ABSTRACT
A fortnight after my return from Japan saw me off for Manilla vid Amoy on a dark and drizzly evening, by the good steamer, Esmeraida,fighting her way through the tumbling seas in the teeth of a strong north-easter. Amoya great centre for the coolie traffic-is just like other large Chinese towns, laid out in the usual narrow and abominably filthy streets. An interesting local industry was seen in elaborate carvings in steatite or soap-stone. Of these I obtained some fine specimens at a moderate price. Down to Manilla we had rather a rough passage, which Captain Taylor, our genial skipper, managed none the less to enliven, and on the fifth night out I was glad enough to spy the lights of Manilla twinkling ahead through the gloom as we worked our way cautiously through the wide and shallow bay leading up to the capital of the island of Luzon. The population here, like the hill-tribes of the neighbouring island of Formosa, form the northernmost wave of migration from Indonesia and the Malay Archipelago, the teeming mother hive of the brown race, which occupies places so far apart as Madagascar and the myriad isles of the wide Pacific area.
