for a pair of native horses, hastily converted
into surreys. Not only do the Spanish women come out in their black
_mantillas_, but the Filipino belles and the _mestiza_, girls, in their
stiff dresses of _jose_ and _pina_ cloth. A carriage-load of painted
cheeks and burnished pompadours of Japanese frail sisterhood drives by
upon its way to the Luneta. Army officers in white dress uniform, the
wives and daughters of the officers, bareheaded and in dainty gowns,
stop off at Clark's for lemonade, ice-cream, and candy. Soldiers
and sailors strolling along the street, or driving rickety native
carts, enjoy themselves after the manner of their kind. A brace of
well-kept ponies, tugging like game fish, trot briskly away with
jingling harness, with the coachman and the footman dressed in white,
a foreign consul lounging in the cushions of the neat victoria. A
private _carruaje_, drawn by a sleek pony, hastens along, the tiny
footman clinging on for dear life to the extension seat behind.

After the whirl on the Luneta, where the military band plays as
the oddly-assorted carriages go circling round like fixtures on
a steam carousal, the pleasure-seekers leave the driveway on the
sea deserted; soldiers and citizens vacate the green benches, and
adjourn for dinner. The Spanish life is best seen at the Metropole,
where _senors_, _senoritas_, and _senoras_, exquisitely gowned,
sip cognac and coffee at the little tables, carrying on an animated
conversation, with expressive flashes of bright eyes or gestures with
elaborately-jeweled hands.

Below, in the Luzon cafe, the Rizal orchestra is playing the
impassioned Spanish waltzes, "_Sobre las Olas," "La Paloma_," to the
click of billiard balls and the guffaws of soldiers. When the evening
program ends with "_Dixie_," every soldier in a khaki uniform--bronzed,
grizzled fellows, many of them back from some campaign out in the
provinces--will rise immediately to his feet, respectfully remove
his hat, and as the music that reminds him of the home-land swells
and gathers volume, fill the corridors with cheer upon cheer as the
lights are put out; then the sleeping coachman rouses himself, and
starts the reluctant pony on the journey home.

Chapter III.

The White Man's Life.

It happened that my first home in Manila was a temporary one, shared
with a hundred others, at the _nipa_ barracks at the Exposition
grounds. Who of all those that were similarly situated will forget
t