Excerpt from Life in the East Indies

There is not a more pleasant city, whether for love, fan, or adventures, in the Eastern world, than Manila, the principal port of the Philippine Islands. It is under Spanish rule, and has so remained for the last two hundred years, and presents all the peculiar features of a large Spanish city, with its costumes and its customs, its trade and its convents, its loves and its jealousies, its handsome women and delicious fruits, its peculiar dishes, and its haughty Dons and insolent soldiers. Manila is only three days sail from Hong Kong, and the merchant princes of the latter city are often glad to leave their busy cares and the dreary wastes of that portion of China, and steam over to the Spanish province, where youth and beauty are sure to greet them, and luxurious living and enticing amusements repay the truants for their trip.

The climate, during the dry season, which lasts about seven months in the year, is delightful. A clear sky, and a delicious breeze, which sweeps over the city, fresh from a magnificent bay, cooling the atmosphere both morning and evening, render the sunset promenade upon the Calsarda so attractive, that a foreigner would sooner think of foregoing his cheroot, than miss directing his steps across the stone bridge which spans the Pasig, regularly after dinner, between five and eight o'clock.

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