were used as tents.

[Frequence of fires.] Similar destructive fires are very common. The
houses, which with few exceptions are built of bamboo and wood, become
perfectly parched in the hot season, dried into so much touchwood by
the heat of the sun. Their inhabitants are extremely careless about
fire, and there are no means whatever of extinguishing it. If anything
catches fire on a windy day, the entire village, as a rule, is utterly
done for. During my stay in Bulacan, the whole suburb of San Miguel,
in the neighborhood of Manila, was burnt down, with the exception of
the house of a Swiss friend of mine, which owed its safety to the
vigorous use of a private fire-engine, and the intermediation of a
small garden full of bananas, whose stems full of sap stopped the
progress of the flames.

[To Calumpit by carriage.] I travelled to Calumpit, a distance of
three leagues, in the handsome carriage of an hospitable friend. The
roads were good, and were continuously shaded by fruit-trees, coco and
areca palms. The aspect of this fruitful province reminded me of the
richest districts of Java; but the pueblos here exhibited more comfort
than the desas there. The houses were more substantial; numerous roomy
constructions of wood, in many cases, even, of stone, denoted in every
island the residence of official and local magnates. But while even
the poorer Javanese always give their wicker huts a smart appearance,
border the roads of their villages with blooming hedges, and display
everywhere a sense of neatness and cleanliness, there were here far
fewer evidences of taste to be met with. I missed too the alun-alun,
that pretty and carefully tended open square, which, shaded by waringa
trees, is to be met with in every village in Java. And the quantity
and variety of the fruit trees, under whose leaves the desas of Java