A Visit to the Philippine Islands. Bowring John
of late disasters the records are trustworthy. That of 1796 was sadly calamitous. In 1824 many churches in Manila were destroyed, together with the principal bridge, the barracks, great numbers of private houses; and a chasm opened of nearly four miles in length. The inhabitants all fled into the fields, and the six vessels in the port were wrecked. The number of victims was never ascertained. In 1828, during another earthquake, the vibration of the lamps was found to describe an arch of four and a half feet; the huge corner-stones of the principal gate of the city were displaced; the great bells were set ringing. It lasted between two and three minutes, rent the walls of several churches and other buildings, but was not accompanied by subterranean noises, as is usually the case.
There are too few occasions on which scientific observations have been made on the subject of earthquakes, which take men by surprise and ordinarily create so much alarm as to prevent accurate and authentic details. A gentleman who had established various pendulums in Manila for the purpose of measuring the inclination of the angles and the course of the agitation, states that, in the slight earthquakes of 20th and 23rd June, 1857, the thermometer being at 88°, the direction of the first shock was from N.N.E. to S.S.E., the duration 14 seconds, and the oscillation of the pendulum 1½ degrees; time, 2h. 0m. 40s. P.M.: 20th June. Second shock from N.E. to S.W.; duration, 26 seconds; oscillation of pendulum, 2 degrees; time, 2h. 47m. P.M.: 20th June. Third shock S.W. to N.; duration of the shock, 15 seconds; greatest oscillation, 6 degrees, but slight movements continued for a minute, and the oscillations were observed from 2 degrees to three-quarters of a degree; time, 5 P.M.: 23rd June.
Earthquakes have produced great changes in the geography of the Philippines. In that of 1627, one of the most elevated of the mountains of Cagayan disappeared. In 1675, in the island of Mindanao, a passage was opened to the sea, and a vast plain was emerged. Successive earthquakes have brought upon Luzon a series of calamities.
Endemic diseases are rare in the Philippines. Intermittent fevers and chronic dysentery are among the most dangerous disorders. There have been two invasions of cholera, in 1820 and 1842. Elephantiasis, leprosy, and St. Anthony’s fire are the scourges of the Indians; and the wilder races of the interior suffer from a variety of cutaneous complaints. The biri biri is common and fatal. Venereal diseases are widely spread, but easily cured. Among the Indians, vegetables alone are used as medicaments. Chinese quack-doctors have much influence. In the removal of some of the tropical pests, no European can compete with the natives. They cure the itch with great dexterity, and are said to have remedies for pulmonary phthisis. Their plasters are very efficacious in external applications. They never employ the lancet or the leech. Surgical science is, of course, unknown.
There have been generally in the Philippines a few successful medical practitioners from Europe. Foreigners are allowed to exercise their profession, having previously obtained the authority of the Spanish Government; but the natives seldom look beyond their own simple mode of dealing with the common diseases of the islands; and in those parts where there is little or no Spanish population, no one is to be found to whom a surgical operation could safely be intrusted. The vegetable world furnishes a great variety of medicinal herbs, which the instinct or the experience of the Indian has turned to account, and which are, probably, on the whole, as efficacious as the more potent mineral remedies employed by European science. Quinine, opium, mercury, and arsenic, are the wonder-workers in the field of Oriental disease, and their early and proper application generally arrests the progress of malady.
I found practising in the island of Panay Dr. Lefevre, whom I had known in Egypt more than twenty years before, and who was one of the courageous men who boldly grappled with the current superstitions respecting the contagious character of the Oriental plague, and the delusions as to the efficacy of quarantine regulations, so really useless, costly, and vexatious. He placed in my hand some observations which he had published at Bombay in 1840, where vessels from the Red Sea were subjected to sanatory visitations. He asserts that plague is only generated at particular seasons, in certain definable conditions of the atmosphere, and when miasma is created by the decomposition of decaying matter; that endemic plague is unknown in countries where proper attention is paid to hygienic precautions; that severe cold or intense heat equally arrests the progress of the plague; that the epoch of its ravages is always one when damp and exposed animal and vegetable substances emit the greatest amount of noxious gases; and that plague has never been known to originate or to spread where the air is in a state of purity. I was glad to rediscuss the matter with him after so long an added experience, and to find he had been more and more confirmed in his former conclusions by prolonged residence in the tropics, where endemic and epidemic diseases partake of the pestilential character, though they do not assume the forms, of the Levant plague. Dr. Lefevre affirms that quarantines have done nothing whatever to lessen the dangers or check the ravages of the plague, but much to encourage its propagation. He complains of the deafness and incredulity of those whom the examination of a “thousand indisputable facts” will not convince, and he thus concludes: – “If I had not with peculiar attention studied the plague in the midst of an epidemic, and without any more precautions than if the danger was nothing – if, subsequent to the terrible visitation of 1835 in Egypt, I had not been frequently a witness to the scourge – if, finally, since that epoch I had not given myself up, with all the warmth of passion, to the constant study of this malady, to the perusal of histories of the plagues which have ravaged the world, and to the examination of all sorts of objections – I should not have dared to emit such a decided opinion – an opinion respecting the soundness of which I do not entertain the slightest doubt.”
One cannot but be struck, in reference to the geographical character of these islands, with the awful serenity and magnificent beauty of their primeval forests, so seldom penetrated, and in their recesses hitherto inaccessible to the foot of man. There is nothing to disturb their silence but the hum of insects, the song of birds, the noises of wild animals, the rustling of the leaves, or the fall of decayed branches. It seems as if vegetation revelled in undisturbed and uncontrolled luxuriance. Creeping plants wander from tree to tree; lovely orchids hang themselves from trunks and boughs. One asks, why is so much sweetness, so much glory, wasted? But is it wasted? To the Creator the contemplation of his works, even where unmarked by human eye, must be complacent; and these half-concealed, half-developed treasures, are but reserved storehouses for man to explore; they will furnish supplies to awaken the curiosity and gratify the inquiry of successive ages. Rove where he may – explore as he will – tax his intellect with research, his imagination with inventions – there is, there will be, an infinite field around and above him, inexhaustible through countless generations.
CHAPTER V
GOVERNMENT – ADMINISTRATION, ETC
The Administration of the Philippine Archipelago has for its head and chief a captain and governor-general, who resides in Manila, the capital of the islands, and who is not permitted to quit them without the authority of the sovereign of Spain. Next to the government of Cuba, it is the most important and the most lucrative post at the disposal of the Cabinet of Madrid, and has unfortunately been generally one of the prizes wrested from the unsuccessful, and seized by the predominant, political party. It was rather a melancholy employment for me to look over the collection of portraits of captains-general, and many vacant frames waiting for future occupants, which ornament the walls of the handsome apartments in which I dwelt at the palace. Since 1835 there have been five provisional and eleven formal appointments to the governor-generalship. Some of these only held their authority for a few months, being superseded by ministerial changes at Madrid. Of other high functionaries, I observe that there have been only two archbishops since 1830, while it is understood that the service of heads of departments is assured for ten years. To the public interests the mischiefs which are the results of so uncertain a hold of the supreme authority are incalculable. The frequent and sudden removals and nominations are, indeed, little consistent with the principles of monarchical and hereditary government, however accordant with the republican institutions of the Western world; and among the causes of the slow development of the immense resources of these beautiful islands, the fluctuation of the superintending rule is assuredly one of the most prominent.
The titles of the captain-general occupy a page, and embrace the usual attributes of government, with the exception of authority over the fleet, which is subject to the Ministry of Marine in Spain, and a somewhat limited jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters,