A Visit to the Philippine Islands. Bowring John

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СКАЧАТЬ sides; that on the north 1,200 feet high, the lowest exceeding 900 feet. He says he believes the south sides to be of porphyry. At night, midway of the descent, he saw “thousands of millions” of jets, whose gas immediately inflamed on coming in contact with the atmosphere, and he heard many small detonations. The waters of the lake were impregnated with sulphuric acid, and 12 lbs. of the water, when distilled, left a mineral residuum weighing 2½ lbs.

      There are many remarkable caves in the Philippines. I translate a description of one in the province of Tondo. Two stony mountains unite, and on their skirt is the road towards a branch of the main river. On the left is a cave whose entrance fronts the south. The mouth is almost covered with tangling vegetation, but it is arched, and, being all of marble, is, particularly in the sunshine, strikingly beautiful. You enter by a high, smooth, natural wall like the façade of a church, over which is a cavity roofed as a chapel. The interior pathway is flat, about four yards in breadth and six in height, though in some places it is much loftier. The roof presents a multitude of graceful figures, resembling pendent pineapples, which are formed by the constant filtration and petrifaction of the water. Some are nearly two yards in length, and seem sculptured into regular grooves; others are in the shape of pyramids whose bases are against the roof. Arches, which may be passed both from above and below, are among these wonderful works. Not far from the door is a natural staircase, mounting which you enter a large chamber, on whose right hand is another road, which, being followed, conducts to a second staircase, which opens on the principal communication. Suspended on one wing are immense numbers of bats, who occupy the recesses of the ceiling. Though there is mud in some of the paths, the ground is generally of stone, which, on being struck, gives a hollow sound as if there were passages below. Penetrating the cave for above 200 yards, a loud noise is perceived coming from a clear bright river, by the side of which the cave is continued under a semicircular roof. The great cave has many smaller vaults and projections of a grotesque and Gothic character. The course of the stream is from the north-west to the south-east.

      The destructive ravages and changes produced by earthquakes are nowhere more remarkable than in the Philippines. They have overturned mountains, they have filled up valleys, they have desolated extensive plains; they have opened passages for the sea into the interior, and from the lakes into the sea There are many traditional stories of these territorial revolutions, but of late disasters the records are trustworthy. That of 1796 was sadly calamitous. In 1824 many churches in Manila were destroyed, together with the principal bridge, the barracks, great numbers of private houses; and a chasm opened of nearly four miles in length. The inhabitants all fled into the fields, and the six vessels in the port were wrecked. The number of victims was never ascertained. In 1828, during another earthquake, the vibration of the lamps was found to describe an arch of four and a half feet; the huge corner-stones of the principal gate of the city were displaced; the great bells were set ringing. It lasted between two and three minutes, rent the walls of several churches and other buildings, but was not accompanied by subterranean noises, as is usually the case.

      There are too few occasions on which scientific observations have been made on the subject of earthquakes, which take men by surprise and ordinarily create so much alarm as to prevent accurate and authentic details. A gentleman who had established various pendulums in Manila for the purpose of measuring the inclination of the angles and the course of the agitation, states that, in the slight earthquakes of 20th and 23rd June, 1857, the thermometer being at 88°, the direction of the first shock was from N.N.E. to S.S.E., the duration 14 seconds, and the oscillation of the pendulum 1½ degrees; time, 2h. 0m. 40s. P.M.: 20th June. Second shock from N.E. to S.W.; duration, 26 seconds; oscillation of pendulum, 2 degrees; time, 2h. 47m. P.M.: 20th June. Third shock S.W. to N.; duration of the shock, 15 seconds; greatest oscillation, 6 degrees, but slight movements continued for a minute, and the oscillations were observed from 2 degrees to three-quarters of a degree; time, 5 P.M.: 23rd June.

      Earthquakes have produced great changes in the geography of the Philippines. In that of 1627, one of the most elevated of the mountains of Cagayan disappeared. In 1675, in the island of Mindanao, a passage was opened to the sea, and a vast plain was emerged. Successive earthquakes have brought upon Luzon a series of calamities.

      Endemic diseases are rare in the Philippines. Intermittent fevers and chronic dysentery are among the most dangerous disorders. There have been two invasions of cholera, in 1820 and 1842. Elephantiasis, leprosy, and St. Anthony’s fire are the scourges of the Indians; and the wilder races of the interior suffer from a variety of cutaneous complaints. The biri biri is common and fatal. Venereal diseases are widely spread, but easily cured. Among the Indians, vegetables alone are used as medicaments. Chinese quack-doctors have much influence. In the removal of some of the tropical pests, no European can compete with the natives. They cure the itch with great dexterity, and are said to have remedies for pulmonary phthisis. Their plasters are very efficacious in external applications. They never employ the lancet or the leech. Surgical science is, of course, unknown.

      There have been generally in the Philippines a few successful medical practitioners from Europe. Foreigners are allowed to exercise their profession, having previously obtained the authority of the Spanish Government; but the natives seldom look beyond their own simple mode of dealing with the common diseases of the islands; and in those parts where there is little or no Spanish population, no one is to be found to whom a surgical operation could safely be intrusted. The vegetable world furnishes a great variety of medicinal herbs, which the instinct or the experience of the Indian has turned to account, and which are, probably, on the whole, as efficacious as the more potent mineral remedies employed by European science. Quinine, opium, mercury, and arsenic, are the wonder-workers in the field of Oriental disease, and their early and proper application generally arrests the progress of malady.

      I found practising in the island of Panay Dr. Lefevre, whom I had known in Egypt more than twenty years before, and who was one of the courageous men who boldly grappled with the current superstitions respecting the contagious character of the Oriental plague, and the delusions as to the efficacy of quarantine regulations, so really useless, costly, and vexatious. He placed in my hand some observations which he had published at Bombay in 1840, where vessels from the Red Sea were subjected to sanatory visitations. He asserts that plague is only generated at particular seasons, in certain definable conditions of the atmosphere, and when miasma is created by the decomposition of decaying matter; that endemic plague is unknown in countries where proper attention is paid to hygienic precautions; that severe cold or intense heat equally arrests the progress of the plague; that the epoch of its ravages is always one when damp and exposed animal and vegetable substances emit the greatest amount of noxious gases; and that plague has never been known to originate or to spread where the air is in a state of purity. I was glad to rediscuss the matter with him after so long an added experience, and to find he had been more and more confirmed in his former conclusions by prolonged residence in the tropics, where endemic and epidemic diseases partake of the pestilential character, though they do not assume the forms, of the Levant plague. Dr. Lefevre affirms that quarantines have done nothing whatever to lessen the dangers or check the ravages of the plague, but much to encourage its propagation. He complains of the deafness and incredulity of those whom the examination of a “thousand indisputable facts” will not convince, and he thus concludes: – “If I had not with peculiar attention studied the plague in the midst of an epidemic, and without any more precautions than if the danger was nothing – if, subsequent to the terrible visitation of 1835 in Egypt, I had not been frequently a witness to the scourge – if, finally, since that epoch I had not given myself up, with all the warmth of passion, to the constant study of this malady, to the perusal of histories of the plagues which have ravaged the world, and to the examination of all sorts of objections – I should not have dared to emit such a decided opinion – an opinion respecting the soundness of which I do not entertain the slightest doubt.”

      One cannot but be struck, in reference to the geographical character of these islands, with the awful serenity and magnificent beauty of their primeval forests, so seldom penetrated, and in their recesses hitherto inaccessible to the foot of man. There is nothing to disturb their silence but the hum of insects, the song of birds, the noises of wild animals, the rustling of the leaves, or the fall of decayed СКАЧАТЬ