A small settlement over which England's flag keeps guard,
lies before us. This is the town of Victoria. This small island,
previous to 1846, belonged to Borneo, but in that year the Sultan ceded
it to Britain, as a convenient station for checking piracy on his
sea-board. It lies off the north-eastern end of the great island of
Borneo, and within view of its precipitous heights and mist-clad peaks.

December 14th.--Coaling is a long process at Labuan, first, because the
ship lies so far from the shore, and next, because of the insufficiency
of convenient boats, and the necessary coolie labour to put the coal on
board, thus it took us two whole days to get in as many hundred tons. By
the evening of the 14th however, we had cleared the islands, and shaped
course for Manilla against a head wind.

December 19th.--It has taken us twelve hours to clear the intricate, and
gusty approaches to Manilla Bay, the wind, occasionally meeting us with
such force, accompanied by such a chopping sea, that we sometimes made
no progress at all. On coming to anchor we were rather surprised to find
the "Lapwing" had preceded us, and was lying close in shore.

Manilla, the capital of Luzon, the largest of the Philippine Islands, is
a city of considerable magnitude, and has all the appearance of a
Spanish town in Europe, these islands having belonged to Spain for over
300 years.

Though we arrived on a Sunday it was anticipated there would be no
difficulty in procuring coal immediately. Had the British been in
authority here we should have been _privileged_ to do so with impunity.
When this conclusion was arrived at, one potent factor had not been
considered--"the Church"--and for once in a way we were thankful to the
Church. The archbishop of Manilla and his subordinates hold more real
sway over the minds and bodies of the natives--Indians, as they are
called--than all the temporal power of the governor, backed by his
guards, or even than the king himself.

Amidst all the Spanish jabber around, it is refreshing to hear ourselves
hailed in genuine English, and soon the author of the sound grasps us by
the hand and welcomes us to his house, a request we gladly comply with.

The houses are very like those of Gibraltar, and one's memory is rapidly
borne back to the "Rock," especially as everything around is Spanish.

Perhaps the great feature of the place is its cathedrals; one in
particular, a magnificent structure, so roomy and lofty that