contain 15,000 inhabitants. It is wide, and covered with a beautiful turf wheels and animals of burden being so little used as to make nothing like a traveled carriage way through it—while the picturesque habitations of the villagers, overhung with trees, line it on either side, in separate inclosures filled with the mango, bamboo, arica nut, &c. &c.

Four or five hours passed rapidly away in various observations of the scenes around us; and, after enjoying an extensive and beautiful view from the tower of the church, of the whole surrounding country, including the lake, three or four miles distant, lying like an inland sea in the bosom of its shores and mountains; taking a stroll in the garden of the padre of the town; visiting two or three native families-one of which was entertaining, with a feast accompanied by music and dancing, all the females forming the procession of the morning—and sharing in a profuse dinner of fish, fowl, meats, various dessert, and fruit, provided by our citizen friend, we prepared to extend our excursion to the lake.

For this purpose our bankas were again ordered. The scenery on the way did not differ materially from that which we had passed; the banks being low and level, and richly clothed, till we approached the lake, where the paddy grounds extended to the water's edge. Two large passage and freight boats were at anchor near the entrance, waiting for passengers and cargo, for the head of the lake, forty miles distant. We boarded one of them for a few moments, but found nothing in the view they commanded to detain us-that of the tower of the church having

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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

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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

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seen;

CHAPEL OF THE PANTHEON.

So,

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 so much 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