in return every Wednesday at noon. To the arsenal of
Cavite there is a daily post, excepting on Sundays; and to the islands
of Visayas, the Marianas, and Batanes, the correspondence is forwarded
by the first ships bound for any of those places, as they are obliged
to give notice to the postmaster two days before starting for them.

It would be difficult to over-estimate the advantages of this line
of postal communication, which affords the native traders in remote
places the best facilities for the prosecution of their trade in the
various articles of commerce produced in the districts where they live.

There are, of course, several things which might be improved in the
administration of the post-office, as is the case in every country,
without bringing Spain and her colonies in question; but, no doubt,
these will be found out by-and-by, and an alteration for the better
will take place.

The press of Manilla is much more active than is commonly supposed,
as, besides the _Diario_, there are several other periodicals printed
in the place. Among them may be mentioned the _Guia de Forasteros_,
and an _Almanac_, which is printed at the College of Santo Tomas,
being entirely got up and sold by the priests of that institution,
the proceeds being devoted to charitable purposes.

Various religious and polemical works also emanate at different
times from the press, all of them neatly and well printed, nay,
highly creditable to the Indian compositors who execute them.

I have frequently seen it stated in books, the authors of which should
have been better informed, that no periodical publications exist at
Manilla. Certainly there is much less appetite there for such things,
than is exhibited among my own countrymen, whose birthright it is to
grumble at the conduct of authorities, and to show up delinquencies
with the most unsparing zeal, neither of which would be quite safe
to attempt at Manilla, although it is so in Great Britain, and all
her colonies and dependencies.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Through ignorance and a misconception of the nature of the country,
many people are in the habit of adducing the scantiness of manufactures
among the Indians, as an evidence of their backwardness in civilization
and the arts which it teaches.

But this is not so in reality, for if our readers reflect on the
subject a short time, it can scarcely fail to occur to them, that
the fertility of the soil, and the abundance of primary mater