398 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



built in a group. The main house in each case is usually sup- 

 ported on three rows of piles ; but various additions and out- 

 buildings are supported on irregularly added piles. There is 

 always a platform before the entrance, and sometimes one for 

 canoes behind. It was odd to see a horse left tied by his Moro 

 owner to the door-post, standing up to his belly in the water, 

 through the rising of the tide. 



The houses of the other native inhabitants throughout the 

 towns of Zamboanga and Ilo Ilo are mostly of closely similar pat- 

 tern. They stand in like manner on piles, though on dry ground, 

 and have a platform usually at one end. This is reached by a 

 short steep ladder, with widely separated and irregular rounds, 

 up which the house-dogs, from practice, run as nimbly and 

 easily as the children and their mothers. The platforms are 

 now used for drying clothes upon, and such purposes. 



The first process of modification of the pile-dwelling gone 

 on shore, is the putting up of a fence of palm leaves in the 

 lower part of the spaces between the piles supporting the house. 

 A pen is thus formed in which pigs or other animals are kept. 

 Then well-made mats or reed walls are put up, entirely enclosing 

 the space between the piles, with a regular door for entrance, 

 and the place becomes a convenient store-house. As a further 

 stage, boards are nailed between the piles, and a secure chamber 

 is obtained. 



A further step again, is the adoption of stone pillars for the 

 wooden piles. Wooden houses thus supported on stone repre- 

 sentatives of piles, may often be seen with an iron railing, pass- 

 ing from pillar to pillar beneath, and in this way forming an 

 enclosure. From stone pillars the step is easy to arches, sup- 

 ported on pillars of masonry as a substructure, and some houses 

 of business, although their upper structures have ceased to be 

 wooden, and are built of more solid materials, are still to be 

 seen amongst the rest, supported thus on the descendants of piles. 



In the last stage the arches are discarded, and continuous 

 walls of masonry substituted as a support to the wooden super- 



as the Moros, with descriptions and figures of their houses, see Wilkes' 

 " Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition," Vol. V, Ch. IX. New 

 York, 1856. 



