Manila, March 3, 1905.

I sent a long letter to you by the mail, which went out this morning; but I must begin another at once, as I want to tell you about the reception last night. Indeed, if I don’t keep a letter always going on while I am here, I shall not be able to tell you half what I want to say about Manila.

We dined at half-past seven last night, and then, with a small party of friends, drove through the town to a wharf in front of the large Cold-Storage buildings by the river. Here we had to pass over some large, flat lighters, on the decks of which the moonlight revealed myriads of enormous cockroaches hurrying about in all directions, which made us catch up our skirts and run for the launch lying alongside the lighters, and all decorated with palms and Japanese lanterns.

At the wharf some more friends had joined us, so we were quite a large party in the bows of the launch as she steamed up the Pasig, and the cool, or comparatively cool, night air was delicious. The river looked quite pretty in the moonlight, and though it was only a small, rather new moon, the light was quite strong, and the green of the trees was quite perceptible, for there is colour in the moonlight in this part of the world, where the moon does not make mere black and white outlines, but you can distinguish colours quite plainly. The Palace of MalacaÑan soon came in sight—a big building blazing with lights, and adorned by rows of little lamps in festoons all along the water’s edge, like Earl’s Court Exhibition.

We landed at a low stone wall, outlined for the occasion with red and yellow electric lights. The launch immediately in front of ours was that of the Chinese Consul, very profusely and beautifully decorated, and filled with Celestials in bright silk dresses. We stepped at once into the gardens, which come right down to the water’s edge, and found ourselves in the fÊte—all in full swing, with crowds of people walking up and down paths covered with sailcloth to protect the dresses. Of course everyone was going about in evening dress, as if in a ball-room at home, and feeling very hot, and looking for cool places. The idea of this perpetual heat soon becomes familiar, but sometimes it strikes the imagination, on occasions of this kind, with particular insistence. In my letters to you I can’t go on saying “It is very hot,” “It is very sultry,” and so on, and yet I know that you reading them at home, can have no idea of the setting of all I tell you; of the terrible blazing sun all day long; the hot nights only bearable by comparison with the day; of one’s skin always moist, if it is not actually running in little rivulets, as in a Turkish bath; of even the dogs and cats spending all their lives trying to find draughts to lie in. And this, I am informed, is the “winter.”

Well, this entertainment, which was very well done indeed, reminded me more and more of Earl’s Court, as we passed under arcades of coloured lights, and the Constabulary Band played selections on a grass lawn under the trees. There was a huge open-air ball-room, built over some lawn-tennis courts, raised up and approached by a little flight of steps, and with seats all round inside a rail.

Our first duty was to present ourselves to the Governor, Mr Luke E. Wright, and his wife, who stood under a canopy of white silk, on which were embroidered the Arms of the Philippines. This coat of arms is a new invention, and this was its first appearance. It was designed by an American called Gillard Hunt, and its heraldic description is very complicated, and would probably convey as little to you as it does to me. It happened to be on the front of the programmes as well as on the canopy, so I had a good look at it, and the gist of the design is that it is all red and silver and blue, and the symbols are the Castle of Spain and a sea-lion, with a background of the stripes of the American flag. Above is the crest, which takes the form of the American Eagle, and the inscription written below is “Philippine Islands.” It makes a very pretty crest, but it is difficult to understand why the Philippine shield should be quartered with the Arms of Spain any more than if the American flag should have the Lion and the Unicorn in the corner. In fact the latter device would be far the more reasonable of the two.

Well, as I say, the Wrights and their party stood under this white silk canopy, and the aide-de-camp introduced those whom they did not know already; whereupon our hosts shook hands, repeating each guest’s name, and adding “Pleased to meet you” in kindly American fashion.

This little ceremony, the American introduction, always appals me, because I never know what one is supposed to say in answer. I am afraid I smile helplessly and murmur, “Thank you so much!” but I am sure that is not the right thing to do.

Having passed what the Manila papers call “The Gobernatorial Party,” we proceeded to drift about the grounds, which were really charmingly pretty. I met a good many people I knew, and enjoyed the evening immensely. After a time I began to feel very tired, and Mr P—— took me to the ball-room, where he managed to find places, and we wedged ourselves into the row of people sitting all round. I did not dance, but I found quite enough amusement to compensate me in looking on.

The crowd was pretty mixed, of course, but “Manila at a glance” included one or two who looked like gentle-folk, and there were certainly a great many pretty dresses, which, I am told, the wearers import from Paris recklessly. Some of the camisas worn by the native ladies were quite lovely—beautiful, delicate fabrics exquisitely embroidered and hand-painted—and in the Official Rigodon, with which the ball began, I noticed how well the wearers moved.

As a contrast, one of the most remarkable spectacles of the evening was the Gibson Girl, of whom there were several specimens to be seen strutting about. All Americans, men and women, as I have noticed at home and on the Continent, have something of this type about them, and I often wonder whether Dana Gibson has discovered the essentials of the American type, or whether he has invented a model which they admire and try to copy. Whichever it is, when it is natural it is pretty enough in moderation, but some of them have, as they would express it, “got right there,” and they may be picked out of any crowd of ordinary human shapes at a glance. Of course no human being really could have the proportions of the Gibson Girl as she is on paper, for no living thing ever had such length of leg and neck but a giraffe; only so many Americans have that type of face, with a low, pretty square forehead, thick, round nose, heavy jaw, and arched eyebrows. Corsets and high hair-pads can help towards the rest of the design. I can’t think how anyone wants to be a Gibson Girl, unless for twenty guineas a week at a theatre, as the pose and the untidy hair is inexpressibly common and shop-girlish. Moreover, I don’t see how anyone can expect to ape anything and avoid being vulgar. The Gibson Girl does not escape this latter calamity. She “gets right there just every time.”

After watching the dancing for a good while, I was taken round the grounds and given refreshment at one of the little buffets in the garden. A most amusing episode occurred at the chief of these buffets, where a big bowl of punch was being administered by the Chinese servants, who opened everything they could lay hands on—whisky, port, claret, soda, liqueurs, brandy, champagne—and poured it all into the punch. You can imagine what ludicrous stories were afloat about people who had taken one sip of this fire-water, and were reported to have been carried off half-dying, and shipped home down the river.

About half-past ten the crowds began to thin, and we left the palace, getting upon our launch again at the same place where we had landed. There was no more moon, but the stars made quite a bright light, and the air was so fresh upon the water at that hour that one could actually stand the extra warmth of a chiffon scarf across one’s bare shoulders.

March 4.

I found myself very tired yesterday after the fÊte, so I stayed in the house all day, except for a drive in the evening to the Escolta, which is the principal street of shops. When we came here in November, fresh from palatial Hong Kong, I thought this town the most shoddy and hideous place I had ever seen, but now I find it really difficult to recall my first impressions, for it seems a gay and handsome metropolis to the provincial from Iloilo!

At Iloilo our streets consist of ruins hastily patched up, and great fire-blackened gaps in the rows of houses, but in Manila, though there has been apparently just as much hasty patching, there are comparatively few ruins to be seen, and perhaps a trifle less string used in the harnesses of the horses. White women and Mestizas go about in hats too, which is a superfluity we do not affect in the provinces, and after so many weeks of not wearing a hat, I find it very irksome and hot to have to put one on. However, in Manila one must do as Manila does, I suppose, though the fashion, which did not obtain in the Spanish days, seems a foolish and unnecessary one, and the people who were here under the old rÉgime rail helplessly against the innovation. Certainly it is no gain to the coloured ladies to hide their nice, thick black hair with the frightful “Parisian” confections which appeal to their exotic taste; but, of course, it would never do for them not to follow the fashions set by their American equals. They have, however, that strange and subtle way of the Oriental all the world over, of setting a seal of their own upon even the most slavish imitations. One feels in this, as in everything else in Manila, that if the American influence were withdrawn, in twenty-four hours all trace of that busy, kind-hearted, bustling, incongruous people would begin to melt steadily away, and in a month would be wiped clean out.

There are big, or comparatively big, shops, with a great display in the windows, and huge signs, and hurry-up-its-your-only-chance notices, and conversational advertisements in the American fashion. But when you get inside the shops there is the familiar barrenness, and there are the same half-asleep or half-drugged Filipinos and yellow Mestizos yawning and trimming their nails with the same vague indifference, and nothing to sell that any human being ever wants. And the prices of the things you buy, instead of what you wanted, are enough to make your hair turn snow-white on the spot.

One fact, striking fact about the shops in this country is that the largest and most important are those of the jewellers, and the reason of this is that the Filipinos and Eurasians have a mistrust of banks and investments for their spare cash, with which they buy jewels partly for love of the glittering ornaments, and partly from some muddled idea of having their money safe in a portable form. I was talking about this to a very civil Frenchman in one of the biggest jeweller’s here this morning, while I was waiting for a ring they had been repairing, and he was very interested to hear I had come from Iloilo, for he told me he had travelled all about Panay selling jewellery a year or more ago, and that he knew that island quite well. I asked him if he had done well there, and he said yes, very good business indeed; and when I asked him what sort of things he sold, he showed me beautiful diamonds set in rather red gold, and said I would be astonished if I saw the “types” who could buy such ornaments. He said he rode a horse, as the roads were only rough tracks with broken bridges, but I don’t suppose he really did go all over the island, and fancy he must rather have gone in coasting steamers and ridden about the suburbs of the towns, for there are no inland towns in the Philippines, and no market, even for the best diamonds.

Talking of Mestizos reminds me of an account I heard, from a friend at the reception, of an English-Mestizo wedding, which may amuse you, and is extraordinarily characteristic of these people. The bridal party assembled in church in the orthodox fashion, but the bride’s Filipino and Eurasian relations, instead of remaining in their pews, all crowded up to the altar and stood in a mass amongst the wedding-group and bridesmaids; and after this astonishing ceremony, the happy couple marched down the aisle to the strains of “The Washington Post.”