Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE WHITE MAN'S LIFE. It happened that my first home in Manila was a temporary one, shared with a hundred others, at the nipa barracks at the Exposition grounds. Who of all those that were similarly situated will forget the long row of mimosa-trees that made a leafy archway over the cool street; or the fruit merchants squatting beside the bunches of bananas and the tiny oranges spread out upon the ground ? There was the pink pavilion where that enterprising Chinaman, Ah Gong, conducted his indifferent restaurant. After these many days I can still hear the clatter of the plates, the jingle of the knives and forks, placed on the tables by the Chinese waiters. There was the crowd on the veranda waiting for the second table, opening their correspondence as they waited. And what an indescribable sensation was imparted on receiving the first letter in a foreign land! The long, cool barrack-rooms were swept by the fresh breezes. Here, in the bungalow, the l army cots had been arranged in rows and covered by mosquito-bars suspended from the wires stretched overhead. When tucked inside of the mosquito-bar, one felt as though he were a part of a menagerie. "Muchacho" was the first new word you learned. It was advisable to call for a muchacho often, even though you did not need his services, in order to exploit your own experience and your superiority. And here you were first cheated by the wily Chinese peddlers—although you had cut them down to half their price—when they unrolled their packs of crepe pajamas, net- ' work underwear, and other merchandise. And all one Sunday afternoon you listened to a lecture from the President of the Manila Board of Health, who told of the diseases that the flesh was heir to in the Philippines, and cheerfully assured you that within a...