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[Foreign mail facilities.] The distance from Manila to Hongkong is six hundred fifty nautical miles, and the course is almost exactly south-east.  The mail steamer running between the two ports makes the trip in from three to four days.  This allows of a fortnightly postal communication between the colony and the rest of the world. [9]

[Slight share in world commerce.] This small steamer is the only thing to remind an observer at Hongkong, a port thronged with the ships of all nations, that an island so specially favored in conditions and fertility lies in such close proximity.

[Little commerce with Spain.] Although the Philippines belong to Spain, there is but little commerce between the two countries.  Once the tie which bound them was so close that Manila was wont to celebrate the arrival of the Spanish mail with Te Deums and bell-ringing, in honor of the successful achievement of so stupendous a journey.  Until Portugal fell to Spain, the road round Africa to the Philippines was not open to Spanish vessels.  The condition of the overland route is sufficiently shown by the fact that two Augustinian monks who, in 1603, were entrusted with an important message for the king, and who chose the direct line through Goa, Turkey, and Italy, needed three years for reaching Madrid. [10]

[Former Spanish ships mainly carried foreign goods.] The trade by Spanish ships, which the merchants were compelled to patronize in order to avoid paying an additional customs tax, in spite of the protective duties for Spanish products, was almost exclusively in foreign goods to the colony and returning the products of the latter for foreign ports.  The traffic with Spain was limited to the conveyance of officials, priests, and their usual necessaries, such as provisions, wine and other liquors; and, except a few French novels, some atrociously dull books, histories of saints, and similar works.

[Manila’s fine bay.] The Bay of Manila is large enough to contain the united fleets of Europe; it has the reputation of being one of the finest in the world.  The aspect of the coast, however, to a stranger arriving, as did the author, at the close of the dry season, falls short of the lively descriptions of some travellers.  The circular bay, one hundred twenty nautical miles in circumference, the waters of which wash the shores of five different provinces, is fringed in the neighborhood of Manila by a level coast, behind which rises an equally flat table land.  The scanty vegetation in the foreground, consisting chiefly of bamboos and areca palms, was dried up by the sun; while in the far distance the dull uniformity of the landscape was broken by the blue hills of San Mateo.  In the rainy season the numerous unwalled canals overflow their banks and form a series of connected lakes, which soon, however, change into luxuriant and verdant rice-fields.

[City’s appearance mediaeval European.] Manila is situated on both sides of the river Pasig.  The town itself, surrounded with walls and ramparts, with its low tiled roofs and a few towers, had, in 1859, the appearance of some ancient European fortress.  Four years later the greater part of it was destroyed by an earthquake.