In front of the main entrance to the theatre stood two firemen, with hose in hand, ready to play on anything as soon as the orchestra stopped or a lamp fell, but otherwise nothing was particularly strange. The whole structure was oil-lighted with rickety chandeliers, which shed a dangerous though brilliant glare down upon a large audience of most exquisitely dressed Spanish people, mestizos and foreigners. Pretty little flower-girls wandered about trying to dispose of their wares to the rather over-dressed dudes of the upper half-caste 400, and their mammas often followed them around to assist in making sales. If it begins to rain in the afternoon, before the performance, everybody understands that the show is to be postponed, provided clearing conditions do not follow, and those who hold tickets are, as a rule, grateful not to be obliged to risk their horses and their starched clothes to the treatment of a possible downpour.
The Luneta is still a close rival to the opera, and each afternoon a dozen of us will generally meet there to refresh ourselves with the music and the passing show. Toward sundown, in the afternoons, of late, the big guns in the batteries up along the walls of Old Manila, hard by, have been used in long-distance sea target-practice, and it has been interesting, on the way from the office to the promenade, to walk along the beach and see the cannon-balls zip over the water and slump into it miles from their destination. The same target serves every afternoon, and seems perfectly safe from being hit. I wish I could say as much for the fleet of American ships that are lying off the breakwater, at the anchorage.
It seems peculiar to see the moon standing directly overhead o'nights, and casting a shadow of one's self that is without meaning. I never yet realized we had so little shape before, looking from above, as when I saw this new species of shadow the other night, and was really sorry that the angels never had a chance to look at us from a better point of view.
To be politic, and begin with the weather as usual, a cold snap lately has given everyone the "grippe." The mercury actually stood at 74° all one day, and couldn't be coaxed to go higher. Think of the suffering that such low temperature would occasion among a people who have no furnaces or open fireplaces. You may think I am facetious, but 74° in the Philippines means a great deal to people who are always accustomed to 95°.