The age-herald., 1898-08-02
PRETTY GIRLS
 OF MANILA Rivals the Girls Left Behind Have Reasons to Fear. A NAVAL OFFICERS STORY No End of Black-Eyed Beauties, Who Like to Be Stared At, Are Fond of Dancing and Know How
 to Have Good Time.
A NAVAL OFFICERS STORY

 tan in the early eighties when she visited Manila, tells the New York Sun about the pretty girls there. q heard the older off, cers, who had been in Manila years before, talking among themselves about the Mes tizo young ladies and their charming com panionship. The Mestizos are the creoles of the Philippines They have Spanish, Malay and native blood in their veins. In many the Spanish blood predominates, and then the Mestizo is most attractive hu- man specimen Some Mestizos are very rich and they go in the best society in Ma nila. Commonly, however, the Spanish look down on the Mestizos. The Mestizo girls are uncommonly beautiful. Robert Louis Stevenson has told about that in rhyme. All the naval officers who have ever stop ped a fortnight have much to tell of the charms of the Mestizos. Well, the sec ond week the Powhatan was at Manila I happened to be among those invited to ball given at the home of rich Mestizo rice merchant by several of his English and American customers. Promptly at 8 o'clock we drove into the basement of the house, ascended the stone stairway, and an array of brilliant colors and black eyes burst upon our view. The Mestizo girls were sitting in a row one side of the room, about forty of them, some decked in gay plumage, yellow, pink and green being prominent colors others dressed in somber hues. They were very pretty, with 1.-the, graceful figures and eyes as black as coal. The men lowered near the doors of the grand sala like hawks eyeing chick ens There were few informal introduc- tions and some of us were presented in whole squads, no names being used.
 fhn RRcf mt of =fTQiV concealed behind a lattice, all the men made a bounce for partners. Seeing that bouncing was the go, made dive for pretty girl in yellow and green, rattled off a sentence from the fifteenth lesson of Ollendorf-.Will you do me the favor to bailar con migo?-and started off on dance had never seen before, but which was easy to learn. It was the habanera, a sort of walking embrace to slow music: you take a step to the right rise on your toes, step to the left, rise, swing round, step to the right, rise and on then when you wish to balance you wink at some@fAl- low. stop in front of him and go through the ladies' chain, then clasp your partners waist and take the ~other ladies' right hand. The Other fellow does the same, and now with the music you sway up to the <center, sway back, and revolve in an clip tic at the same time, after the manner of the planets. After swaying six times you drop the other ladys hand and gradually
 
 girls cling quite. closely and gaze up oc- casionallY Spanish fashion. ..-@ss
 "The Mestizo girls understood no Eng fish, and 1t was fun to hear the remarks of our fellows. One lieutenant flew past me and called out, Stand clear of this planetary systemr Another cried, Port your helm, Tommy; don't you see her star ry toplights?' And another fellow came dashing down the room saying, Clear the decks-gangway for Silver Heels! So we lya dam off do nd fbn hall resounded with laughter.
 "The girls had a funny way of kissing each other all the evening, and the fanci- est kisses I ever saw: first, both kiss to starboard, and then both to port. The first time I noticed a young damsel kissed my partner goodbye as she started to dance with me. I was astohished, and said we were not going far, which made them laugh. found that the girls in contiguous seats kissed good-by before every dance, as if to say: You will elope this time, sure.' When the time for supper came I fell into line and escorted blooming Fiippina to the table. I asked resident American what I should help her to, and he said, emphatically: Ham and turkey; give her plenty of ham and turkey!' I gave her a full plate, which she soon dis patched, and then she called for more. Everybody ate ham and turkey. The gen. tlemen acted as walters, and afterwards sat down together. Spaniards are terrible
  for they came to the ball at o'clock and danced until 5 a.. m. We held ourselves in dancing trim by refreshments. The ladies kept even with us and deserved great praise
 .'The third following evening we gave a hall on board The spar deck was curtain ed in and decorated with lanterns, flags and designs. The ball immense success up to about o'clock, when to our consternation it began to rain. It never
 e.. two months and did not rain for a month afterward: but down 1t came then, pour ing through the flat awning and all along the edges and slowly and surely moving inboard. The music fiickered and went out with a mournful discord; the merry laugh ter gasped and expired, and the ladies clus- tered within the wet boundary which mar rowed and narrowed, and drew them to- gether in little bunch. Finally, so small became the dry spot and so tight was the squeeze that the silence was broken by the shouts of laughter and little screams. The water splashed up the ladies pressed their skirts in and stood on the little toes of their Spanish slippers. It was a moment of peril. The crisis having come now when it was sink or swim, we took the ladies by their hands and made rush for the cabin which was soon slowed chockablock with Spanish beauty; even the bathtub and vegetable box were full of Castillan loveiness. We had no other shelter. as the WarQr0Om was III uSs dS butiei pdh- try pro tenn. Suffocation began to set in among them, so we signaled for the small steamer, which soon came alongside. and then up came the lark-eyed beauties from the cabin out they crawled from the bath tub and bin The deck was afoat, so we rgged sedans with armchairs and squilgee handles. and thus carried them in state to the gangway to save their satin slippers and silk opeuwork.
 Every evening during the holiday week some section of the city took it's turn at illumination. dancing and festivity, and thither went all the youth. beauty and pleasure-seekers of the town and suburbs. Tho most curious of the entertainments was a ball at the house of rich China man. There was q peculiar blending of barbarism and civilization in the furni- ture table service and appointments. There were present a large number of Chi nese Mestizo ladies. with more or less of the almond-shapcd eye. but some of them rather pretty. and even fond of dancing the habanera and of looking with sort of Hispano- Chinese tenderness out of the corners of their eyes. Their dresses dis played an Indian repugnance to superfu-