ind yourself in an old Spanish town.

Here the grand churches and the public buildings are located;
the cathedral, after the Romano-Byzantine style of architecture;
the _Palacio_, built after Spanish notions of magnificence,
around a courtyard shaded by rare trees; and many other edifices,
used for official and ecclesiastic purposes. The streets are paved
with cobblestone and laid out regularly in squares, in accordance
with the plan of De Legaspi, so that one side or the other will be
always in the shade. Beautiful plazas, with their palms and statues,
frequently relieve the glare of the white walls. The sidewalks are
narrow, and are sheltered by projecting balconies.

The heavily-barred windows, ponderous doors, and quaint signboards
give the streets an old-world aspect, while _Calle Real_ is spanned by
an arched gallery, like the Venetian Bridge of Sighs. Tailor-shops,
laundries, restaurants, and barber-shops, where swinging punkas
waft the odor of bay rum through open doors, suggest a scene from
some forgotten story-book or the stage-setting for an Elizabethan
play. In the commercial streets the absence of show-windows will be
noticed. Bookstores display their wares on stands outside, while of
the contents of the other shops, one can obtain no adequate idea until
he enters through the open doors. The interesting signboards, whether
they can be interpreted or not, tend to excite the curiosity. "_Los
Dos Hermanos_" (The Two Brothers) is a tailor-shop, a _Sastreria_;
and the shoestore a _Zapateria_. The family grocery-store, _El Globo_,
is advertised by a huge globe, battered from long years of service;
and _La Lira_, or the music-store, may be known by the sign of the
gold lyre.

These streets have been the scene of many a drama in the
past. Earthquakes in 1645, in 1863, and 1880, caused great loss of
life and property. The plague broke out in 1628, when Spaniards,
Filipinos, and Chinese were swept off indiscriminately. Later,
epidemics of smallpox and cholera have made a prison and a pesthouse
of Manila. Only in 1902 the city suffered from a run of cholera,
and the Americans, in spite of all precautions, could not stop the
spread of the disease. The streets were flushed at night; districts of
native houses were put to the torch, and the detention-camp was full of
suffering humanity. The natives, in their ignorance, went through the
streets in long processions, carrying the images of saints, chanting,
and burning