[58] Quite suggestive of, and perhaps inspired by, the author’s own experience.—­Tr.

[59] The Walled City, the original Manila, is still known to the Spaniards and older natives exclusively as such, the other districts being referred to by their distinctive names.—­Tr.

[60] Nearly all the dialogue in this chapter is in the mongrel Spanish-Tagalog “market language,” which cannot be reproduced in English.—­Tr.

[61] Doubtless a reference to the author’s first work, Noli Me Tangere, which was tabooed by the authorities.—­Tr.

[62] Such inanities as these are still a feature of Manila journalism.—­Tr.

[63] “Whether there would be a talisain cock, armed with a sharp gaff, whether the blessed Peter’s fighting-cock would be a bulik—­”

Talisain and bulik are distinguishing terms in the vernacular for fighting-cocks, tari and sasabungin the Tagalog terms for “gaff” and “game-cock,” respectively.

The Tagalog terminology of the cockpit and monkish Latin certainly make a fearful and wonderful mixture—­nor did the author have to resort to his imagination to get samples of it.—­Tr.

[64] This is Quiroga’s pronunciation of Christo.—­Tr.

[65] The native priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, charged with complicity in the uprising of 1872, and executed.—­Tr.

[66] This versicle, found in the booklets of prayer, is common on the scapularies, which, during the late insurrection, were easily converted into the anting-anting, or amulets, worn by the fanatics.—­Tr.

[67] This practise—­secretly compelling suspects to sign a request to be transferred to some other island—­was by no means a figment of the author’s imagination, but was extensively practised to anticipate any legal difficulties that might arise.—­Tr.

[68] “Hawk-Eye.”—­Tr.

[69] Ultima Razon de Reyes:  the last argument of kings—­force. (Expression attributed to Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish dramatist.)—­Tr.

[70] Curiously enough, and by what must have been more than a mere coincidence, this route through Santa Mesa from San Juan del Monte was the one taken by an armed party in their attempt to enter the city at the outbreak of the Katipunan rebellion on the morning of August 30, 1896. (Foreman’s The Philippine Islands, Chap.  XXVI.)

It was also on the bridge connecting these two places that the first shot in the insurrection against American sovereignty was fired on the night of February 4, 1899.—­Tr.

[71] Spanish etiquette requires a host to welcome his guest with the conventional phrase:  “The house belongs to you.”—­Tr.

[72] The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, foretelling the destruction of Babylon.  Daniel, v, 25-28.—­Tr.

[73] A town in Ciudad Real province, Spain.—­Tr.

[74] The italicized words are in English in the original.—­Tr.