Two others were silently preparing a bamboo bier, showing no signs of anger or sorrow or impatience, for such is the character attributed to the natives: today it is you, tomorrow it will be I, they say to themselves.

The people moved rapidly about without giving heed, women came up and after a look of curiosity continued unconcerned on their way--it was such a common sight that their hearts had become callous.

Carriages passed, flashing back from their varnished sides the rays of the sun that burned in a cloudless sky.

Only he, a child of eleven years and fresh from the country, was moved, and to him alone it brought bad dreams on the following night.
There no longer existed the useful and honored _Puente de Barcas_, the good Filipino pontoon bridge that had done its best to be of service in spite of its natural imperfections and its rising and falling at the caprice of the Pasig, which had more than once abused it and finally destroyed it.

The almond trees in the plaza of San Gabriel [46] had not grown; they were still in the same feeble and stunted condition.