316

RETURN TO MANILLA.

given a better and more impressive idea of the extent and beauty of this sheet of water.

On our return we stopt to take leave of our hospitable acquaintance at Pasig; and found the additional refreshment of a cup of rich chocolate prepared for us. It was near four o'clock when we left. Our descent was rapid. Instead of landing at Santa Anna, we kept our boats; and were greatly gratified with the richness and beauty of the river scenery between it and the city, blended with the architectural display in numerous country seats belonging to the principal Spanish residents.

LETTER IV.

THE CAMPO SANTO, OR PANTHEON, THE PUBLIC BURIAL

PLACE.

Manilla, February 8th, 1830.

AFTER a visit in the morning, with Mr. Hubbell, to the new custom-house, a noble and extensive structure of Grecian architecture in light free stone, immediately on the river, I devoted the day to further observations on the city and its environs, in company with my friend Mr. Hoyt.

Our first drive was a circuit of five or six miles to the north, a direction in which I had not previously been. The scenery is much the same as in other

SANTA MAGDALENA.

317

quarters, with the addition of a higher degree of cultivation, especially of the horticultural kind; most of the vegetables with which the market is supplied being grown in that vicinity. We also visited the parish of Santa Magdalena in the east; and from a rising ground three miles from the bay, enjoyed an extensive and beautiful prospect of the surrounding country, including the silver windings of the Pasig through the rich lowlands between Santa Anna and Manilla, and the towers and domes of the city and its suburb beyond.

After a handsome dinner with a party of midshipmen, at the only hotel in the place, we again joined our carriage; and in company with Dr. Wessels and midshipmen Melville and Anthony, took a circuit along the bay in the direction of Cavité, a kind of outer port to Manilla, at a distance from it of some twelve or fourteen miles, through villages and embowered lanes of unrivalled beauty. On our return we stopped at the pantheon, or burial place, of the city, on the road towards Santa Anna. Its location. is beautiful, with a gateway a little retired from the road on the eastern side. The exterior presents nothing but a heavy wall of brown stone, eight or ten feet in height, forming a circle a hundred yards or more in diameter, with a small low chapel, surmounted by a dome at the farther side opposite the gate.

Within, the scene is striking, and with its associations pleasingly affecting; consisting of a tasteful and neatly kept shrubbery and flower garden, filled with bloom and beauty, and screening, in a degree, the VOL. II. 28

318

CHAPEL OF THE PANTHEON.

niches in the wall for the deposit of the dead, for a longer or shorter period before being committed to a common receptacle. The chapel is the most simple and chaste Catholic structure of the kind I have ever seen; so much so, that I was charmed with the good taste exhibited in it. Every thing within, except a tesselated pavement of white and blue, is of the purest white, with delicate mouldings and ornaments in gilding. The altar is finished and furnished with a crucifix, &c., in the same style, and, on either side, is a sarcophagus eight or ten feet in length and seven high, in keeping with the whole; the one, surmounted by a mitre and crozier, designating its appropriation to the bodies of the archbishops of the metropolis; and the other telling, by a sword and chapeau, that it is designed for a like service, to such of the governors general as may die invested with the chief civil and military office of the colony.

After having thus examined and admired the chapel, and having each received a bouquet of flowers from some servants in attendance, we were about turning from the door to continue our ride, with feelings and impressions of an agreeable, though not inappropriate character, when three or four dirty looking and shabbily dressed natives came up to the steps in a careless and light manner; one of them bearing on his arms a large shallow tray, on which was lying what we supposed a gayly dressed waxen image; but which, to our surprise, as he placed it on the pavement, and began to arrange wax tapers on either side, was perceived to be the corpse of an infant, perhaps a year, old, upon whose emaciated

DEPOSITORY OF BONES.

319

features, and lifeless, though open eyes, there still lingered an expression of the pain, the sorrow, and the melancholy of death! The silk drapery, gold lace, gay flowers, and tinselled ornaments with which it was loaded, seemed sadly inconsistent and ill placed, beside the evidence presented by it of the frailty of life, and of the agonies of dissolution.

On making an inquiry, as to the time and manner of the interment, a gateway at one side of the chapel was pointed out, and we invited to view the burial place of infants. It is a small building of a circular form, over the portal of which was the inscription, "angelio," reviving again, in a remembrance of the declaration of "such is the kingdom of heaven,” the associations of a pleasing kind which we had felt before the sight of the corpse-but only to have them dissipated a second time by that which was much more horrible and disgusting; for, on following our conductor along a kind of terrace round this mausoleum, the word "Osario," in large letters on the wall, immediately behind it, met our eyes; and, on looking into an area below, to which there was a descent on either side by a flight of stone steps, we beheld a most shocking mass of mouldering bones and flesh; of ghastly skulls, with mildewed locks and grisley hair still attached to them; while hands and feet, kept in form by the adhesion of dried and discolored tendons, were scattered among the bones of various other parts of the body.

It is thus, after having lain in the niches the appointed time, the bodies are withdrawn from their repose, cast out from their coffins, and left, an indiscriminate

mass of corruption, to enrich, by the decay of time, the bosom of their mother earth! This sight destroyed all the interest of our first impressions; and we hurried from it, past the little corpse still lying unregarded in the midst of the avenue, to our carriages.

It is but a mile from the Campo Santo, or Pantheon, to the Calzada, which we reached in a few minutes; and were at once in the midst of a scene in the widest contrast to that we had left. All the rank and fashion of the city were rolling along in various equipages, in all the gayety of evening dress, in a tropical climate; while two thousand troops were performing the evolutions of the usual drill, to the rich and soul-stirring strains of full military bands, stationed at different points of the parade. We took our place in the line of carriages, coursing with them the beautiful drive, till the military display was over, and then returned to the city in the customary slow procession of the troops and bands.