e-telling. The
two thousand islands which form the little-known archipelago are the
homes of a number of mixed tribes, with whom the traveller will not
crave intimate acquaintance for some time. In Luzon, the chief island,
we may feel fairly at home, now that its all but pathless wilds, as well
as its long-settled towns and hamlets, are sprinkled with American
soldiers. In time, doubtless, scientific exploration will approximately
fix the value of the mineral and arable fields of the archipelago. Until
knowledge increases in this direction there will not be much inducement
to roam among peoples with questionable manners, strange religions and
outlandish dialects. The Tagal folk has reached, as regards the more
favored class, a high degree of civilization. The Malay blood has
peculiarities of its own. Under long-continued Spanish rule the Luzon
native has developed intellectually and nurtured an ambition for
self-government. This half-amicable, half-hostile relationship between
the Spanish friars, who have been the spiritual, and perhaps still more
the civic, trainers and masters of the natives, is a most interesting
study for the newly arrived visitor.

Landing at Manila, the commercial centre and capital of the islands,
we find ourselves in a city blending the characteristics of an
old-fashioned Spanish town with the mild business air of a third-rate
western port. The buildings speak of the tropical perils to be
encountered. Dewey's bombardment was more generous than the earthquakes
and gales that smote the Cathedral. These visitations come oftener than
those of angels. Houses are built low and massively on the ground floor,
to insure that a one-story home shall remain when the upstairs section
flies away. Terrific gales come unannounced and life is temporarily
suspended until it is possible to swim into the streets and rake in the
flotsam and jetsam that once lodged within your walls. Periodical rains
lend variety to the novice's experience. They descend in Niagaras,
giving free and wholesome baths to the many who need them and to those
who need them not, and give the mud lanes that serve for streets a
timely cleaning up. The rainfall record has shown as much as 114 inches
in a year.

Your hotel will be the perfection of cleanliness, but the window
openings are vast and glass-panes are unknown. The mahogany bedstead
is bedless, a mat of woven cane strips, bare of everything that can
encourage warmth or harbor little