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Rh CHAPTER XVI

THE BEZOAR-STONE

APTAIN TSING-FONG proved true to his word, and the very day after our arrival took me to see his correspondent, a wealthy cigar manufacturer, who offered either to pay me my eight thousand rupees in specie or else to supply me with merchandise to a corresponding amount, and this at a rate nobody but himself could afford, in consequence of the extent and far-reaching nature of his commercial transactions. The Philippine Islands, indeed, may be considered the common emporium of the world; there are to be found gold and silver from Peru, diamonds from Golconda, topazes, sapphires and cinnamon from Ceylon, pepper from Java, cloves and nutmegs from the Moluccas, camphor from Borneo, pearls from Manaar, carpets from Persia, benzoin and ivory from Cambodia, musk from the Loo Choo Islands, silks from Bengal, and porcelain from China. I was free to choose amongst all these commodities, and finally select such as should seem to promise the surest and quickest profit. However, as I was in no immediate hurry, having realised a very pretty little sum on my cardamum, I resolved to spend some time at Manilla, and study, during my stay in the Philippines, whichever branch of trade seemed most likely to be advantageous to a speculator who, starting with a hundred and forty francs, now possessed thirty thousand or so in ready cash to start in business with.

"I began by visiting the two cities, Manilla, the Spanish settlement, and Bedondo, the native town. The former is a congeries of monasteries, nunneries, churches and houses, squarely and solidly built, but arranged on no particular plan, with thick high walls loop-holed at irregular intervals and gardens that isolate them one from the other. The population consists of monks, nuns, cloaked Spaniards riding in shabby palanquins or stalking gravely along, cigar in mouth, like Castilian hidalgos of the time of Don Quixote de la Mancha. The town, therefore, which was spacious enough for a hundred thousand inhabitants, and possesses eight, is dull and dismal to a degree.

"This was not at all what I wanted; so, shaking my head in disgust, I determined to explore Bedondo. Next morning, after taking my chocolate, I directed my steps towards the commercial town, and the nearer I approached the more loudly I heard those sounds of life and stir that were entirely lacking in that tomb they call Manilla. I breathed more freely; the grass seemed greener and the sunshine brighter. So I hastened to pass the fortifications and cross the drawbridges of the military quarter, and, like a man emerging from a subterranean vault, I suddenly found myself on the Bridge of Stone, as it is called. From that point onwards all was animation and bustle. The bridge was crowded with Spaniards in palanquins, half-castes on foot armed with great parasols, Creoles followed by their attendants, peasants from the neighbouring villages, Chinese merchants, Malay workmen; the noise and tumult and confusion were a positive pleasure to a man who had begun to think he was dead and buried after staying two days in Manilla.

"So farewell to the gloomy town and its dull houses; farewell to the noble sefiors, and greeting to the merry suburb, greeting to Bedondo with its hundred and forty thousand inhabitants; greeting to its elegant houses and busy population; greeting to the quay where pulleys creak and bales are unloaded from every quarter of the world, where lie side by side Chinese junks, pirogues from New Guinea, proas from the Malay Peninsula, brigs and barques and clippers from Europe. There is no privilege, pride and exclusiveness; a man is taken for what he is worth; everyone is known at the first glance by his costume, before he opens his mouth; Malays, Americans, Chinese, Spaniards, Dutchmen, Madagascans, Hindoos are for ever elbowing their way through the endless ocean of Tagals, male and female. These formed the indigenous population of the islands when the Spaniards first conquered them, and may be recognised, so far as the men are concerned, by their costume, which is not unlike the Norman peasant's, a shirt that hangs loosely like a blouse over linen trousers, a loosely tied cravat, a felt hat with flapping brim, buckled shoes, a rosary round the neck, and a little scarf worn like a plaid. The women wear high Spanish combs, a long veil flowing behind, a bodice of white linen, which covers the bosom but leaves the body bare between breast and navel, a striped