RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
The Palace furniture, which must have been very fine in Spanish days, was of red narra, or Philippine mahogany, handsomely carved and displaying on every piece the Spanish coat-of-arms. But during the changing Spanish régimes some one with a bizarre taste had covered all the beautiful wood with a heavy coat of black paint. The effect was depressingly sombre to me.
The porcelain, however, or what was left of it, was unusually good. The Spanish coat-of-arms in beautiful colours was reproduced on each plate against a background of a dark blue canopy. I must say there were quite as many reminders of Spanish authority as I could wish for and I frequently felt that some noble Don might walk in at any moment and catch me living in his house.
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 far-away 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
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