Last Days in the Philippines
When Mr. Taft reached Manila he found the city en fête and in a state of intense excitement which had prevailed for two days during which the people had expected every hour to hear the great siren on the cold storage plant announce that the little Alava , the government coastguard boat which had been sent to Singapore to get him, had been sighted off Corregidor.
When the announcement finally came, everything in the harbour that could manage to do so steamed down the Bay to meet him, and when the launch to which he had transferred from the Alava came up to the mouth of the Pásig River and under the walls of old Fort Santiago, seventeen guns boomed out a Governor’s salute, while whistles and bells and sirens all over the bay and river and city filled the air with a deafening din.