The Manila Fire Department consists of about six hand-engines and a few hose-carts, and if a fire gets started it generally burns along until an open field, a river, or a thick mass of banana-trees stops its progress. The English houses, to be sure, have recently gotten out from home one of their small steam "garden-pumps," and many of the young Britons have had weekly practice in manipulating its various parts. When the alarm for the present fire rang you might have seen several servants, employed in their respective homes by the members of the new Volunteer Fire Department, slowly wandering toward the shed where the engine was kept, with some nicely folded red shirts, coats with brass buttons, helmets with Matterhorn-like summits, and axes that shone from lack of work. These youths did not seem to be in any hurry, and it turned out that when they reached the engine-house, when their masters had togged up sufficiently well to impress the spectators, and when the engine finally got to the fire, the buildings had been translated into their new and rather more ethereal form. The fire was two miles, more or less, from the centre of the town. The Volunteer Fire Brigade had to haul the engine the entire distance, as they feared that if the usual carabao oxen were hitched on, the speed over the pavements would be too great. After reaching the centre of action, an hour was spent in waiting for the man who brought some spare coal in a wheelbarrow and in choosing a location which would not be uncomfortable for the brigade. Consequently, the "London Garden Pump" was stationed to windward of the fire, on a side where it could not possibly spread any farther, and thus all stray flames and smoke were avoided. A hose was stuck down into the creek, and steam turned on. A stream of water about large enough to be clearly visible with a microscope suddenly jumped forth into the middle of the street, wetting the spectators. Somebody had forgotten to attach the extra pieces of hose that were to lead down to the fire, and steam had to be turned off. After everything was ready to get to business, a tram-car came along, and it wasn't allowable to stop its progress by putting a hose across the track, even if there was a fire. And so it went from grave to gay, the swell brigade furnishing the humorous part of the otherwise rather sad spectacle.