As up to that time the young Indian had always enjoyed excellent health, the doctor’s prognostication was regarded as an evidence of great and mysterious skill. The fame of it soon spread through Manilla, and in a few hours the newly-arrived physician was beleagured with patients, and in a fair way of accumulating a fortune. In the midst of all this, some one had the curiosity to ask the doctor how he could possibly have predicted the death of the girl, seeing that she had been in perfect health a few hours before. “Predict it,” replied the doctor, “why, sir, I saw her spit blood enough to have killed her half a dozen times.” “Blood! how did you know it was blood?” “How! from the colour, how else?” “But every one spits red in Manilla.” The doctor, who had already observed this fact, and was labouring under some uneasiness in regard to it, refused to make any further confession at the time, but he had said enough to elucidate the mystery. The thing soon spread throughout the city, and it became clear to every one that what the new _medico_ had taken for blood, was nothing else than the red juice of the buyo, and that the poor girl had died from the fear of death caused by his prediction. His patients now fled from him as speedily as they had congregated; and to avoid the ridicule that awaited him, as well as the indignation of the friends of the deceased girl, our doctor was fain to escape from Manilla, and return to Spain in the same ship that had brought him out. The ladies who work in the government cigar factory at Manilla, all, more or less, chew the betel nut, and any one daring enough to disregard the warning not to touch anything, when passing as a visitor through the rooms, must stand the assault from the mouths of a hundred or two of these dames, in the shape of a deluge of the decoction of this nut. The captain of an American vessel at Manilla, although warned of the consequences, with American impudence, infringed the rule, and paid the penalty. He was compelled to beat a retreat, and being dressed in the white garb of the East, resembled a spotted leopard, in the room of a free and enlightened citizen of the great Republic. The mastication of the betel is considered very wholesome by those who are in the habit of using it, and it may be so, but the black appearance it gives to the teeth, although it is said to be an excellent preserver of them, together with the brick red lips and mouth, cause anything but an agreeable appearance. Its use certainly does not impart additional beauty to the native females, who habituate themselves to an extent equal to that of the opposite sex.