Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat: In the U. S. Sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, During the Years 1832-3-4Roberts, Edmund
History
Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat: In the U. S. Sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, During the Years 1832-3-4
Roberts, Edmund
Southeast Asia -- Commerce; Southeast Asia -- Description and travel
On Manila Sunday, (our Monday,) a party of eight, one beautiful
morning, before sunrise, proceeded in three veloches (carriages of
a certain description) to the village of Santa Anna, distant about
three miles over a fine road and highly-cultivated country, where we
embarked on board two large bankas of about eight-and-thirty feet in
length, dug out of a tree, having a light bamboo-roof which could be
elevated or depressed at pleasure, and paddled by four Indians. Between
eight and nine o’clock, we arrived at the town of Pasig, situated
about three miles from the entrance of the lake; the passage up was
delightful--the land bordering on the river was low but well cultivated
with rice, sugar-cane, &c., and fruit; it was one continuous village on
either bank. Being a holyday, the natives were well and gayly dressed;
hundreds of canoes passed us, laden with fish from the lake; others
with fruit, vegetables, eggs, areca-nut and betel-leaf, beef, pork,
fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys, cocoa-nut oil, molasses and sugar, cloth,
of various kinds, baskets, mats, hats, &c., made of bamboo, all under
cover of the moveable roof; they were paddled by an equal number of
men and women, all apparently, in good spirits, and having always at
hand a joke, to bandy with our canoe-men, in the Taga language; they
were hurrying on to the great markets at Manila and Binonda, to dispose
of their various articles. On the shores, men, women, and children
were fishing with every sort of contrivance that can be named, in
the shape of nets, hooks, and lines; some men with nets scraping up
the mud from the bottom to obtain shrimps, which they found in great
abundance; others taking very large craw-fish. Hundreds were bathing
in the river, near the banks; whole families were seen together, from
the grand-mother to the grand-daughter, washing their long black hair
with vegetable soap, called by the natives gogo, being the inner-rind
of a tree growing here in great plenty. Many of the palm and bamboo
cottages were erected on piles close to the bank of the river, and
some canoes were made fast to the ladder ready for any of the family
to take an excursion, when they wished to go to the village-church,
or to gossip with a neighbour and partake of his hospitalities, which
consist of Burgo and a cigar, a fishing-party, a main of fighting-cocks
or a boat-race. The fronts of the houses being open, all the operations
of the various families could be distinctly seen. We met with many
hotels, alias eating-shops, placed on piles some distance from the
shore, where our boatmen stopped to obtain their breakfast, which
consisted of rice, shrimp and other fish, in abundance, for which they
paid about two cents per head. Many loungers were reposing on the
bamboo-flooring, smoking or chewing burgo, flirting with the young
damsels, who were indulging themselves in the same luxury as their
beaux; at the same time, perhaps, combing out and oiling their hair,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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