The Former Philippines Thru Foreign EyesComyn, Tomás de
History
The Former Philippines Thru Foreign Eyes
Comyn, Tomás de
Philippines
Dr. L. V. Schweibs, of Berlin, made the hundreds of corrections,
many reversing the meanings of former readings, which almost
justify calling the revised Jagor translation a new one. Numerous
hitherto-untranslated passages likewise appear. There have been
left out the illustrations, from crude drawings obsolete since
photographic pictures have familiarized the scenes and objects,
and also the consequently superfluous references to these. No other
omission has been allowed, for if one author leaned far to one side in
certain debatable questions the other has been equally partisan for the
opposite side, except a cerement on religion in general and discussion
of the world-wide social evil were eliminated as having no particular
Philippine bearing to excuse their appearance in a popular work.
The early American quotations of course are for comparison with the
numerous American comments of today, and the two magazine extracts
give English accounts a century apart. Virchow's matured views have
been substituted for the pioneer opinions he furnished Professor Jagor
thirty years earlier, and if Rizal's patron in the scientific world
fails at times in his facts his method for research is a safe guide.
Finally, three points should constantly be borne in mind: (1) allowance
must be made for the lessening Spanish influence, surely more foreign
to this seafaring people than the present modified Anglo-Saxon
education, and so more artificial, i.e., less assimilable, as well
as for the removal of the unfavorable environment, before attempting
to from an opinion of the present-day Filipino from his prototype
pictured in those pages; (2) foreign observers are apt to emphasize
what is strange to them in describing other lands than their own and to
leave unnoted points of resemblance which may be much more numerous;
(3) Rizal's judgment that his countrymen were more like backward
Europeans than Orientals was based on scientific studies of Europe's
rural districts and Philippine provincial conditions as well as of
oriental country life, so that it is entitled to more weight than
the commoner opinion to the contrary which though more popular has
been less carefully formed.
University of the Philippines,
Manila, March 11th, 1916.
Contents
Jagor's Travels in the Philippines 1
(The out-of-print 1875 English translation corrected from the original
German text)
State of the Philippines in 1810. By Tomas de Comyn 357
(William Walton's 1821 translation modernized)
Manila and Sulu in 1842. By Com. Chas. Wilkes, U.S.N. 459
(Narrative of U. S. Exploring Expedition 1838-42, Vol. 5)
Manila in 1819. By Lieut. John White, U.S.N. 530
(From the "History of a Voyage to the China Sea")
The Peopling of the Philippines. By Doctor Rudolf Virchow 536
(O. T. Mason's translation; Smithsonian Institution 1899 Report)
People and Prospects of the Philippines. By An English Merchant,
1778, and A Consul, 1878 550
(From Blackwood's and the Cornhill Magazine)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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