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. The
Escolta appeared less beautiful in spite of the fact that an imposing
building with caryatids carved on its front now occupied the place of
the old row of shops. The new Bridge of Spain caught his attention,
while the houses on the right bank of the river among the clumps of
bamboo and trees where the Escolta ends and the Isla de Romero begins,
reminded him of the cool mornings when he used to pass there in a
boat on his way to the baths of Uli-Uli.
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