(page 272):--"The Spaniards who settle here look upon these Islands
as a tavern rather than a permanent home. If they marry, it is by the
merest chance; where can a family be found that has been settled here
for several generations? The father amasses wealth, the son spends it,
the grandson is a beggar. The largest capitals are not more stable than
the waves of the ocean, across the crests of which they were gathered."

[Discomforts and the high cost of living.] There is nothing like
the same amount of sociability amongst the foreigners in Binondo as
prevails in English and Dutch colonies; and scarcely any intercourse at
all with the Spaniards, who envy the strangers and almost seem to look
upon the gains the latter make in the country as so many robberies
committed upon themselves, its owners. Besides all this, living is
very expensive, much more so than in Singapore and Batavia. To many,
the mere cost of existence seems greatly out of proportion to their
official salaries. The (European style) houses, which are generally
spacious, are gloomy and ugly, and not well ventilated for such a
climate. Instead of light jalousies, they are fitted with heavy sash
windows, which admit the light through thin oyster shells, forming
small panes scarcely two square inches in area, and held together by
laths an inch thick. The ground floors of the houses are, on account
of the great damp, sensibly enough, generally uninhabited; and are
used as cellars, stables, and servant's offices.

[Native houses comfortable and unchanged.] The unassuming, but for
their purposes very practical houses, of boards, bamboos, and (nipa)
palm leaves, are supported on account of the damp on isolated beams
or props; and the space beneath, which is generally fenced in with
a railing, is used as a stable or a warehouse; such was the case
as early as the days of Magellan. These dwellings [45] are very