noons
It can hardly be called a town , even for the Philippines , but is rather a market-village , set as it is at the outlet of the rich country of northern Batangas on the open waterway to Manila and the outside world . Around it flourish the green rice-fields , while Mount Makiling towers majestically near in her moods of cloud and sunshine , overlooking the picturesque curve of the shore and the rippling waters of the lake . Shadowy to the eastward gleam the purple crests of Banahao and Cristobal , and but a few miles to the southwestward dim-thundering , seething , earth-rocking Taal mutters and moans of the world 's birth-throes . It is the center of a region rich in native lore and legend , as it sleeps through the dusty noons when the cacao leaves droop with the heat and dreams through the silvery nights , waking twice or thrice a week to the endless babble and ceaseless chatter of an Oriental market where the noisy throngs make of their trading as much a matter of pleasure and recreation as of business . Directly opposite this market-place , in a house facing the village church , there was born in 1861 into the already large family of one of the more prosperous tenants on the Dominican estate a boy who was to combine in his person the finest traits of the Oriental character with the best that Spanish and European culture could add , on whom would fall the burden of his people 's woes to lead him over the _ via dolorosa _ of struggle and sacrifice , ending in his own destruction amid the crumbling ruins of the system whose disintegration he himself had done so much to compass . José Rizal-Mercado y Alonso , as his name emerges from the confusion of Filipino nomenclature , was of Malay extraction , with some distant strains of Spanish and Chinese blood . His genealogy reveals several persons remarkable for intellect and independence of character , notably a Philippine Eloise and Abelard , who , drawn together by their common enthusiasm for study and learning , became his maternal grandparents , as well as a great-uncle who was a traveler and student and who directed the boy 's early studies .