Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/512

Rh 488 M A N M A N have been erected for the governor or captain-general and for the admiral of the fleet. There are numerous churches and barracks in this part of the town, and several public buildings, of which the following may be mentioned, the hospital of St Lazarus, the garnero or large military storehouse, and the famous cigar factory, covering a space of about 6 acres, and employing daily 10,000 women. Beyond and blending as it were with Binondo are villages in which the governor has his country house, and where Europeans have built pretty villa residences. A stone bridge and a new suspension bridge connect Binondo or modern Manila with the suburb opposite and the old fort of Sfc lago, situated on the south bank and about a mile from the mouth of the Pasig. Within the fort wall lies the old city, or, as it is commonly called, the Plaza de Manila. It is approached by several gates the principal being the Entrada, near which stands the custom-house. It has several squares, and the streets running at right angles with each other are fairly broad and clean, but, as no trade is carried on in this part of the town, they are dull by day, and, as only oil lamps are used, gloomy by night. The public edifices, such as the governor s palace, the town-hall, and the cathedral, are in a large square, in the centre of which is a statue of Charles IV. surrounded by a garden of flowers. To these may be added the civil and military hospitals, the mint and museum, the university and the academy of arts, the arsenal, the prison, and numerous barracks, convents, and monasteries. Beyond the walls is the calzada or esplanade, with a small paseo or promenade facing the bay, where three or four military bands play twice a week to a large concourse of people. This forms the chief out-door attraction for the elite of Manila. There are two theatres occasionally visited by European companies ; but there is a want of the cafe s and bull fights so associated with Spanish life. Evening recep tions are given by the Spaniards, where cards and music serve to while away the time, and the well-to-do Tagalo, besides imitating his masters in all their amusements, has another to which he is passionately addicted, viz., cock- fighting. This is under Government control, and in town can only be held in licensed cockpits, which in 1878 yielded above 33,000 to the revenue. The native officials may sometimes be a little officious and overbearing ; but the natives generally, especially those out of Manila, are as hospitable to the stranger as the Spaniard. The population in the walled town, inclusive of the garrison, is given in the consular reports for 1880 as 12,000, and that of Binondo and the suburbs as 250,000 to 300,000. In 1842 the total was rather more than 150,000.- The climate is healthy, and though hot is not unbearably so, the mean temperature being about 82 6 Fahr. The hot season prevails from March to the end of June; the rest of the year may be said to be showery and stormy. The chief climatic drawbacks to a residence in Manila are hurricanes, earthquakes, and fearful thunderstorms. Great damage was done to property by a tornado of exceptional severity in October 1882. The cemetery of Manila is well suited for a hot climate and the backward condition of its sanitary arrangements. It is a large circular area, surrounded by an outer and an inner wall, with horizontal recesses between them placed one above another in tiers. On the arrival of a body for sepulture it is taken out of its coffin and put into one of these recesses ; quicklime is then spread upon it and the mouth of the recess bricked up. If the recess is the property of the relatives of the dead, the body remains undis turbed for ever. If otherwise, it remains until the recess is abso lutely required for another inmate, when the bones, the only remains left of the deceased, are collected and carefully deposited in a large hollow or fosse kept for that purpose. For two centuries after the Spanish settlement the trade of Manila with the Western world was carried on via Acapulco and Mexico ; and it was not till 1764 that even the Spanish vessels began to come round by the Cape. The port, however, was opened with some restrictions to foreign vessels in 1789 ; permission for the establish ment of an English commercial house was granted in 1809 ; the same liberty was before long extended to other nationalities ; and in 1834 the privileges of the Royal Company of the Philippines expired and left the commercial movement to its natural tendencies. Since that time the trade of Manila has greatly increased. While in 1840 the port was entered by 187 vessels with a burden of about 57,000 tons, the corresponding figures for 1881 are, including 182 steamers, 317 vessels (British, 118; Spanish, 95; German, 38), with a burden of 244,000 tons. Manila hemp (abaca), sugar, cigars, and coffee are the chief articles of export ; and sapan wood, mother of pearl, and gum are regular though secondary items. The quantity of hemp shipped at Manila has increased from 528,206 piculs (1 picul = 139 ft) in 1877 to 662,886 in 1881, and in the same period the quantity of sugar has risen from 1,215,066 piculs to 2,001,310. Britain and the United States are the great markets for both. The average number of cigars exported is 92,620,000, the greater proportion going to Singapore and China. The total value of the exports was 5,460,000 in 1881, against 2,679,000 in 1864 ; and a corresponding increase has taken place in the imports. Telegraphic communication between Manila and Hong- Kong was established in 1880. MANILA HEMP, the most valuable of all fibres for cordage, is the produce of the leaf-stalks of Musa textilis, a native of the Philippine Islands. The plant, called abaca by the islanders, throws up a spurious stem from its rhizome, consisting of a cluster of sheathing leaf-stalks which rise to a height of from 20 to 30 feet, and spread out into a crown of huge undivided leaves characteristic of the various species of Musa (plantain, banana, &c.). In its native regions the plant is rudely cultivated solely as a source of fibre ; it requires little attention, and when about three years old develops flowers on a central stem, at which stage it is in the most favourable condition for yielding fibre. The stock is then cut down, and the sheath ing stalks torn asunder and reduced to small strips. These strips in their fresh succulent condition are drawn between a sharp knife-edged instrument and a hard wooden block to which it is fixed, and by repeated scraping in this way the soft cellular matter which surrounds the fibre is removed, and the fibre so cleaned has only to be hung up to dry in the open air, when, without further treatment, it is ready for use. Each stock yields, on an average, a little under 1 Ib of fibre; and two natives cutting down plants and separating fibre will prepare not more than 25 ft&amp;gt; per day. The fibre yielded by the outer layer of leaf-stalks is hard, fully developed, and strong, but the produce of the inner stalks is increasingly thin, fine, and weak. The finer fibre is used by the natives, without spinning or twisting (the ends of the single fibres being knotted together), for making exceedingly fine, light, and transparent yet com paratively strong textures, which they use as articles of dress and ornament. The hemp exported for cordage purposes is a somewhat woody fibre, of a bright brownish- white colour, and possessing great durability and strain- resisting power. It contains a very considerable amount of adherent pectinous matter, and an unusually large pro portion, as much as 12 per cent., of water in a dry condition. In a damp atmosphere the fibre absorbs moisture so freely that it has been found to contain not less than 40 per cent, of water, a circumstance which dealers in the raw fibre should bear in mind. The plant has been introduced into many tropical lands ; but the cheapness of labour in its native regions, and its abundance there, prevent its being a profitable substance for general cultivation. The entire supply comes from Manila and Cebu in the Philippine Islands, where its cultivation and preparation must give employment to a very large population. The exports, which are increasing with great rapidity, amounted in 1881 to about 400,000 bales of 2| cwts. each, almost the whole of which goes to the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Australian colonies. The quantity imported into