of the dry season, falls
short of the lively descriptions of some travellers. The circular bay,
one hundred twenty nautical miles in circumference, the waters of
which wash the shores of five different provinces, is fringed in the
neighborhood of Manila by a level coast, behind which rises an equally
flat table land. The scanty vegetation in the foreground, consisting
chiefly of bamboos and areca palms, was dried up by the sun; while in
the far distance the dull uniformity of the landscape was broken by
the blue hills of San Mateo. In the rainy season the numerous unwalled
canals overflow their banks and form a series of connected lakes,
which soon, however, change into luxuriant and verdant rice-fields.

[City's appearance mediaeval European.] Manila is situated on both
sides of the river Pasig. The town itself, surrounded with walls and
ramparts, with its low tiled roofs and a few towers, had, in 1859,
the appearance of some ancient European fortress. Four years later
the greater part of it was destroyed by an earthquake.

[The 1863 earthquake.] On June 3, 1863, at thirty-one minutes past
seven in the evening, after a day of tremendous heat while all Manila
was busy in its preparations for the festival of Corpus Christi,
the ground suddenly rocked to and fro with great violence. The
firmest buildings reeled visibly, walls crumbled, and beams snapped
in two. The dreadful shock lasted half a minute; but this little
interval was enough to change the whole town into a mass of ruins,
and to bury alive hundreds of its inhabitants. [11] A letter of
the governor-general, which I have seen, states that the cathedral,
the goverment-house, the barracks, and all the public buildings of
Manila were entirely destroyed, and that the few private houses which
remained standing threatened to fall in. Later accounts speak of
four hundred killed and two thousand injured, and estimate the loss
at eight millions of dollars. Forty-six public and five hundred and
seventy private buildings were thrown down; twenty-eight public and
five hundred twenty-eight private buildings were nearly destroyed,
and all the houses left standing were more or less injured.

[Damage in Cavite.] At the same time, an earthquake of forty seconds'
duration occurred at Cavite, the naval port of the Philippines,
and destroyed many buildings.

[Destruction in walled city.] Three years afterwards, the Duc
d'Alencon (Lucon et Mindanao; Paris, 1870, S. 38) found the