It was twenty-seven miles across the bay, and the sun had set with a wealth of color in the opening behind us before we came to anchor amid a fleet of ships and steamers off a low-lying shore that showed many lights in long rows. Next morning Manila lay visibly before us, but failed to convey much idea of its size, from the fact that it stretched far back on the low land, thus permitting the eye to see only the front line of buildings and a few taller and more distant church-steeples. Not far in the background rose a high range of velvet-like looking mountains whose tops aspired to show themselves above the clouds, and on the right and left stretched flanking ranges of lower altitude. In due season my colleague came off to the anchorage in a small launch, and we were soon steaming back up a narrow river thickly fringed with small ships, steamers, houses, quays, and people. It was piping hot at the low custom-house on the quay. Panting carabao--the oxen of the East--tried to find shade under a parcel of bamboos, shaggy goats nosed about for stray bits of crude sugar dropped from bags being discharged by coolies, piles of machinery were lying around promiscuously dumped into the deep mud of the outyards, natives with bared backs gleaming in the sun were lugging hemp or prying open boxes, and under-officials with sharp rods were probing flour-sacks in the search for contraband. Spanish officials in full uniform, smoking cigarettes, playing chess, and fanning themselves in their comfortable seats in bent-wood rocking-chairs, were interrupted by our arrival, and made one boil within as they upset the baggage and searched for smuggled dollars. Here, then, was the anti-climax to the long journey of forty days from Boston, and those were the moments in which to realize the meaning of the expression made by the Captain of the China as she left the Golden Gate: "Take a last look, for you're leaving behind God's country." Before arrival, while yet the Esmeralda was steaming down the coast, I was resolved to refrain from judging Manila by first impressions. I felt primed for anything, and was bound to be neither surprised nor disappointed. At first, I may admit, my chin and collar drooped, but on meeting with my new associate I gave them a mental starching and stepped with courage into the rickety barouche that, drawn by two small and bony ponies, took us to the office of Henry W. Peabody & Co., the only American house in the Philippines.