable, more so when
there is a procession, parade or similar festivities--royal purple,
plum, heliotrope, magenta, psolferino, scarlet, geranium, salmon,
pinks, greens, vivid and tender, all the blues, yellow, orange,
champaca, in short every hue, shade, and tint that art has borrowed
from nature or has invented.
You stroll around the City and one of the first things you notice
is the various means of transportation. There is the automobile,
from the popular Ford Lizzie to the Packard Limousine; there is the
one-horse carriage, in shape and looks unique in the world; and there
is the street car propelled by the familiar electricity.
The Walled City.--Near the pier you see a cluster of buildings
enclosed by solid stone walls about twenty feet high. This is the
famous Walled City or Intramuros, a remnant of Spanish days. It is
something less than a mile long and half a mile wide. The walls used to
be fortresses with which the Spaniards used to repel the many attacks
and invasions. To go into this Walled City is to remind you of Madrid,
Spain, with all its narrow streets and typical Spanish buildings. The
walls had been begun prior to the end of the sixteenth century;
before the next was far advanced, the place boasted of a cathedral,
hospitals, and a university; walled Manila had grown into quite a city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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