Opposite Old Manila, on the other bank, lies the business section, with the big quays lined with steamers and alive with movement. The custom-house and the foreign business community are close by the river-side, while in back are hundreds of narrow streets, store-houses, and shops that go to make up the stamping ground of the Chinese who control so large a part of the provincial trade.
Everything centres at the foot of the Puente de España, which pours its perspiring flood into the narrow lane of the Escolta, and people, carriages, tram-cars, and dust all sail in here from north, east, south, and west. As on the other side, the busy part of the section runs a mile up and down the river and a mile back from it, while out or up beyond come the earlier residential suburbs. In Old Manila, the Church seems to rule, but on this side the Pasig the State makes itself felt, from the custom-house to the governor's palace--a couple of miles up stream.
As to population, Manila, in the larger sense, may hold 350,000 souls, besides a few dogs. Of the lot, call 50,000 Chinese, 5,000 Spaniards, 150 Germans, 90 English, and 4 Americans. The rest are natives or half-castes of the Malay type, whose blood runs in all mixtures of Chinese, Spanish, and what-not proportions, and whose Chinese eyes, flat noses, and high cheek-bones are queer accompaniments to their Spanish accents. Thus the majority of the souls in Manila,--like the dogs--are mongrels, or mestizos, as the word is, and the saying goes that happy is the man who knows his own father.
I spent my first night in Manila at the Spanish Hotel El Oriente, and it was here that I became acquainted with that peculiar institution, the Philippine bed. And to the newly arrived traveller its peculiar rig and construction make it command a good deal of interest, if not respect. It is a four-poster, with the posts extending high enough to support a light roof, from whose eaves hang copious folds of deep lace. The bed-frame is strung tightly across with regular chair-bottom cane, and the only other fittings are a piece of straw matting spread over the cane, a pillow, and a surrounding wall of mosquito-netting that drops down from the roof and is tucked in under the matting. How to get into one of these cages was the first question that presented itself, and what to do with myself after I got in was the second. It took at least half an hour to make up my mind as to the proper mode of entrance, when I was for the first time alone with this Philippine curiosity, and I couldn't make out whether it was proper to get in through the roof or the bottom or the side. After finally pulling away the netting, I found the hard cane bottom about as soft as the teak floor, and looked in vain for blankets, sheets, and mattresses. In fact, it seems as if I had gotten into an unfurnished house, and the more I thought about it the longer I stayed awake. At last I cut my way out of the peculiar arrangement, dressed, and spent the decidedly cool night in a long cane chair, preferring not to experiment further with the sleeping-machine until I found out how it worked.