The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes | Page 4

bamboos and areca palms, was dried up by the sun; while in the far distance the dull uniformity of the landscape was broken by the blue hills of San Mateo. In the rainy season the numerous unwalled canals overflow their banks and form a series of connected lakes, which soon, however, change into luxuriant and verdant rice-fields.
[City's appearance mediaeval European.] Manila is situated on both sides of the river Pasig. The town itself, surrounded with walls and ramparts, with its low tiled roofs and a few towers, had, in 1859, the appearance of some ancient European fortress. Four years later the greater part of it was destroyed by an earthquake.
[The 1863 earthquake.] On June 3, 1863, at thirty-one minutes past seven in the evening, after a day of tremendous heat while all Manila was busy in its preparations for the festival of Corpus Christi, the ground suddenly rocked to and fro with great violence. The firmest buildings reeled visibly, walls crumbled, and beams snapped in two. The dreadful shock lasted half a minute; but this little interval was enough to change the whole town into a mass of ruins, and to bury alive hundreds of its inhabitants. [11] A letter of the governor-general, which I have seen, states that the cathedral, the goverment-house, the barracks, and all the public buildings of Manila were entirely destroyed, and that the few private houses which remained standing threatened to fall in. Later accounts speak of four hundred killed and two thousand injured, and estimate the loss at eight millions of dollars. Forty-six public and five hundred and seventy private buildings were thrown down; twenty-eight public and five hundred twenty-eight private buildings were nearly destroyed, and all the houses left standing were more or less injured.
[Damage in Cavite.] At the same time, an earthquake of forty seconds' duration occurred at Cavite, the naval port of the Philippines, and destroyed many buildings.
[Destruction in walled city.] Three years afterwards, the Duc d'Alencon (Lucon et Mindanao; Paris, 1870, S. 38) found the traces of the catastrophe everywhere. Three sides of the principal square of the city, in which formerly stood the government, or governor's, palace, the cathedral, and the townhouse, were lying like dust heaps overgrown with weeds. All the large public edifices were "temporarily" constructed of wood; but nobody then seemed to plan anything permanent.
[Former heavy shocks.] Manila is very often subject to earthquakes; the most fatal occurred in 1601; in 1610 (Nov. 30); in 1645 (Nov. 30); in 1658 (Aug. 20); in 1675; in 1699; in 1796; in 1824; in 1852; and in 1863. In 1645, six hundred [12], or, according to some accounts, three thousand [13] persons perished, buried under the ruins of their houses. Their monastery, the church of the Augustinians, and that of the Jesuits, were the only public buildings which remained standing.
[Frequent minor disturbances.] Smaller shocks, which suddenly set the hanging lamps swinging, occur very often and generally remain unnoticed. The houses are on this account generally of but one story, and the loose volcanic soil on which they are built may lessen the violence of the shock. Their heavy tiled roofs, however, appear very inappropriate under such circumstances. Earthquakes are also of frequent occurrence in the provinces, but they, as a rule, cause so little damage, owing to the houses being constructed of timber or bamboo, that they are never mentioned.
[Scanty data available.] M. Alexis Perrey (Mém. de l'Académie de Dijon, 1860) has published a list, collected with much diligence from every accessible source, of the earthquakes which have visited the Philippines, and particularly Manila. But the accounts, even of the most important, are very scanty, and the dates of their occurrence very unreliable. Of the minor shocks, only a few are mentioned, those which were noticed by scientific observers accidentally present at the time.
[The 1610 catastrophe.] Aduarte (I. 141) mentions a tremendous earthquake which occurred in 1610. I briefly quote his version of the details of the catastrophe, as I find them mentioned nowhere else.
"Towards the close of November, 1610, on St. Andrew's Day, a more violent earthquake than had ever before been witnessed, visited these Islands; its effects extended from Manila to the extreme end of the province of Nueva Segovia (the whole northern part of Luzon), a distance of 200 leagues. It caused great destruction over the entire area; in the province of Ilocos it buried palm trees, so that only the tops of their branches were left above the earth's surface; through the power of the earthquake mountains were pushed against each other; it threw down many buildings, and killed a great number of people. Its fury was greatest in Nueva Segovia, where it opened the mountains, and created new lake basins. The earth threw up immense fountains of sand, and vibrated so terribly that the