Two steamers have just come in from Hong Kong and are tied up in quarantine down at Marivelis, at the mouth of the Bay. The mail ought to be here in forty-eight hours, but two days is a very short time to give Manila postal authorities, for they really are slow enough to desire four--one in which to make up their minds to send a launch, two in which to go, three in which to come back, and four in which to distribute the results of their camphorated fumigation. The most noteworthy thing that has happened in the way of excitement since the last mail was the operating of the new American fire-engine, which we imported from the States for the wealthy proprietor of our hemp-press, who is part Spaniard, part native, and part Chinese. It seems he was up in our office one day, and on the centre-table saw a catalogue containing pictures of a collection of our modern fire-fighters. He asked what those things were, and, on being told that they were used to put out fires, said he wanted one at once, the biggest we could get him, in order that he might reduce the insurance he was paying on his large store-houses and still go on collecting the premiums from those whose goods were in his charge. Although ours is an exporting business, and we do not know much about fire-engines, yet the occasion seemed auspicious, the prospect of payment sure, and the outlook interesting. The result was that we forwarded the order to New York by the first mail, and the other day, after four months of waiting, the pieces of the big engine came over on the Esmeralda, in big cases. They were very heavy, and the natives began the exhibition by nearly dropping the boiler into the river as they attempted to hoist it into a lighter. To skip over the difficulties which were encountered in hoisting the cases onto the quay in front of the offices of our well-to-do purchaser, we come to the mental hardships that were encountered in putting the machine together; for no one in Manila had ever seen a Yankee fire engine before, and although we had a full description of the complicated mechanism, with drawings of the parts, and numbers where each piece was to fit onto some other piece, there was no one in town who could help us much in getting it into working order. Fortunately, the hemp business was dull and my colleague and I were thus enabled to give more attention to this Chinese puzzle than if the fibre market had been booming. The red wheels with gold stripes were the first thing to be adjusted, and the eyes of the onlookers who happened to be strolling up and down the quay opened to large dimensions as the covering was stripped from the nickel-plated boiler and the process of establishment went on. At last the big machine was on its feet, with valves and gear adjusted, and with the slight assistance which we got from a Spanish engineer who knew something about marine machinery, we found out that the whistle ought not to be screwed onto the safety-valve.