he town are kept by Chinese merchants. That is the way the
Spaniards laid out their cities and towns in Spain; they did not change
the plan in the Philippines. The houses built for them in the islands
are much like those in Spanish towns--adobe walls plastered with stucco,
and roofed with tiles.

[Illustration: The harbor of the city. Scene on the Pasig River, Manila]

Manila is the capital and commercial centre of the islands. It is a city
about as large as Seattle, and is situated at the head of a landlocked
body of water, Manila Bay. Corregidor Island, a little dark-green islet,
guards the entrance to the bay; and one cannot see the wicked guns that
are ready to pour a raking fire into a hostile fleet until one is within
a few hundred yards of the island. The only thing visible at a distance
is a flag flying from a high mast; but it is the Stars and Stripes that
bends to the east wind. The bay is a good-sized bit of water, too. In
the middle of it one can just barely see the gray, misty hills that
surround it. Then the shore line begins to take shape and the mouth of
Pasig River seems to open in front of the incoming steamship. In a few
minutes the harbor of the city is in sight. Steamships, with their
painted stacks and funnels, and sailing vessels, with every sort of mast
and rigging, crowd the harbor. Row-boats by the hundred are moving in
every direction, and little steam-launches and motor-boats are spitting
viciously as they go back and forth.

The lower part of the city is almost like Amsterdam; it is traversed by
canals, great and small, in which are fishing-smacks waiting to have the
catch taken to market. Puffy, wheezy tugs are making fast to huge
cascoes, or lighters; for the cargoes must be taken from the docks to
the steamships and sailing-vessels out in the harbor.

The Pasig is only ten or twelve miles in length. It flows from a near-by
lake, and both sides of the river are lined with villages, and
market-gardens, and duck-hatcheries.

The business streets are crowded with carts and drays. Here and there
are smart-looking carriages carrying well-groomed men, who talk little
and look rich. There could not be more style and ceremony about them if
they were in New York, London, or Paris. Trim-looking soldiers in khaki
uniforms, native Filipinos in white suits, Chinese in silk gowns and
long sleeves, native women wearing red skirts and black shawls, native
coolies in loose blouses and short pantaloons-