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.