FRANK'S PRIZE—A BUTTERFLY.
At the appointed time the boys were at the boat, and with the rest of the party. Just before they embarked, Frank saw a handsome butterfly on a stalk near by, and managed to capture it. The Doctor pronounced it a fine specimen, and it was immediately stowed away in the box kept for prizes of this sort.
"First game for the day," said Frank. "Now, who will have the next?"
Fred made no response, but eyed the water intently, as he saw something moving in it close to the shore. Seizing a hand-net that lay on the ground, he made a sudden swoop in the water, and brought up a prize.
FRED'S PRIZE—THE MUD-LAFF.
"Second game for me!" he shouted, as he deposited on the ground a strange-looking fish, with a mouth opening directly upward instead of being placed where the respectable fish is accustomed to have his mouth.Below the head there was a spongy and shapeless mass, with the ventral fins attached, and the whole length of the fish was covered with a glutinous substance that stuck to the grass and weeds, where he had been dropped. Along the back was a row of spines, that rose and fell alternately, as though they were trying to pierce something. Both the boys pronounced the fish the ugliest product of the water they had ever looked upon, and the Doctor said the American sculpin was a model of beauty compared to this monster.
"His scientific name," said Doctor Bronson, "isSynanceia brachia, and he is popularly known as the mud-laff. He abounds in tropical waters, and in most Asiatic countries he is eaten by the natives; but the Europeans will have nothing to do with him. He lies in the mud and weeds at the bottom of rivers, and is quite concealed from view. You observe he has sharp eyes, which peer up through the water and watch for his prey; when it comes in his reach he sucks it in with a single inhalation, and this is why his mouth is so oddly placed. The spines on his back are poisonous, and if you should be pricked with them you would have a painful wound that might last you for weeks. Mr. Pike, in his 'Sub-Tropical Rambles,' tells of a man in the Mauritius who was stung on the sole of his foot by a mud-laff; the foot and leg swelled enormously, and after some days the wound sloughed, leaving a large hole. It was more than two months before the man was able to leave the hospital."
There were two boats to-day instead of three, and the course was laid for an island three or four miles away. On the way thither their host intimated that they were to have a kind of sport they had never seen in America, and perhaps had never heard of. It might be a disappointment, as it did not require much skill, but in any event it would be a novelty. "Wait till we get there," said he, "and then you will know what it is.
"If we have time," he continued, "I will show you a very curious place called the Lake of Socolme."
"Is it beyond this lake?" one of the boys asked, as he glanced around, and concluded that the question of time was very doubtful.
"No, it is in this lake," was the reply, "or rather it is in an island of the lake. Socolme is an island about three miles in circumference, and is supposed to be the top of an extinct volcano with a lake or pond in its crater. The island is two or three hundred feet high, and the pond is in the centre of it, and at a higher elevation than the great lake. The pond has been sounded and found to be three hundred feet in depth, while there are not more than seventy-five feet of water in any part of the lake.
"The curious thing about Socolme is the vast numbers of crocodiles that inhabit it. They are so numerous, and so dangerous, that the Indians will not go there alone, and it is with the greatest difficulty that we can persuade them to accompany us when we make an excursion there. Sometimes hundreds of these reptiles are visible, and they are of the largest size; what it is that keeps them there I cannot say, but presume they find something specially attractive in the depth of the water.
"The birds have found that the Indians do not molest them on Socolme, and so they go there to lay their eggs. Every tree on the shores of the little lake is white with guano, and the limbs are crowded with nests which are filled with eggs and birds during the breeding season.
"On the shore opposite Socolme there are several springs of hot water, and the place is generally known as 'Los Banos,' or 'The Baths.' There are plenty of wild pigeons there, and any one who is fond of shooting pigeons can have all the sport he wants.
"A few miles farther to the east is a sand-bank, where the turtles go to lay their eggs; unfortunately it is not the season for them now, or I would take you there. The turtles come up in the night to deposit their eggs, and return to the water before sunrise, so that when the natives want any of the turtles they must hunt them by moonlight; but the eggs are a different matter, and when the Indians know where they are, they can find them at their leisure."
Fred suggested that if the turtle covered his eggs over, it must require considerable skill to find a nest.
INDIANS HUNTING TURTLE'S EGGS.
"You are quite right," was the reply. "The Indians follow the tracks of the turtles in the sand, but there are so many of them that it is no easy matter. The turtle digs a trench in the sand about two feet deep with his broad paws, and then deposits the eggs and covers them. He smooths the sand over with his shell and goes away, and if he is favored by a shower just after his departure, you might think he had concealed his nest completely. But the Indian knows how to discover the deposit; he takes a blunt stick and thrusts it into the sand, and wherever it goes in easily he begins to dig with his hands. After a little practice he becomes so expert that he never makes a mistake, but invariably comes upon eggs. They have a thin but tough shell, and the yolk contains a great deal of oil. The natives eat these eggs raw, but they are too rank for the European stomach, though we use some of them in making omelets and cakes. The Indians crush them in broad trays, and collect the oil which soon rises to the top. Turtle oil is quite an article of commerce."
Frank asked how many eggs were usually found in a nest.
"The number varies a good deal," was the response. "I have seen a hundred and forty taken out of one nest, but usually there are not far from a hundred. It is a curious spectacle to see a dozen or more natives digging away at the sand, some lying at full length, some on their knees, and others bearing baskets full of eggs to the boats tied up to the bank."
Conversation on various topics consumed the time till the party reached one of the islands, and proceeded to land. There were several eagles flying in circles high above the boats, and keeping up a perpetual screaming as if in protest at the coming of the visitors. The Doctor "drew a bead" on one of them with his Remington rifle, and brought himto the ground—or rather to the lake, where one of the natives paddled out and secured the prize. He was a fine fellow, measuring nearly six feet from tip to tip of his extended wings. Frank and Fred wished to try their skill, and brought up the guns they had used the day before, but the Doctor told them nothing but a rifle could have any effect on these birds, owing to the height at which they were flying.
Two or three eagles were shot by the Doctor and his host; the boys each tried to bring down one of the huge birds, but did not succeed, as they had not practised with the rifle, and consequently were not expert in using it. By-and-by the excitement of shooting eagles came to an end, and the party started for the novel sport that had been promised.
A few hundred yards from the landing-place there was a clump of trees, to which the attention of the boys was directed; Frank remarked that the foliage was the darkest he had ever seen on a tree, and Fred suggested that there must have been a shower of ink not long ago, or perhaps the trees grew out of a bed of chimney-soot. Other reasons were given for the blackness of the trees—some of them serious and others jocular—but none were correct.
The Doctor raised his rifle and fired at one of the trees. The game fell to the ground, and Frank ran forward to pick it up.
"Why, it's a bat!" he exclaimed, as he held the prize by an extended wing, "and a large one too."
"Yes," answered the Doctor, "it belongs to the family of vampires; the naturalists call it aroussette, and its genus ispteropus. Its popular name is flying-fox, and the natives find it good eating, though Europeans will not generally touch it. Its fur, you perceive, is soft, and it is often used for the linings of gloves, but in a tropical climate like this it is not of a good quality."
HOW A BAT SLEEPS.
"But what are they doing here on this island?" Fred asked. "And look, the trees are covered with them, all hanging down by their claws and apparently asleep."
"Yes," said Mr. Segovia, "they are asleep, and you may shoot as many of them as you like. What you supposed to be black leaves were in reality bats, and they take the place of the foliage they have destroyed."
"But do they live here all the time?" inquired Frank. "If they do, I should think they would kill the trees by depriving them of the power of growing."
"No," was the reply, "they only stay here during the period of the eastern monsoon. They sleep all day, and go out at night in search of food, and with the rising of the sun, or before it, they are back again.When the eastern monsoon stops, and the western one begins, the bats leave these islands and go away to the east coast of Luzon, and then the trees have a chance to grow. With the return of the eastern monsoon we have the bats again, and then comes our sport in shooting them."
The guns were made ready, and each of the party selected a tree for his own shooting. They loaded and fired as fast as possible for half an hour or more, and every shot brought down at least one bat. At the end of that time the bats were thoroughly alarmed by the noise of the shooting, and flew around in a dense crowd. More of them were killed while circling in the air, till finally they went off in a body, and alighted on a neighboring island where nobody cared to pursue them.
THE IGUANA.
Then the sport changed to shooting iguanas, a species of lizard five or six feet long, that lives among the rocks near the shore of the lake. Several of these were killed; but, as there was no need of skill, our friends were soon satisfied, and concluded not to slaughter any more. When the bats and iguanas that had been shot were piled together at the landing-place, one of the boys very naturally asked, "What will we do with them?"
"As to that," said their host, "it is a question easily answered; we'll give them to our native boatmen, who will be very glad to have such a present. The flesh of both bat and iguana is delicate, but Europeans have a prejudice against it, and so we do not put it on our tables as a regular article of food. If you would like to try it we will have some prepared for dinner, and if you can lay aside prejudice, I am sure you will find it excellent."
The boys concluded they would not venture on an experiment, although they frankly acknowledged that nothing but prejudice kept themfrom doing so. "The bat," said Fred, "is what we may call a clean feeder, and so is the iguana, if what I have read of their habits is correct; but prejudice is against them, and we will let them alone."
"Yes," responded Frank, continuing on the topic, "none of us have any prejudice against pork, yet the hog is the farthest possible from being a model of neatness in his habits. We would not eat dog or cat, but there is no more dainty animal in the world than a well-reared terrier or house-tabby."
PAUL P. DE LA GIRONIERE.
"On this point," said their host, "I can tell you a good story. Mr. La Gironiere, who formerly owned Jala-jala, used to bring his guests over here for the same sport you have been enjoying. One day he had in his party a couple of Americans, and on the way back one of them said they would like to try the flesh of the bat and the iguana. Thinking they were in earnest, the host told his cook to make a curry of iguana, and a ragout, or stew, of bat, and serve them for dinner. The cook did as he was ordered, and the first dish on the table was the curry. Everybody ate heartily, and pronounced the curry excellent; and then the host ventured to remark, 'You see the flesh of the iguana is very delicate.'
"This was enough. Every plate was pushed aside, including that of the American who had made the proposal, and not a mouthful more of curry could any one eat. Some even fled from the table, and could not be prevailed on to return until the strange dish had been removed, and the order for the bat stew was countermanded. You see what prejudice is; they all thought the curry delicious till they knew what it was made of, and probably they would have said the same of the ragout."
The game was given to the Indians to do what they pleased with it, and then the party started on a ramble over the island. Several birds were shot on the farther shore, where there was quite a stretch of sand,and Doctor Bronson managed to bring down another eagle. Then they went back to the landing-place and breakfasted, and after breakfast it was proposed to visit the hot baths that have been previously mentioned. Of course the proposal was accepted, and Socolme with its numerous crocodiles was left to itself.
The breeze was favorable, and in due time the hot baths were reached. Not far from the baths was an Indian village, and our friends paid it a visit; while they were strolling about the place Frank made a discovery, and quickly called the attention of the Doctor and Fred.
THE GIRL WITH THE LONG HAIR.
A native girl was sitting in a hammock, with one foot hanging over the side; she eyed the strangers with some curiosity, but did not show half as much as they did in looking at her. The particular object of their attention was her hair, which hung to the ground on each side of the hammock, and would doubtless have reached to her feet if she had stood erect. The hair was jet black, and apparently fine; though of this latter condition the youths could not speak positively.
The Doctor told the boys that the Indians of the Philippines were famous for fine heads of hair, and they are naturally proud of them. He said there was a story, of very doubtful veracity, that there is a tribe of Indians in one of the islands of the group that always choose their queen by the length of her hair. When a queen dies every woman in the tribefalls to measuring her hair; and the one with the longest measurement, even though it be only a hair-breadth greater than that of any other, is proclaimed queen.
"Perhaps, then," said one of the boys, "this girl here is endeavoring to qualify herself to be queen one of these days, and wear the royal crown. It is not likely that any one else can boast of longer hair than she has."
When their curiosity was satisfied they moved on, and a short distance farther came to where a woman was weaving cloth. It was the most primitive loom the boys had ever seen, and they stopped for several minutes to look at it. The Doctor told them that the material which she was weaving was abaca, or vegetable silk; and, while they were examining the loom, he explained how the fibre was grown and prepared.
"The abaca," he said, "is grown on the mountain slopes, and thrives best in a volcanic soil. It belongs to the banana family, and produces an abundance of seed; but the seed is not used for planting, owing to the long time required for it to grow up to be useful. The plants are propagated from cuttings taken from the base of the old trunk and set in the earth, where they soon take root and begin to grow. For the first two years much attention is needed to keep down the weeds which threaten to choke the plants; but by the third year the plant puts out its own broad leaves, and is able to take care of itself with an occasional slight weeding.
"The vegetable silk is largely exported to Europe and America under the name of Manilla hemp; but it is only the coarser quality that goes to market. The finer kinds are woven by the natives, as you now see, and some of the cloth that they produce is as delicate as cambric or muslin. It is surprising what these people are able to accomplish with their rude implements and machinery.
"No less than twelve varieties of abaca are cultivated; and it has been found that while it grows luxuriantly in some localities, it will not live at all in others. It takes from three to four years for the plant to produce fibre of a proper quality; at first only one stalk is cut from each bush, but later on the new branches grow so fast that they can be cut every eight or ten weeks. A good plantation will yield a ton and a half to the acre, and sometimes as high as two tons have been gathered.
"Now, let us look at the loom where the weaving is going on. Perhaps Frank had better take down a description of it."
A PRIMITIVE LOOM IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
Frank brought out his note-book and wrote as follows, partly fromhis own observation, and partly from the dictation of Doctor Bronson and Fred:
"The upper end consists of a piece of bamboo fastened between two posts, and the end of the web is tied to it. The weaver sits on the ground, and holds the lower end of the web by means of a wooden bow that passes across her back; she places her feet against a couple of pegs set in the ground, and by leaning backward draws the web out straight. The shuttle consists of a netting-needle a little longer than the width of the web, and, after the thread has been passed through the web, it is driven to its place with a wooden comb. A lath of hard wood serves as a trestle, and is turned on its edge after every stroke.
"With this simple apparatus many thousand yards of cloth are woven in the Philippine Islands every year; it is the cloth almost universally worn by the natives, and it is wonderful to what a degree of fineness it is brought when we remember the rudeness of the loom."
THE BANANA.
When they had satisfied their curiosity concerning the weaving process they continued their walk, and soon found themselves outside the village,and in the midst of a banana-field. It was Fred's turn now to write something, and accordingly he set down a brief description of the banana plant as he saw it in the Philippine Islands:
"The trunk of the banana plant is formed of leaves placed one above another, and cannot properly be called a tree, as it does not contain any woody fibre. It rises from eight to twelve feet high, and spreads out near the top into leaves five or six feet long. The flower rises from the middle of these leaves, and also the spike that holds the fruit; the latter is called the 'regime,' and sometimes has a hundred or more bananas clinging to it.
"Before the fruit is ripe the spike is cut, and soon becomes fit for use. The part of the plant which is in the earth is a sort of large root, and from it there will be successively thirty or more shoots, each one containing its bunch of fruit. As the shoots are of different ages, a single plant contains fruit in all conditions of growth, some ripening while other bunches are just beginning to form. Consequently, every two or three weeks throughout the year a bunch may be cut, and it does not require a very large field to support a man. A good many people eat little else than rice and bananas, and if a man is very poor, he can get along with wild bananas that he gathers in the forest, though he is liable to find it monotonous living."
Our friends were back from the hot springs in good time in the afternoon, and the next day they proceeded with their own boat to make farther excursions in Luzon. We will let Frank and Fred tell the story, which they did in a letter that left Manilla by the next mail.
After describing the experiences already recorded, the letter ran as follows:
"When we left Jala-jala we went farther up the lake and over to the other side, so as to make a journey in the mountains, and among the native inhabitants. Mr. Segovia said that the farther we went into the interior the wilder and more primitive would we find the people, but that their manners and customs were generally much alike. The Spanish officials are scattered all over the country, and every town and village has its alcalde or mayor, who is elected by the people, but must be approved by the governor. The larger towns and villages have Spanish alcaldes, but in the smaller places the officials are native, and sometimes very ignorant. An alcalde, whether Spanish or native, considers himself a very important personage, and when dressed in his best clothes and out for a walk his appearance is quite comical.
AN ALCALDE AND HIS CONSTABLE.
"At the first village where we landed, on the other side of the lake, the alcalde and his constable came to meet us, as they had heard the day before that we were coming, through a message sent by our guide. The alcalde was a short, stout man, and carried a gold-headed cane, which was his staff of office; he wore his shirt outside his trousers, after the custom of the country, and he had a dress-coat over it, evidently made for him years ago when he was thinner. He wore a bell-crowned hat, tilted on one side, like some of the men you see on Broadway, and he had wooden shoes on his stockingless feet. Behind him came the constable, who was a great contrast to his master in shape and form; he was thin as a fishing-rod, and carried his hat in his hand, while his feet were quite bare. Oneof us made a rough sketch of the pair while they were talking with Mr. Segovia and the Doctor.
"We are told that the Spanish alcaldes generally get rich in a few years, if they happen to be in good districts; but there are some that go away as poor as they came. The governor rewards his friends by securing their election to good places where they may make money. This may seem very strange to you at home, but you must remember that we are in Luzon, on the other side of the world from America; of course nothing like it was ever heard of in the United States.
"We engaged saddle-horses for an excursion among the mountains, and some porters to carry our baggage; the latter started off in advance, and we were to overtake them at a village where we would pass the night. There was no trouble in getting the horses, as their owners were quite willing to hire them out; but the engagement of the porters was not so easy. The people are not fond of hard work, and you may be sure it is no joke to carry ever so small a parcel in this hot climate. Themayor arranged it for us and selected the men, and he also fixed the price for us to pay. When they were assigned to the work, each man picked up the lightest thing he could find—one an umbrella, and another a field-glass that didn't weigh a pound, while a third seized a little dressing-case belonging to Mr. Segovia. They were about to move off with these loads when the alcalde called them back, and made them distribute the baggage evenly. When it was properly arranged, they had about twenty-five pounds apiece, which was not at all too much.
AN AVENUE OF PALM-TREES.
"At first the road was through a level country, and among fields of rice, tobacco, and other things that grow on the lowlands. We saw great numbers of palm-trees, and at one place there was quite a long avenue of them which somebody had set out when they were small, and allowed them to grow. It is difficult to say how many varieties of these trees we saw in the day's journey, but there must have been a dozen at least. The most useful of them was the sugar-palm; its name indicates its character, as it is cultivated for the sugar it produces, very much as the maple is cultivated in some parts of the United States and Canada.
"Perhaps you would like to know how they make sugar from a palm-tree. Well, this is the way they do it:
"The tree is tapped by cutting a deep notch in it seven or eight feet from the top, and attaching a section of bamboo to serve as a bucket to catch the sap or juice. As fast as the bamboos fill up they must be changed, and a good tree will yield eight or ten quarts daily for about six weeks. The juice is then boiled down, just as the juice of the sugar-cane or maple-tree is boiled, and is finally granulated into a coarse brown sugar.
"The juice of another variety of the tree is used for making palm-brandy, and it is said that thirty-six quarts of the juice will make six quarts of spirit. The buds of the tree are cut before they have time to blossom, and the sap that runs from them is caught in bamboos, just as in the case of the other kind of tree. The juice is then fermented into wine, which is afterward distilled into brandy. The government used to have the monopoly of the business, and though private individuals could make all they wished, they were obliged to sell to the government at a fixed price. The contractors made large profits on the business, and you may be sure the government did not lose anything. But so much of the proceeds of the business were consumed in the expense of gathering, that the government a few years ago gave up the monopoly, and allowed the manufacturers to pay taxes on what they sold, just as the manufacturers of spirits do in other countries.
"As we went back from the lake the country became more and more hilly, and when we stopped at night we were close to the mountains. The air seemed cooler, because we had been constantly ascending, but we were surrounded with tropical trees quite as much as in the lower country. Just as we came into the village where we were to spend the night, our attention was called to a native clock, and we stopped to have a look at it.
A VILLAGE CLOCK.
"You never saw such a clock in America, or rather such a bell, for it was really a bell for sounding the hours, and not a timepiece.
"A log that had been hollowed out was suspended under a tree by one end, through which a lot of ropes were passed. This was the bell, and it was struck with a smaller log suspended near it; a watchman came every hour from the house of the priest, where there was a real clock that showed the time. Of course such a rude apparatus as this could not be exact, as the watchman is not very careful. Sometimes he makes the hours only fifteen minutes long, and when he has struck all of them, he goes home and has a comfortable rest. In this way he can make it noon before it is nine o'clock in the morning; in the middle of the day there is nothing to do, and he will stay away three or four hours without coming near the timepiece at all.
"Some children coming from school stopped to look at us while we were looking at the clock, and this made us ask about the schools among the natives. We were told that there were schools in all the villages; the school-master is paid by the government, and generally receives about two dollars a month, without board or lodging. If the village is a large one, he has three dollars and a half a month, and must pay for an assistantout of his own pocket; the assistant is usually a woman, who teaches the younger children, and her wages are one dollar a month, with a little present at the end of the year. The schools are under the supervision of the priests of the districts, and about half the children do not go to school at all. They teach reading and writing, and a little arithmetic; the Indians learn arithmetic very easily, and each scholar has a pile of shells before him, which he counts over and over again when he is learning the numerals. With the same shells he studies addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, by separating them into little heaps, and it is said to be very amusing to see the scholars at their tasks. They learn to write on a table covered with sand, and as fast as they have written an exercise, the sand is smoothed over for another. This odd sort of copy-book cannot be carried home at night; and, in fact, they don't have more than two or three books altogether. The reading-bookis the "Christian Doctrine," so that the scholars get their religious education along with anything else they are learning. They remember their religion longer than they do their arithmetic, as they soon forget all else that they have learned, unless they go into employments requiring a knowledge of reading and writing.
A VOLCANO IN REPOSE.
"The next morning we went farther up into the interior, and came in sight of a mountain that looked like a great pile of ashes, and had a little wreath of smoke issuing from near the top. Our guide told us it was a volcano that had an eruption a few years before, but was now very quiet; what we said looked like ashes was the cone of the mountain covered with the volcanic ashes that had been thrown up. We wanted to climb the mountain, but there wasn't time; and, besides, it came on to rain, and we had to stop. The rain kept up through the night and all the next day, and we concluded to return to Manilla as soon as we could, and get ready to move on somewhere else. Perhaps you will want to know what we would have seen if we had gone across the island, and all through it.
INDIANS OF THE INTERIOR.
"We should have been some time among the mountains, as there is a chain of them running the whole length of Luzon; many of these mountains are volcanic, and some of them do a good deal of smoking. Perhaps we should have felt the earth trembling under us suddenly, and continuing to tremble for several seconds, as it is said to do here very often; we have experienced two or three little earthquakes, and are in no hurry to make the acquaintance of a large one, though we are liable to do so at any moment.
"Perhaps we could have gone to the gold mines; but it is doubtful, as the government is not willing to let strangers see them, and they even put a good many difficulties in the way of Spaniards who want to go there. It is certain there is a considerable area of country in Luzon containing gold, and lumps have been found worth two or three hundred dollars. Several mines have been opened, but they have not paid the men who own the stock, though it is hinted that the managers on the ground have done well. Our Spanish friend asked if this was not the case sometimes in America; but we told him we had never owned any gold mines, and consequently could not give him any precise information. He laughed, and then talked about something else, without again mentioning gold-mines.
TRAVELLING THROUGH THE FOREST IN LUZON.
"Then we might have seen mines of lead, copper, and other metals; and we should have travelled through dense forests, where not even a horse can go. If we had undertaken such a journey, we should have been escorted by natives with spears and shields, as they have very little knowledge of fire-arms. The Spaniards are unwilling to let them have any weapons with which they could fight; and, as they have no noxious animals to contend with, there is no occasion for them to be armed. There are no tigers, lions, or similar beasts of prey in the Philippines; the wild animals have already been mentioned, and include the boar and buffalo, which are not dangerous as long as you let them alone.
"Well, we'll give one jump right back to Manilla, and get ready to leave. Here we are, safe and sound, though somewhat tired from being cramped up in a boat, and sore from riding on horseback and walking over rough ground. We have seen a great many new things, and had experiences that were new to us, and we have—"
Here the writing of the letter was interrupted by a violent shaking of the table at which the boys were seated; Frank was thrown from his chair, and Fred saved himself from going over by grasping the table with both hands, and resting his weight upon it. The Doctor was lying on a lounge a few feet away, and engaged in the perusal of a parcel of papers just received from New York; his reading was instantly suspended, and he came to his feet at the very moment Frank fell to the floor.
"An earthquake! an earthquake!" said Frank.
"An earthquake, certainly," answered Fred; "there's no mistaking it."
STREET SCENE DURING AN EARTHQUAKE.
The Doctor said not a word, but seized his hat and started for the street, followed by both the boys. By the time they reached there the streets were crowded with people in the greatest state of alarm; manywere on their knees in prayer, and in a few moments a priest appeared carrying a crucifix, to which many eyes were turned. Tiles were falling from the roofs, walls were crashing into heaps of ruins, seams opened in the earth, men and women were shouting and screaming in terror, and what had been only a few minutes before a peaceful and sleepy city, was now a scene of wild excitement and desolation.
Our friends sought the middle of the street and there stopped, the Doctor assuring the boys that they ought to be as far as possible from the falling walls and tiles. "It often happens," said he, "that an earthquake shock is followed by another a few minutes later, and sometimes the second is more severe than the first. We'll wait here awhile, and then be guided by the movements of the inhabitants; if they go back to their houses we can return to the hotel."
The shock was not renewed, and after a while the alarm began to subside, but very slowly; word came that the cathedral had been thrown down, but luckily no one had been injured, as it was not the hour of service, and the custodians of the place were outside the doors at the moment of the shock. Several of the government buildings were destroyed, and it was thought many people had been crushed to death by the falling walls. It was impossible at that time to estimate the damage, but it was known to be very great.
The Doctor suggested that they would walk to the cathedral and see the extent of the ruin, and so the trio proceeded there. Every few steps they met dozens of people rushing wildly about in spite of the efforts of others to calm them. As they neared the cathedral the crowd became more and more dense, but happily less excited; it was a matter of some difficulty to get near the ruins, but by patience and perseverance Doctor Bronson and the youths worked their way to the front of the assemblage, and close up to the heap of brick and stone.
A part of the front had fallen, and with it one of the sides; but the rest of the walls remained standing, though there were great seams here and there that showed the work was seriously weakened, and would need to be torn down if it did not fall. The roof was crushed, owing to the loss of support on one side, and the rafters and the covering boards lay in a confused mass on the floor.
It began to grow dark, as the earthquake occurred a little before sunset, and our friends deemed it best to return to the hotel. They reached it in safety, and found it had not suffered greatly by the shaking it had received; like many of the houses of Manilla it was only one story in height, and the roof was lightly constructed, partly because the climatedid not require a heavy one, and partly with a view to avoiding injury in the frequent disturbances to which Luzon is subject. The walls were cracked in a few places, and some of the tiles had been dislodged; but the proprietor thought that for twenty dollars he could repair all the damages.
Very naturally the conversation during the evening was devoted to earthquakes, and the boys accumulated a considerable stock of information on the subject. Fred turned to Mr. Jagor's book on the Philippines, and found that a great many earthquakes had been recorded in Manilla, the most fatal occurring in the years 1601, 1610, 1645, 1658, 1675, 1796, 1824, 1852, and 1863.[2]On the third of June, 1863, at thirty-one minutes past seven in the evening, after a day of tremendous heat, and while all Manilla was busy with preparations for a religious festival, the ground suddenly rocked to and fro with great violence; the firmest buildings reeled visibly, walls crumbled, and beams snapped in two. The shock lasted half a minute; but this little interval of time was enough to change the whole city into a mass of ruins, and to bury alive hundreds of its inhabitants. The cathedral, the barracks, the governor's residence, and all the public buildings were entirely destroyed; 400 persons were killed, 2000 were wounded, and the loss in money was estimated at $8,000,000. Forty-six public and 570 private buildings were thrown down, and all the houses that remained standing were more or less injured.
Frank asked the Doctor what was the cause of an earthquake, and whether the movements of the ground were always the same.
"The cause is difficult to get at," Doctor Bronson answered, "although the wisest men in all ages have studied the phenomenon, and endeavored to make a satisfactory theory for it. The ancient philosophers supposed that the winds became imprisoned in the earth, and, in their struggles to escape, gave rise to the upheaval of the land and the general convulsions. In the last century a French scientist contended that large quantities of bituminous and sulphurous matter became suddenly inflamed, and broke forth in violent fermentations. The still more modern theory is that the surface of the earth is only a thin crust over a mass of melted matter; that we live on the outside of a ball of liquid fire, which is liable to explode at any time, and put an end to us and all around. It is argued that the volcanoes now in activity are the outlets for this internal fire, and theoccasional eruptions and earthquakes are the result of the fire seeking vent, in consequence of the clogging of the subterranean passages."
Frank thought the theory was not very comforting, and on the whole he preferred the older one. Fred agreed with him, and then the Doctor continued:
"The movements of the ground are not always the same in earthquakes; sometimes there will be only a single shock, or more frequently two about twenty seconds or even a minute apart, and again there will be a succession of shocks lasting for hours, or even days, at irregular intervals. The latter is oftener the case in South America than in other parts of the world; there the ground keeps up a rocking more or less continual for hours, and the later shocks are generally more violent than the earlier ones. Usually, however, the earthquake comes without warning, and is over in less than a minute, but in that space of time the destruction may be terrible.
DESTRUCTION OF MESSINA IN 1783.
"Sometimes the earthquake comes in the form of a blow of the surface of the earth from beneath, and in this shape it is most fatal and destructive. The earth seems to rise into the air as though there was a great explosion beneath it; buildings are forced upward and fall in fragments, and whole villages and towns are tossed against the hills andmountains in the vicinity, while men and animals are conveyed hundreds of yards away, either with or without the land on which they are standing. The great earthquake of 1783 in Southern Italy and Sicily, that destroyed Messina and other cities, was of this character. A peasant was carried from one part of a valley to another, together with the field where he was at work; and at another place people were hurled against the top and sides of a hill. Messina seemed to be lifted up in an instant of time, and then fell back again, burying thousands of people beneath the crumbling stones. There was no warning in any form; but the movement of the ground was accompanied by a roaring sound, which seemed to be far down in the earth. Ships were dashed against the shore, or overwhelmed with the huge waves that accompanied the earthquake, and the ground opened in many places in great cracks, that soon closed up again and swallowed those who happened to be caught in them.
ITALIAN PEASANTS INGULFED BY CREVASSES.
"To show how complete was the destruction by that earthquake, we will consider the effects on the town of Terra Nova. It stood on an elevated plateau that had deep gorges on three sides of it. The shock of the earthquake shook the plateau to pieces, and it rolled down into the gorges, carrying houses and inhabitants with it. Men, women, and children were swallowed up, and so complete was the devastation, that nothingremained to show where the town had been. The ground continued to tremble at intervals for months after this great earthquake, but there were no shocks as severe as the first."
"Haven't I read somewhere," said one of the boys, "that the severest earthquakes are near the sea?"
"Quite possibly you have read it," the Doctor answered, "for such is the case. There seems to be some kind of relationship between the sea and volcanoes and earthquakes; the greatest and most active volcanoes are not far removed from the sea or ocean, and some are actually in it. Vesuvius and Etna rise from the edge of the Mediterranean, while nearly on a line between them we find Stromboli, which has been in active eruption for two thousand years. It is called the light-house of the Mediterranean, and is very useful to mariners, as it gives a flash of light at regular intervals of a few minutes, and can be seen at night from a great distance. It is directly in the track of steamers between Naples and Messina, and makes a most excellent landmark.