ax on the Chinese amounts to four dollars a head; it was
formerly one-half more. Tax-lists of the Chinese are kept, in which
they are registered and classified; and opposite the name is the
amount at which the individual is assessed.

The Spanish government seems particularly desirous of giving
consequence even to its lowest offices; and in order to secure it to
them, it is directed that the chiefs of provinces, shall treat the
gobernadorcillos with respect, offering them seats when they enter
their houses or other places, and not allowing them to remain standing;
furthermore, the parish curates are required to treat them with
equal respect. So far as concerns the provinces, the government may
be called, notwithstanding the officers, courts. etc., monastic. The
priests rule, and frequently administer punishment, with their own
hands, to either sex, of which an instance will be cited hereafter.

[A country excursion.] As soon as we could procure the necessary
passports, which were obligingly furnished by the governor to "Don
Russel Sturges y quatro Anglo Americanos," our party left Manila
for a short jaunt to the mountains. It was considered as a mark of
great favor on the part of his excellency to grant this indulgence,
particularly as he had a few months prior denied it to a party of
French officers. I was told that he preferred to make it a domestic
concern, by issuing the passport in the name of a resident, in order
that compliance in this case might not give umbrage to the French. It
was generally believed that the cause of the refusal in the former
instance was the imprudent manner in which the French officers went
about taking plans and sketches, at the corners of streets, etc., which
in the minds of an unenlightened and ignorant colonial government, of
course excited suspicion. Nothing can be so ridiculous as this system
of passports; for if one was so disposed, a plan, and the most minute
information of every thing that concerns the defences of places, can
always be obtained at little cost now-a-days; for such is the skill of
engineers, that a plan is easily made of places, merely by a sight of
them. We were not, however, disposed to question the propriety of the
governor's conduct in the former case, and I left abundantly obliged
to him for a permission that would add to our stock of information.

It was deemed at first impossible for the party to divide, as they
had but one passport, and some difficulties we