Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/582

190 of rest, during which the snake sees if he has bitten off more than he can chew. It is hardly to be wondered at that the native cats are modestly retiring, when you awake at dead of night to hear your shoes being dragged off across the floor, by some huge, rice-fed rodent.

The native of Manila is a queer mixture of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish characteristics, and you find him combining the looks and traits of these three types in all sorts of proportions. He lives on rice, cigarettes, and cock-fighting, and rarely tucks his shirt into his trousers. Being, as he is, a born gambler, he substitutes the fighting cock for the dog, and makes as much ado over his pet rooster as we do over a clever terrier. In case of lire it is the first thing rescued and removed to a place of safety.

In times of conflagration—such as Easter week, with its regular annual fire—no one expects the fire department to appear. It takes them too long to go home for their uniforms; or to find the man with the key to the engine-house, who is off on a picnic; or to get oxen to haul that American fire-engine which some of us brought out as an experiment not long ago. And so a Manila fire burns till a vacant lot or a clump of banana trees stops it; and the thatch owners rejoice: it is even whispered that they resort to igniting houses in order to help business and start a bull market in roofing materials. A thousand houses go up in smoke, and the prices for nipa-palm thatch rise accordingly.

The Manila tram-car is a thing by itself, as is the one lean pony that pulls it. It takes one man to drive and one to work the whip; and if the wind blows too hard, service is suspended. The conductor uses a valise suspended from his neck, and whistles through his lips—up hill to stop, and down hill for the starting sign. The chief of the rules of

the road says: "This car has seats for twelve persons, and places for eight on each platform. Passengers are requested to stand in equal numbers only on both platforms, to prevent derailments." And so, if there are four "fares" on the front and six on the back platform, one has to shamble forward to equalize the weight. Smoking "goes" everywhere, and every one smokes, even to the conductor, who generally drops the ash off a fifteen-for-a-cent cigarette into your lap as he hands you a receipt for your "dos centavos." No one is allowed to stand inside, and if the car contains its quota of passengers the driver hangs out the sign "Lleno" (full), and doesn't stop even for the archbishop. Sit at the front end of the car, please, if you fear smallpox, for it is no strange sight to see a Philippine mamma brush into a seat, holding a scantily clothed babe well covered with evidences of that disease.

In Manila there are three seasons, the cool, the hot-dry, and the wet. From November to March the afternoons are fresh and the nights cold. From March till June are the stifling days of perpetual heat. But as June gets under way, the thunder storms begin, and, later on, they gradually merge into the rainy season of July to October—those months when boats are at a premium for street service and typhoon signals are always hoisted.

For all this, the climate of the islands is healthy, and smallpox is their worst scourge. Yellow fever is unknown, though malaria and typhoid are somewhat more common. It doesn't pay to be ill in Manila, for good doctors are scarce, and one sees his own coffin brought into the room before life is over, and finds himself being buried on the very day of his death.