conveyance of officials, priests, and their usual necessaries, such as
provisions, wine and other liquors; and, except a few French novels,
some atrociously dull books, histories of saints, and similar works.

[Manila's fine bay.] The Bay of Manila is large enough to contain the
united fleets of Europe; it has the reputation of being one of the
finest in the world. The aspect of the coast, however, to a stranger
arriving, as did the author, at the close of the dry season, falls
short of the lively descriptions of some travellers. The circular bay,
one hundred twenty nautical miles in circumference, the waters of
which wash the shores of five different provinces, is fringed in the
neighborhood of Manila by a level coast, behind which rises an equally
flat table land. The scanty vegetation in the foreground, consisting
chiefly of bamboos and areca palms, was dried up by the sun; while in
the far distance the dull uniformity of the landscape was broken by
the blue hills of San Mateo. In the rainy season the numerous unwalled
canals overflow their banks and form a series of connected lakes,
which soon, however, change into luxuriant and verdant rice-fields.

[City's appearance mediaeval European.] Manila is situated on both
sides of the river Pasig. The town itself, surrounded with walls and
ramparts, with its low tiled roofs and a few towers, had, in 1859,
the appearance of some ancient European fortress. Four years later
the greater part of it was destroyed by an earthquake.

[The 1863 earthquake.] On June 3, 1863, at thirty-one minutes past
seven in the evening, after a day of tremendous heat while all Manila
was busy in its preparations for the festival of Corpus Christi,
the ground suddenly rocked to and fro with great violence. The
firmest buildings reeled visibly, walls crumbled, and beams snapped