But, it didn’t take us long to get settled down in our new domain, and I soon ceased to regret the sea breezes and the salt baths of Malate. Malacañan enjoyed a clean sweep of air from the river and our open verandah was in many ways an improvement on the gaudily glazed one that we had gradually become accustomed to in the other house. The Malacañan verandah, being much of it roofless, was of little use in the daytime, but on clear evenings it was the most delightful spot I have ever seen. I began to love the tropical nights and to feel that I never before had known what nights can be like. The stars were so large and hung so low that they looked almost like raised silver figures on a dark blue field. And when the moon shone⁠—but why try to write about tropical moonlight? The wonderful sunsets and the moonlit nights have tied more American hearts to Manila and the Philippines than all the country’s other charms combined. And they are both indescribable.

When I lived in Malate and could look out across the open, white-capped bay to faraway Mt. Meriveles, I sometimes forgot I was in the Tropics. But at Malacañan when we gazed down on the low-lapping Pásig, glinting in the starlight, and across the rice fields on the other side where swaying lanterns twinkled from beneath the outline of thatched roofs, there was little to remind us that we were Americans or that we had ever felt any air less soothing than the soft breeze which rustled the bamboo plumes along the bank.

Our household was in every way much enlarged on our change of residence and circumstances. There were eight or nine muchachos in the house, two extra Chinese helpers in the kitchen, and the staff of coachmen and gardeners increased on even a larger scale. Our stable of ponies multiplied to sixteen, and even then there were too few for our various needs. It is difficult for the dweller in the Temperate Zone to realise how small an amount of work the native of the Tropics, either man or beast, is capable of.