Fort McKinley is separated from Manila along the riverside “speedway” by seven miles of macadamized road, over which during the dry season vehicles of all descriptions roll, from the two-wheeled caromato to the high-power limousine. This famous driveway is the “Ormond Beach” of the “Far East,” rivalling in climate and surpassing in beauty the celebrated winter resort of southern Florida. A moonlight ride along this magnificent boulevard is a scene never to be forgotten. On leaving the nippa-roofed bamboo shacks in the barrio of Guadeloupe, you light a cigarette and recline in luxurious ease on the cushions of your rubber-tired “victoria,” drawn by a pair of sleek Australian ponies, their languid movement being in keeping with the wishes of the “cochero,” who regulates his fee by the time consumed in conveyance. The witchery or charm of your entire surroundings is preternatural. The phosphorous ripples of the swift-flowing Pásig on one side seem to emulate the scintillation of the star-bespangled firmament, while, in rivalling contrast on the other, the glow-worm and fire-fly in sheltering palms and over dewy landscape, like the ignis fatuus, seem to mock the luminous glow of the moon. As the old Santa Anna Cathedral, with its vine-clad balustrades falling to decay, appears in the scene, looming in magnetic amplitude over the verdant foliage of tropical grandeur, it is with a feeling of supplication, induced by the magical influence of the night, that you involuntarily alight from the “victoria” and enter the sacred portals of this time-consecrated sanctuary, most holy and inviolable site, where for ages past the “padre” sang mass to the souls of the donors, the parishioners, who, kneeling in humble supplication, have chanted, in eloquent voice, the Ave Maria and Gloria Patria from the prayers in the three chaplets of their worshipful Rosary. As you linger in silent meditation along the galleries of this sanctified edifice, as if in quest of the “Holy Grail,” it is with a feeling of penitence for an inherent apostasy which seems to overwhelm you. The glittering satellites in the heavens cast their rays through the apertures of the quaint old campanile, in whose lofty dome, the home of fluttering bats and a staid old owl, tinkling bells for generations rang out at sunset and early dawn, as the people sang their vespers and chanted the Ave Maria.