30 THE PLANT WORLD 



phyllum, and an ilangilang tree grew near the door. In the afternoon 

 visited the cock-pit with several officers from the ships, but soon left. 

 Cock-fighting is the only amusement of the natives ; it seems to me to 

 be a cruel and degrading sport. The most eager better at the fight was 

 a Filipino named Angeles, an excellent cabinet-maker, beneath whose 

 house there are always a dozen cocks tethered to stakes, crowing and 

 trying to get at one another. 



Leaving the cock-pit, Ingate and I walked to the village of the Caro- 

 line Islanders, who have been living for a number of years on this island. 

 A number of these people sought refuge here in 1849, the islands on 

 which they lived having been swept by great waves caused by earth- 

 quake. These people do not cultivate the soil. They live on fish, shell- 

 fish, wild yams, bread-fruit, bananas, plantains, and other fruits, and occa- 

 sionally eat pork and chickens. None of those living on this island are 

 Catholics. They speak their own language, retain their primitive customs, 

 and have not intermarried with the people of Guam. Their houses are 

 not raised from the ground ; they are the poorest habitations I have 

 ever seen with the exception of those of the Tierra. del Fuegians ; they 

 have no floor, not even a pavement of gravel, but sleep on the ground. 

 Yet there seems to be little sickness among them, and most of them have 

 splendid physiques. Both the men and women performed a dance for 

 us ; going through certain motions and giving utterance to a sort of 

 monotonous chant, slapping their bodies, and winding up with bursts of 

 laughter. Some of the women had painted their faces with turmeric and 

 annatto (^Bixa orelland), plants and trees of which we saw growing near 

 their village. They hesitated to give us coconuts to drink, because, as 

 we afterwards learned, the coconut trees did not belong to them. Saw a 

 pit in which fermenting bread-fruit was stored, and saw them make the 

 ill-smelling stuff into cakes and bake them. They had plenty of chickens 

 and pigs, the latter of which were tethered to stakes. 



The Carolinos have the lobes of their ears perforated and the holes so 

 distended that they hang like loops. Suspended from the loops they 

 frequently wear heavy skeins of beads and discs of tortoise-shell, and 

 sometimes they utilize them for carrying their cigars or other articles. 

 The men wear only a sort of V-shaped bandage, passing around the waist 

 and between the legs. The women wear a pliable mat reaching from the 

 waist to the knees, held in place by a broad belt, which is often orna- 

 mented with artistic rectangular designs, and most of them wear beads 

 of shell and coconut shell about the neck. Some of them wear their 

 hair long and coiled at the back of the head, others wear it loose and 

 bushy. The men wear their hair short. It is usually curly but not 

 woolly. Sometimes it is straight and glossy. They anoint it with coco- 

 nut oil, and often wear a scarlet hibiscus or some other bright-colored 



