The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-12

lent meal and furnished clever artists for
the occasion AS l recollect him, General
Bianco seemed one of the most kindly or
men and reservedly genial man who en-
joyed good dinner and good music, and
VINO seemed to wish not 10 De thought ex-
allied by reason of mis- position he seemed
to me a man who would not willingly be
cruel or despotfc. but who apparently would
do what was expected of him by the gov
eminent when il came 70 questions OF dis
cipline or neutrality-suspicious. rather be-
cause it was expected of him than because
he relished the performance
OUTDOOR ADJUSTMENTS.
Now and then the cool weather of the
northeast monsoon would stimulate the
members of the club to get up a smoking
concert, in which the audience was mostly
composed of the performers awaiting their
turn, or to give a dance in return for hospi-
talities received at the hands OF the few
European hostesses in the colony. On the
latter occasions everybody was invited, the
grounds on the river bank were lighted by
scores of soft fairy lamps suspended from
the Hang-Hang trees, whose perfume oil
sells for $40 pound and the verandas, al
most overhanging the water, was hiled with
small supper tables. To step in on the scene
in the midst of the dance, with native or
chestras playing waltzes seductively as
those at home, with beautifully dressed
women in the latest Paris fashions hghting
for salads or ices, as If they had gone with
out dinners for week in anticipation or the
event, and with lean Spaniards trying to
stow away enough meat and drink for days
to come-with all this and more, too, 1t was
hard to believe that you were IL 600 miles
from Gotham and 5000 from Paris IN
Then there was the tennis club. on whose
lawns the few English ladies of the colony
would make tea while the men tried to re-
duce their tesh or cultivated malaria py IN
dulging in that violent exercise and driving
home and cooling off afterward The tennis
club, which cid not even boast OF bath
though it had a bar, was responsible LOT
more attacks of fever among its members
than was any other place or cause.
In February and May came the pony races
at the hree-quarter-mie course in the sub
urb of Santa Mesa, and those who wanted
to play the "totalijator," with it's tickets
at S. had to carry their Mexican dollars
with them or hire coolie to be their NOV
ing bank. Bank notes in the Philippines
were as scarce as snow. and l have often
seen winners of lucky tickets go trudging
home across the dried-up rice fields With
their hats and handkerchiefs full of heavy
"MexicanS.
To live in Manila for year is to want to
get away. To stay there two years is to
Rave exhausted every resource or novelty.
To remain three is to resign ones SELF to the
inevitable, and to put up with five is to ma
that life in the Western world is almost dls-
tasteful. Five years in the Philippines, and
you only have to visit New York or London
to wish you were back again and probably
to igo back again-so they tell me. Inc
young Englshman goes to Manila on fve-
year contract, with the option of staying
two more. He always goes home after the
first spell is over, but somehow is always
glad TO return, ana grows up WIN the lltlle
colony in Manila, satisfied with its limlta-
lions and content with newspapers hVe
weeks old.
The little foreign colony of Anglo-Saxons
was so small, with it's three score and ten
English and four Americans, that the ar
rival of new member or the departure of
an old one formed a distinct era, and sue
ceeding events were classified as having
occurred Just after Smith left or on the
day before Jones's arrival All hands were
always ready to charter a steam launch and
speed a
bound for Hong-Kong on the Esmeralda or
Zafiro, or to make life seem rosy to a new
man just out from home. And it is not to
portance in leaving a colony where his de-
parture reduces the number of his country
men remaining by 20 per cent.