was paid until quite the latter days to architectural beauty.

Very few of the best private residences have more than one storey
above the ground-floor. The ground-floor is either uninhabited or
used for lodging the native servants, or as a coach-house, on account
of the damp. From the vestibule main entrance (_zaguan_) one passes
to the upper floor, which constitutes the house proper, where the
family resides. It is usually divided into a spacious hall (_caida_),
leading from the staircase to the dining and reception-rooms; on
one or two sides of these apartments are the dormitories and other
private rooms. The kitchen is often a separate building, connected
with the house by a roofed passage; and by the side of the kitchen,
on the same level, is a yard called the _azotea_--here the bath-room
is erected. The most modern houses have corrugated-iron roofs. The
ground-floor exterior walls are of stone or brick, and the whole of the
upper storey is of wood, with sliding windows all around. Instead of
glass, opaque oyster-shells (Tagalog, _capis_) are employed to admit
the light whilst obstructing the sun's rays. Formerly the walls up to
the roof were of stone, but since the last great earthquake of 1880
the use of wood from the first storey upwards has been rigorously
enforced in the capital and suburbs for public safety. Iron roofs
are very hot, and there are still some few comfortable, spacious,
and cool suburban residences with tile roof or with the primitive
cogon-grass or nipa palm-leaf thatching, very conducive to comfort
although more liable to catch fire.

In Spanish times there were no white burglars, and the main entrance
of a dwelling-house was invariably left open until the family
retired for the night. Mosquitoes abound in Manila, coming from the
numerous malarious creeks which traverse the wards, and few persons
can sleep without a curtain. To be at one's ease, a daily bath is
indispensable. The heat from 12 to 4 p.m. is oppressive from March
to May, and most persons who have no afternoon occupation, sleep the
_siesta_ from 1 to 3 o'clock. The conventional lunch-hour all over
the Colony is noon precisely, and dinner at about 8 o'clock. The
visiting hours are from 5 to 7 in the evening, and _reunions_ and
musical _soirees_ from 9. Society was far less divided here than
in the British-Asiatic Colonies. There was not the same rigid line
drawn as in British India between the official, non-official, and
native.