412 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



parents as an ornament or exhibition of wealth, not in the least 

 from any sense of decency. All dress has no doubt been primi- 

 tively ornamental in origin, and has subsequently come to sub- 

 serve the functions of increase of warmth or gratification of 

 sense of decency. 



A savage begins by painting or tatooing himself for ornament. 

 Then he adopts a moveable appendage, which he hangs on his 

 body, and on which he puts the ornamentation which he 

 formerly marked more or less indelibly on his skin. In this 

 way he is able to gratify his taste for change. No doubt the 

 stripes and patterns on savage dress represent often what were 

 once patterns tatooed on the body. 



It is a curious fact that the transverse breast stripes and 

 lateral longitudinal leg stripes worn in some European dresses of 

 ceremony, though quite different in the history of their origin, 

 being, I believe, hypertrophied button-holes and selvages, are 

 exactly similarly disposed to those which the Australian Black 

 paints on his body when he prepares for a Corroboree. 



I saw many of the native children in the Philippines playing 

 in the streets, wearing gaudy shirts, which did not reach lower 

 down than six inches or so below their armpits, and practically 

 were nothing more than broad red or blue necklaces. 



The Manila natives indulge in a most extraordinary luxury, 

 consisting of ducks' eggs which are brooded until the young are 

 just beginning to be fledged, and are then boiled. It is a 

 sickening sight to see these embryo ducklings swallowed at the 

 roadside stalls, which are common at every street corner, piled 

 high with half-hatched eggs and taking the place of our oyster 

 stalls. 



The great business of life in the Philippines, of the men of 

 all the various tame Malay races, the half-castes, and Chinese, is 

 certainly the sport of cock-fighting. The cock-pits in every town 

 are a source of revenue to the Spanish Government. Everyone 

 entering them pays sixpence, and the right of collecting tolls is 

 sub-let by auction, usually to speculative Chinese. Sundays 

 and the numerous Eestas and Saints'-days are devoted to cock- 

 fighting. 



The galleries are crowded, and the excitement is immense. 



