Maria and I soon adopted the universal habit of driving down to the Escolta in the early morning to do such shopping as was necessary. We found a variety of interesting shops, but with very little in them to meet the ordinary demands of an American woman. There were delightful Indian bazaars and Chinese tiendas where all manner of gaudy fabrics and strange oriental articles were on sale, while the Spanish shops upon which everybody had to depend in those days, and which had such grandly European names as Paris-Manila and La Puerta del Sol, catered largely to the Filipino taste for bright colours.